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I do like Suze Orman's suggestion in this regard. She says to divide the bills in the ratio of the earnings. For instance if the husband makes 5000 and the wife makes 3000 and the total bills are 3000 then the husband will pay (5000/8000) * 3000 or $1,875. The wife pays (3000/8000) * 3000 = $1,125. This means that each pays 37.5% of their income towards the bills so it is an equitable contribution even though the absolute numbers are different.
I am 68 and my wife is 65. We have never had a budget. We have a joint checking account, and my wife keeps up with it. There have been a few times in our lifetime when my wife has said to me that we need to stop spending for a while. We are debt free and are getting by with a pension and social security. We have CD's, a stock mutual fund, a bond mutual fund, and some Euros. My wife will delay taking money out of her IRA as long as possible. We used our home equity to purchase big ticket items like cars, but that was a long time ago.
The bf and I have a joint checking account and then our own checking accounts. Currently, he pays the mtg, 2 cars and bike and I pay all other bills: utilities, ins, food, etc.
I used to do what k374 does when I was living together with my gf at the time, once we got married we opened a joint account and I put 80 to 90% of my paychecks in it, she takes care of paying the bills and saving the rest.
We've been married for 9 1/2 years now. We've always had a joint account and just pay the bills out of that. I balance the checkbook every 3-4 days and let my husband know if we can afford something or not.
I'm not sure what to do. As I have a job that gives a steady check twice a month. But my husband (and I) have a business, so those payments come in very sporadically. The clients pay every few months (they are sooooo slow). So I'm not sure how handle that money.
My income covers the bills, we sometimes have money leftover to put into savings from that.
But considering our incomes (and almost no debt, no mortgage yet and very little on a car left) I feel we should be saving more money. At the end of the year we put money into a sep and savings. But again it's such a small amount compared to how much we earn.
How do you do it when you have a business and the checks just come randomly throughout the year?
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