Do you and your spouse keep all finances separate?

No we didn't. But we were not married as many years as you and I guess that it makes sense in this day and time to do that. The kid gets it all anyway so it is all good.

Differant life situations dictate differant standards I think.

Yes you can keep things separate. My husband and I have been married for almost 10 years and we have separate everything. We each have our own bank accounts, credit cards, and each have a house soley in our name. I went through a divorce once before and decided it was way to complicated to have joint accounts. As far as the child goes, I'm really not sure in your situation. I would think if you hired a surrogate and had the contract with the surrogate it would be your child unless your spouse legally adopted the child, but I'm no attorney. That's something you may want to ask an attorney before hand.

No, all our finances are in a joint account for paying bills by Direct Debit etc., money for grocery etc., shopping is sometimes in my husbands wallet & sometimes in my purse it just depends on whether we both go out to town or not.

Every penny we have is jointly "ours". We discussed this prior to getting married almost 20yrs ago & we both wanted a joint account.

At one stage my husband had to deal with everything as I was too disabled to go out on my own so he dealt with it all but nowadays I tend to leave it to him as trying to get into my purse can cause pain to my fingers or the way the change is given over by the checkout operator causes me to drop the money.

This arrangement suits us which is how it should be for everyone....find an arrangement that suits you that you are both happy with. We do not argue over money & never have. If something is needed for the house we discuss whether it is a need or a want, decide if it really is needed or if we can either manage without or maybe something different.

We don't keep a tally on how much each has had spent on them each month or even year.

We have a little book that contains all the bills we pay or need to pay each month, how much is in the bank & how much, if any, is left for what we call "extras"....if there's nothing left for extras then we don't have, if there is then we do...simple as that.

But it still comes down to what suits each couple.

All of our stuff is in one account with both names. Husband can never remember his pin number anyway. We have been married for 38 years and have occasionally had just one name. Only because the other person couldn't get to the bank at that time. My car is in my name. The truck is in both. Don't know why. No real estate except for our paid for house and property. Some utilities in mine and some in his. It depended on who called.

We keep all that stuff together. Keeping separate finances didn't work well for us.

And that's what matters. You need to do what works.

Edit: Oh my goodness. I just looked at the earlier question you are referring to and the answers. DH and I just don't have that much to worry about. But, now I understand why my sister and her wonderful second husband got professional help to review their finances before they got married. (Both widowed and there were two sets of grown kids).

Been married 29 years and all accounts are in both names.

We each have a vehicle in our own name.

It is so much easier to keep track of one account.

He is the only one employed and supplying an income and I am the one that pays all the bills and keeps accounts in order.

I keep the house, do all the cooking, cleaning etc. Typical domestic goddess!

Everything is in both names.

He worked while I stayed at home, raising kids and taking care of household duties and handled all finances.

I then went to work for 18 years, still handleing the finances and I might add, I was very frugal.

We are now retired and married for 50 plus years and all is well.

DeeJay.

yes we had to keep our finances separate as he had such trouble coping even though he earned an incredible amount (managed restaurants) and did not pay much tax (books juggled) even his bank rang me once to ask me if I could get his credit card and send it back. I advised them that the problem was theirs not mine as we were separating. However he did claim part of my house which was given to me by my parents and not as gift to the marriage. It was only in my name as they worried about his financial capabilities. When I divorced I had to pay him out even though he never did any repairs or maintenance to the house in the 11 years we lived in it. Is this just the problems with laws in this country ? We were married in the times before financial agreements came into being.

No we never have and let me tellyou, my best friend did their entire 29 years of marriage. She always worked the same job and so did he.He inherited a looot of money, divorced her and guess she got zilch.Why because she had always earned enough to support her self and they never comingled money. He wrote her a check every month for part of the house payment and extra for other stuff,but not much extra. He earned 4 times her salary and all he gave her was the house, not paid for either.So much for seperate finances.A woman must prove she needs alimony and can't doing it this way.He paid cash for a new house before he moved out and she is still paying for the house she is in.No thank you.

Most finances are kept separate. It works better for us too. We have only been married for 8 years, but have been through previous marriages. Live and learn I suppose.