M. and I both have separate checking accounts from before we met. But now that we have a family, our finances have evolved into more of a cohesive unit and last year we opened a joint savings account specifically for family expenses and emergencies.

However, since I pay all of the bills but stay at home right now while M. fetches the majority of our family bacon, we’ve decided to go ahead and open a joint checking account as one main account.

I see several advantages to this.

For one, it simplifies the household finances since we can funnel our combined income (M.’s paycheck and any side income I receive, plus any family windfalls) and expenses through that joint checking account. M. doesn’t constantly need to transfer money over to my individual account to pay my bills, and it helps us receive a clearer overall picture of where we stand with our finances.

Furthermore, we hold family meetings every week or so to discuss our investments and how to efficiently accomplish all of our objectives. Usually I take notes and we discuss baby steps and specific time frames, which helps us keep dibs on everything and boosts momentum toward all of our greater financial goals.

So we will have a combined ‘main’ checking account for all of our income, with a pre-determined percentage siphoned away to our joint savings account (long term investments) and to our savings envelope (for short term needs and wants).

We will continue to have individual credit cards and pay off all balances in full each month.

Thus the plan for the weekend is:

1) on our way to the farmer’s market in the morning, to stop by a local bank branch and open the joint checking account.

2) on Saturday evening, to celebrate my Grammy’s 82nd birthday (although she insists she is 82 going on 28!)

3) to catch up on some weekend reading: for example, I need to nip through our collaborative eBook before it hits the next progressive stage

What works for your family in handling money matters—do you and your significant other have joint or separate bank accounts? What have been the advantages and disadvantages? Any issues?

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Credit Card / Car Loan / Student Loan Debt:
$0

Expenses:

$200 on control arm for a faulty ball joint on the vehicle last week, and an additional $68 for a new axle (which snapped while trying to fix aforementioned ball joint).

$1,000 on a road trip to Cape Ann, Massachusetts for Lexi’s first birthday.

Credit Cards I Use:

American Express Gold (my primary card)

Since I prefer simplicity, all household and personal expenses go straight onto my American Express Gold card and the balance is immediately paid off in full each month. M. questions my sanity because I am so completely anal about this—which explains why I have a rad credit score and his is, ahem, somewhat blemished.

My trusty old Discover Card has resurfaced and they’ve recently sent a new, glossy black card through the mail with a tantalizing offer attached: spend $1,000 by October 31, 2012 to receive $100 in cash back.

Hmmm, this could be tempting. A coin has piqued my interest for around that price range, so I may consider taking advantage of this, but for now the slick card has been lounging on our coffee table, unactivated.

Personal Checking Account: $2,877.11   (-$122.89)
My checking account is set up at a local community bank.

Goal: Plump this balance up to $3,000. Why keep so much in a checking account? Liquidity. As previously mentioned, I enjoy having a bit of cash at my disposal in order to take advantage of unique opportunities (local antique crawls, etc.)

Personal Online Savings Account: $1,000.72   (+$435.00)
Discover Online Savings Account @ .90% APY, with a $500 minimum balance.

Goal: Leave this account as is. $1,000 seems like the perfect amount to keep handy in this personal online savings account right now.

M. & I also have a joint savings account set up at a local credit union.

Our joint savings: $3,500   (-$1,500)
A recent family vacation and car repairs guzzled up a hunk of this balance. (And I seem to have $200 floating around waiting to be redeposited back into this account.) I’d like to get our joint family savings at the credit union back to $5,000, asap.

My Other Investments: $23,191.00
Various conservative investments which can be liquidated if necessary in the near term.

Unusual investments probably also worth mentioning:
M. and I invested a teeny percentage into Bitcoins last year. We bought in at $4 and recently sold some of our Bitcoin back into the market at $13, a phenomenal rate of return for this nascent cryto-currency. Profits are being held in the Bitcoin market exchange CampBX in order to reinvest into more Bitcoins during attractive price dips.

(I’m not going to break down exact numbers here because a. it’s 5:30 in the morning and I’m too lazy to dig out our CD at the moment and b. so few were sold that it’s a pretty negligible amount anyway and not worth the effort so, I won’t.)

Simplicity, and all that.

Current Net Worth: $30,568.83   (-$1,084.17) <— Cape Ann family vacation plus car repairs.
Down by $1k.

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Financial Carnivals this week:

Wealth Artisan’s FinCarn at Wealth Artisan
Carnival of MoneyPros at See Debt Run
Nerdy Finance Carnival at Nerdy Finance Carnival
Carn. of Financial Camaraderie at Finance Product Reviews
Yakezie Carnival at Frugal Portland

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What I’ve been reading:

• Wikileaks bypasses financial blockade with Bitcoin – by Jon Matonis, Forbes Magazine (8/20/2012)
• Cash is essential for a free society – Stowe Boyd. “A strong society that accepts human nature without moralizing will always have anonymous cash.”

You won’t be reading this until later morning but I shall slip off to bed now. Have a great weekend, everyone.

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Recently M. and I stopped by our local credit union to proudly stash some of our family savings, roughly $5,000, away into a joint savings account. Everything was going swimmingly — until the first statement arrived in the mail. I was perplexed by a continuous charge levied on our account. Since business hours were past, I took to the internet in order to do a bit of sleuthing on the matter through their website.

That’s when I realized our savings account, earning a skimpy .1% interest rate, was getting clobbered with a $5.00 monthly ‘maintenance fee’.

Grrr.

Tomorrow I will be on the phone with the credit union, politely requesting that this ludicrous monthly fee be waived.

Me: I’d like to have this fee removed.

Bank Rep: Of course, right away. (taps some keys) Is there anything else I can help you with?

or

Bank Rep: I’m sorry, we can’t help you with that.

Me: You don’t seem to understand. With this $5,000 in my coffers here, I would like an account with no annual or monthly fees, if you would kindly direct me to that … No, not possible? I’m sorry then. I’m afraid we can’t do business and I no longer will be a customer here. Please close my accounts, effective immediately.

Depending on what occurs tomorrow, I may very well be shopping around for a new credit union/home for our savings.

And to those sneaky banks who continue to nickel and dime their customers, I will continue to jeer at and blow big raspberries your way.

You may have received my business briefly, but it won’t happen twice.

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[Edit: I was successfully able to waive the maintenance fee! I ;heart; my credit union again.]