Combining Finances....

Sucks.

I shouldn't say that... the end result won't really suck, but I can safely say the process if not much fun. It's awkward and uncomfortable... but I guess it's necessary.

You see, I have always been a very independent person. In the last few years I had develop quite the little budgeting system for myself, which included a list of what bills get paid by which paycheck (I get paid every two weeks, so basically it came out to what gets paid the first half of the month and the second) and then how much money I had to do with as I pleased. Included in that was a plan to pay off all my credit card debit, save for vacations and save for a 6-month "emergency fund". Yes, I had actually started doing that! I was very proud of how far I had come. I knew exactly what I made, and I knew pretty much where every cent of it was going.

When Zach and I first started living together I paid "rent", which covered my half of the mortgage and other home related bills each month. When we went grocery shopping we'd split the bill, and at times we'd each just sort of cover it. It took some getting used to, but it worked.

Then earlier this year Zach and I decided to refinance the house and officially put me on the mortgage. (Isn't that sweet, at the time I didn't have a ring but I did have the 30-year mortgage commitment. Nothing says love like sharing major debt!) Then Zach and I decided to create a "household" checking account (Yeah, I know. We were just tipping our toe into the pool of joint finances). We added up all the "household" bills, including all the usual stuff and then added food and other household type supplies to the list. We figured out about how much each of us would pay towards this account, and so we each tried to do that. I did mine direct deposit (because my work makes that nice and easy and it makes the checking account free!). Zach would deposit when he could.

Here is where the trouble started. I worry about money, well, a lot. I check my checking account on-line every day (Except on vacation, but well, that is mostly because I don't generally have Internet access). I have spreadsheets that detail when debt will be paid off. I signed up for mint.com so I could see where all my money was going. Is it all a little OCD? Probably. But I spent a lot of time in my past feeling NO control over my money, and I hated that. I like knowing where it is going and knowing I'll have enough to pay all the bills all the time. Hence all the lists and spreadsheets and madness. It all gives me the sense of control over my money that I really need.

Well, when Zach and I joined forces, it was no longer that easy any more. Zach's current financial position is less constant than mine, so he gets money throughout the month at various times, including often just cash. Zach's money doesn't magically show up in the account (he has to actually deposit it) and I found myself having to remind him about depositing the necessary money for his half of the bills. I would worry he didn't have enough, but wouldn't want to tell me. It wasn't too bad though. There weren't too many "variables" because mostly, it was just the regular bills, food and household stuff (lots of trips to Target!) and I was still basically paying for most of my personal stuff myself, and frankly I had a lot of "extra" money to spend as I pleased. I could fairly easily see that we were generally on track for our joint stuff, and I had to make comfort with that fact.

Well, then, Zach went to what I'll call "full" unemployment. Meaning his dad's company wasn't paying anything and it was no longer paying any of the benefits it was before (health insurance and gas mainly). So our household now had more bills to pay and less to pay it with. It became increasingly obvious that combining financial forces was the only option to make ends meet at our house. So now we're in the process of just having a joint checking account, and paying all bills and everything out of the joint account.

Suffice to say all the work that goes into changing everything over to a new checking account is 0% fun. Virtually all my bills are on auto-pay, so I had to go back and switch them all over to the joint account to get paid. Zach is still in the process of doing the same. So far, only one bill didn't get paid on time because of the change over, which isn't too bad.

The bad part? I've lost all of my sense of happy money controlling security. I'm trying to spreadsheet my way to happiness with the joint situation... but so far I'm coming up pretty darn short. You see, we've learned here that Zach and I have been using two VERY different means to control our checking accounts.

Zach was using the, I pay each of my bills as the come in, and I generally have X amount sitting in my checking account. He liked writing out the checks for each bill, so he knew exactly where his money was going. As he told me, if the X amount was going up, he would throw some into savings, or pay off some extra credit card or other bills. Oh yeah, and Zach likes paying for everything in cash if he can. He likes having a lot of cash on him. That's just how he rolls.

I, on the other hand, used a system of auto-bill pay. Half of my bills were paid with the first paycheck of the month, the second half with the second paycheck and they all paid themselves. I marked on my google calender when each would come out, but that was it, I barely thought about that money at all. I knew I had X amount of each paycheck to spend as I saw fit for gas, clothing or whatever else I wanted. Rarely would all of X not get spent. You see for me, when there was money waiting around, I like to spend it on fun stuff. I already had a fairly aggressive debt paying off plan built into the bill paying, so I was comfortable with those and didn't feel a strong need to pay off more with my fun money. Man do I love spending fun money. Oh, and cash? I don't really like having cash on me. A little is fine, but more than $100 and I get uncomfortable. I like using my debit card so I can track where the money goes easily.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that these two money schemes aren't going to be very compatible. So how do we do it?

If you've got a good plan, let me know. :) We're still working through it. I think a lot of compromising is going to be in the schedule. For the moment we're reading "Smart Couples Finish Rich" which is a somewhat hokey book (You have to get past the idea that he has copyrighted half of the stupid gimmicky phrases he uses.) on I guess planning to become rich. I think you can imagine who purchased this book... but Zach seems in to the idea of getting us on the right track (and I think that getting rich part didn't hurt). It seems to have helped to foster some discussion about our joint financial situation and our joint financial future, which were both needed. I'll let you know how our progress goes!