[BWillie]

Originally Posted by loochy

My marriage has been quite smooth, largely in part to this kind of approach. We do file taxes jointly, but in general we use our own pools of money. Luckily, we both earn close to the same so this is easy to pull off....but each of us contributes max to our respective 401k employer match. I use my employer's insurance for me, she uses hers for her and our son (it ends up much cheaper that way). We each contribute half of our take home earnings to a joint account, then the other half we get to keep and do as we see fit. This provides more than enough to pay bills, house payment, kid stuff, family travel, etc. while allowing us to make our own frivolous purchases without bitching and whining about what we are doing with our money. We both bought our own cars on our own loans. I have a penchant for expensive-ish cars, fishing trips, and working out. She likes buying clothes and traveling all the damn time, either with friends, her sister, or spur of the moment weekend trips with our son. It works very well for us.

I think this is the ideal way to do it. Have a joint account for only some stuff. Then have separate expenses for each other.