Originally Posted by
sabad66
We've got a different approach that I don't think has been mentioned yet.
I make about 4x more than my wife (she only works part time and mostly a stay at home mom), and our arrangement is that i cover all household expenses/bills while she simply just emails me $500 a month and covers the car finance payment (direct debit from her bank account). We have a main CC with 2 cards under the same account, so almost all spending appears on the statement besides random small things she will pay with her own debit card. She never looks at the CC statement, but i'll scan through the txns listed under her card (along with mine) just to make sure there's nothing out of the ordinary. I don't question / criticize anything unless i think it's off (she has fallen for a phishing scam once where she entered CC info onto a shady website and started seeing some random google play store purchases).
This works good for us because it allows her to contribute (although a small amount relatively speaking, it's a psychological thing for her), while also having enough for her own spending and saving. When it comes time for big purchases (house, vacations) she will dip into her savings and contribute a sizable chunk so that helps too.
Like others have said, in the end it depends on the specific couples and there is no right/wrong answer to this. Our arrangement works great for us because of the massive income disparity and the fact she isn't very savvy for financial stuff. If we made similar salaries and/or if she was a lot more interested in finance, i think we would go with the 3 account system.