After living the last 3 years with very little money (barely covering bills and food), now that our finances are getting better and I see a cute dress or a pair of shoes I can now afford but don't need I feel the urge to go give the money to charity instead. Best money ever spent, always.

If you have no idea about the state of your parents' finances, find out. I had no idea my parents were so poor because they were living well beyond their means.

DH and I have separate finances because if we were to combine our finances his child support payments would go way up (I make a lot more than he does) and neither of us wants that to happen.

My DH and I don't combine our finances, either. He makes about $150K a year, and after 12 years raising kids I went back to work part time. I make $12K a year, and he encourages me to spend it all on myself. :-) (usually I spend it on him and the kids, though ~ and my Mazda8)

My husband and I don't combine finances because he is a cheap jerk who doesn't want to pay for anything for me. His income is 6 times mine. I don't agree to it though I did during the first years of the marriage because he had child expenses then. Our agreement was that when that commitment was done, he'd increase his help to me. I was being an understanding accomodating wife. He didn't stick to our agreement and I'm mad as hell. My advice to anyone else is not to ever be understanding and helpful when a husband tries to pull that kind of crap.

My husband and I have completely combined finances. Everything goes into one account and everything comes out of said account (10% automatically goes to savings). I do not understand how couples work keeping their finances separate. Not judging, just don't understand how they don't get stuck in a tit-for-tat cycle?

I had to take over the finances completely and start doling out an allowance to my husband after he racked up 10k credit card debt... twice! He still has access to our bank accounts but he knows I'm watching and while I won't get on his butt about an occaisional coffee, I will bring up anything unneccessary that's more than $30 or so. and he's not allowed to get a CC. It sucks that I have to act like his mommy but I'm not willing to risk our finances again.

I handle our finances, H gets an allowance. I don't get an allowance, I'm lucky to be able to buy underwear once every 3yrs. But he gets the money for lunch at work & games. He whines it isn't enough, but if I gave him any more, our bills would go unpaid. He usually get the mail, but he's away, so I got the mail. Found a bill for a CC (we don't have any, so I thought). He maxed it out & is about to go to collections. I ripped him a new one. Good job,H, you just threw away 4yrs of my hard work of making our credit good.There goes his allowance for a while.

DH came home and told me we are 3 months behind on rent and we're being evicted. He usually handles the finances and I had no idea. I am livid and scared. Where we live is extremely expensive and a health crisis last year wiped out our savings. How did we go from being comfortable to being nearly destitute? I don't know what we're doing to do.

We have three checking accounts. We pool in our finances to pay for the house, utilities & groceries. Whatever is left over goes into our own personal accounts. We do not borrow from each other. We do whatever we want with our money. I save and he spends but it's his money. If we need something for the house we put it into the joint account. It works for us. We've been doing this for 15 years. Some call it lack of trust. Probably, seen too many friends left with nothing when he takes it all.