Recently, I tied the knot with a beautiful, geeky woman.

So, the question arises: how should we manage our financial lives together? Do we merge our accounts or do we keep them separate? Here are the reasons we see for each.

Reasons to Merge Finances:

• Simpler record keeping
• Forces us to make decisions together

Reasons to Keep Separate:

• Maintain feelings of independence
• If there is a divorce, separation is cleaner

There is also the question of how to handle the joint expenses, like bills. When the rent comes in, how do we divide it? Each pay half the rent? Do we trade bills? Do we each pay proportional to our income? Do we just throw all the income and expenses into the same pot and not worry about it?

So what do you, dear readers, do with your partners? Joint, separate, or some mixture of the two?

Please leave a comment and give us newlyweds your advice.

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Header photograph by jpockele