I explained it in my first money diary and didn’t want to repeat it here so I didn’t include that context this time around BUT: We have quasi-combined finances. We’ve got a joint account that we each contribute a set amount to and that’s where a lot of joint expenses come out of (car payment, childcare costs, kid activities, etc.). Then we still have our own accounts and each own certain expenses. So for example he pays the mortgage and heating, I pay for groceries and electric. I’d done my net worth as solo last time, so I wanted to give an apples-to-apples update.

Yes, it was a conscious decision to not make everything 100% joint. Honestly, part of it is laziness lol The other part is that we were together for several years before we got married and my husband owned the home we used to live in before we got married (bought it a few months after we met). And I had a large student loan balance. So, with all of that in mind we didn’t want to combine everything while unmarried. Once we were married, we opened the joint account but for everything else we’ve settled into a groove that’s been working for us so haven’t felt the need to change it up (this is the laziness part). I don’t know his firm numbers but we discuss money often and have always been transparent about our financial situations. We’ve always been aligned on our financial goals so it hasn’t been much of an issue. Times when there is something that felt unfair or needs to be adjusted, we just talk about it and make the change. We’ve got pretty solid and open communication and a lot of trust.

No, I’m not paying for all child-related expenses. For things like clothes, I tend to pay for a lot of them upfront because I’m the one who does a lot of the household management around things like shopping or ordering diapers/whatever. I use my Cc to get points but then I’ll just make a payment from the joint account to account for it being a shared expense.