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 Dear
Dr. Don,
I'm getting married in September 2007 and I wanted
to know how much money should one put in a joint
account, or even if a married couple should have
a joint account?
We both get paychecks that are direct
deposited. What's the necessary financial advice
for newly married couples so that in the future,
if the couple parts ways, it will be clean financial
chart for both instead of just one person ending
up paying up for the other person's debts.
Thanks, and I really will appreciate a quick reply.
-- Tina Triage
 Dear
Tina,
Best wishes to you and your fiancé on the
eve of your wedding. You're right to try and put
together a financial game plan for handling your
finances as a couple, but I'll tell you that there's
not just one right way to do it. That's why they
call it personal finance.
Don't confuse your savings and checking
account relationships with your credit accounts.
Avoiding bounced checks and insufficient funds
is important, but won't have a big impact on your
ability to get credit. That comes from managing
your credit and paying as agreed on credit accounts.
You'll each have your own credit report, but joint
credit obligations show up on both credit reports.
That's where things tend to go bad if a couple
splits up.
Having three bank accounts -- a
joint account for household bills and two individual
accounts for personal expenditures -- makes more
sense than allocating bills between two individual
accounts. An important consideration in this allocation
is in how you will fund investment and retirement
accounts.
It's often possible to split your paycheck between multiple accounts. If you have that ability with your paychecks it's a simple matter to fund both the household account and your individual accounts every payday.
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