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Comment by silisili | Hacker News Reader

When you are married, there is no 'her money' or 'your money'. There is just your collective money.

I'd take such squabbling as a huge, waving, in your face red flag. Evaluate it carefully. Question why one would want money they don't want the other touching. Is she planning to live large while you beg for money under an overpass? Or is she thinking of a future without you? Because those are pretty much the two scenarios that would lead to such behavior.

FWIW, I work, my wife doesn't. Imagine if I complained about her spending 'my money.'

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Suppose your wife did get a job. Would the money she earns also go into the same collective pot? Would that not be somewhat demotivating / mess up the incentives for her?

Also, it seems in your kind of a scenario it would be difficult to avoid the 'unlimited vacation policy'-type problem, where ultimately it is still at the final discretion of one party. So realistically, there is still some portion of the pot that she is free to spend at her discretion, but it is implicit. Would it not be better for everyone to just make it explicit? Is that not a red flag, since by not explicitly designating some funds as hers / not transferring them into her account to use as she sees fit you are maintaining more control of it and how it is spent?

To be clear, I am not talking about your situation in particular of which I know very little, but presenting more of a general hypothetical argument.

Everyones money goes into the pot, that's what it's there for. The problems you're describing aren't a shared financial pot though. You're describing the problems when one person has control and allows the other to have access. Both people should have control and the ability to do everything, that's the whole point of collective. Good communication and trust avoid problems.

You make a lot of good points.

You're right about demotivating/incentives...it's what in the end kept her from working. She wanted to work part time while raising the kid...we sat down and talked cost of another car, marginal tax rates, etc...and decided we'd lose a ton of money by going that route.

It really depends on your relationship. If I am controlling the money, giving allowances, then yeah that would be bad. I'm not, we both have credit cards we are free to use and is what we pay for everything with. For any large purchases, we discuss together before touching cash.

There are a lot of different dynamics between people and how they set up finances. Doing allowances for both parties is fine, if that's what you prefer. But realize it's just that - personal allowances. In the end, you both own half the total pot, no matter how you pretend to divy it up.

Mess up the incentives for her?

Money is nice but if you have enough of it, it's an awful reason to put yourself through hell.

If you have the option, do work that motivates you to do more. Hang the money. You'll be much happier.

What does mess up incentives or demotivating here mean?

I don't get it.

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