Married 🐠- how did you all combine finances and investment after marriage (or did you?). I’m living with my gf and we pretty much split all costs 50-50 and have separate finances. She has a joint brokerage with her dad and invests there monthly. I don’t know what kind of questions I should ask now to make sure we align. Eg After marriage, should she stop contributing to the brokerage with her dad and instead contribute to our joint account? Should that be an expectation? How do you all do it

Joint everything. This was not even a question for us. I was in a post grad program and working when we met so he generously paid for many things prior to marriage, but that post grad program bumped my marketability and pay. 35 years and going strong

Depends a lot on how you two specifically wish to keep your combined and personal finances.
Definitely should’ve something joint where you two are contributing for a future together with or without a family. This one ideally shouldn’t consider what each of you earns. Contribute as much as you both are comfortable with and make it grow together. This is the money where conversations focus on togetherness and family’s future.

If personal finances are needed (say she doesn’t want to stop contributing with her father), let that be independent. This can or cannot be discussed ongoing depending on how comfortable with discussing finances you two are. Many couples keep some or all of their personal finances on the side - because they fear and always have some possibility of splitting up.

Another option is joint finances with a strong prenuptial set in place to avoid any complications down the line if that makes ‘both of you’ more comfortable.

My partner and I have joint finances since we’ve been married (6 years), and our individual investments before we were married have now been nominated for each other in case anything happens to either of us. We got into a marriage with a focus of creating a life together, we are super comfortable discussing money and making decisions together. This works out for us because we invested a lot of time over the years having those discussions and learning from all the agreements and disagreements.

Joint everything. Much easier that way
We got married as soon as we finished grad school. She had $2k and I had none. 28 years married

We have a general joint account that is used for bills, groceries, etc, and a joint savings. We also each get a monthly “allowance” into separate accounts to spend or save however each person wants.

Everything joint because she is my wife, not my roommate I Venmo half the electric bill to each month. Shared values and goals and then an agreed upon budget.

We joint everything once married but also have individual accounts that predated the relationship set up by parents or grandparents that we have left in tact.

The baseline of marriage is the fact that you two can share a life together and that implies that you two not only can healthy have hard conversations but agree on big pillars: faith, finances, kids. Otherwise you’ll have fights over all of that. So from where I see, if you don’t see eye to eye on these 3, this might not be your person. Bonus insight: people don’t change. Don’t get married thinking they will save money, if they have never done that before. Now, considering that you two align on that, I’d say have it all joint from marriage onwards. Especially if you both are starting life now. You can always add a line in the budge for each of you, where whatever you do with the money isn’t up to question. That helps to keep independence and transparency. If both of you have personal assets prior to marriage, like savings/property I’d keep that aside, at least for now. You can always reevaluate later into the marriage. Create a joint savings too.

the brokerage account