Merging Finances After Marriage

Merging finances doesn't have to be complicated or controversial. We recommend that you view the 3 ways to marriage your finances as as bucket approaches.

Bucket approaches

🪣 1 bucket approach - best for couples who want to combine all of their assets and cash flow into one account.

🪣🪣 2 bucket approach - Best for couples who want to keep all of their assets separate.

🪣🪣🪣3 bucket approach - best for couples who want a middle ground between combining & keeping everything separate. Couples will add a Joint account which they both contribute to and use to pay specific joint expenses and save for specific joint purposes.

We see buckets 1 & 3 selected the most often.

Which bucket do we see most often used in blended families?

The 1 bucket approach being most common among first marriages, and the 3 bucket approach being most common among blended families.

Why? For blended families, the joint account allows the couple to contribute to shared savings and expenses while their individual accounts provides some flexibility in a more complex situation. For example, if one or both spouses have been previously married, couples may feel that it’s emotionally easier for them to pay things like child support and the kid’s expenses out of a separate account so that their new spouse doesn’t get overwhelmed by all of these transactions that are out of their control.

Any bucket system can work as long both spouses are on the same page and are aligned with a chosen bucket system.

The key to selecting the "right" bucket 🔑

The most important item is not the bucket system used, but that regular and meaningful conversations around money are happening and that both spouses are being fully transparent and engaged in the household finances.

We love helping families work through these conversations and hope you found this helpful!