Do you keep separate accounts from your spouse? Would you for all of you single people?
My hubby's credit was horrible when we met, so I added him to the checking, but did not give him a checkbook. I never added him to my savings account. Now we have a joint checking account and a business account. He stays out of the joint account and I stay out of the business account. However, we are not hiding anything. We comingle money and the real reason for the business account is for tax purposes. He gives me money to pay the bills and if he has money leftover in the business account, I don't care what he does with it (boat money).
It was hard to share, but I would never want to split the bills or hide money. I was just afraid for my credit!
Ours is joint. We had them seperate for a while, but basically my hubby didn't want to be responsible for paying any bills, so it was just easier to put them together.
Most everything is joint with us. The only thing that is not is our IRA's and they can't be joint.
We have a exceptionally high credit score. My wife is a consumer loan officer in a bank and says our credit score is as high as she's ever seen. It's not that we are rich or anything like that at all . . . we've just been really careful to not miss payments or even be late.
I think part of the reason is that I am very undisciplined with money. When I need something farily large, I go get a loan for it. If I use money from our savings account, it is really hard for me to be disciplined enough to make the payments back to myself. So, I get a loan and don't have a choice but to pay the bank back. The little bit of interest is worth it to me. I think the $1,500, $2,500 loans I've gotten and paid back on time over the last few years has really helped our credit rating.
I think driving old vehicles and no auto loans helps too. Our newest vehicle is a '94 Astro van.
It looks to me like showing a good payment history seems to be more important to your credit score than having lots of money in the bank.
Oh, I forgot. We also have a rule that anything over $100 that isn't a life "need" is discussed in advance. That's not so much to "keep tabs" as it is to make sure we are both not spending a bunch of money at the same time and causing a shortage.
I would LOVE to have new cars, but I just can't justify it. We bought a new Mazda pickup in '90 and our Mazda car in '93. We still have, and drive, both of them. It's really hard when driving by the lot of shiny new Chevy trucks to not want one, but I don't think we could afford the payments even if we wanted to.
That money/auto/image thing is funny. I know our last pastor at church had a problem that. His issue was that driving and old beater made it look like the church was not paying him very well and some people in the church didn't like that image that it projected. If he'd get a new car, then it would look like he was getting paid too much and over indulging on life's luxuries which doesn't look good for a pastor either.
There's a guy here in town that has a heating and air business. He has a few employees working for him and he works very hard . . . he also charges A LOT for his services. He is driving a brand new Ford pickup with his company name all over it. Also, for about the last month, his wife is being seen driving a bright red Hummer H3 around town. Something like that really stands out and becomes the talk of a small town. The coffee shop rumblings are starting over their Hummer. People are starting to make comments like they will quit using him now because he is obviously making a lot of money off the community and charging more than a "fair price" for his service.
Meanwhile, my wife (the banker) keeps reminding me . . . just because someone "looks" like they are doing great does not mean that they are. Of course she never gives me names, but she keeps telling me that many people around here are only one missed paycheck away from financial collapse but they look (and act) like they are on top of the world.
CP, our rule is not really about "permission" . . . it's just that with joint accounts, knowing what the other is doing helps to keep us out of financial stress.
Web: what I really mean to say is that my wife does not communicate to me when she spends money--she will rarely do it from the checking account, but I will get a credit card statement with a new sewing machine on it, or art work, or, or, or. Her philisophy is if there is a 10,000 dollar credit limit, you must use it.
