Mo Money, Mo Problems?

I don't know about you, but I would like to test out that theory that more money results in more problems. Scratch that, just give me the money and skip the problems :)



I love numbers!  Math was my favorite class in school and lead to my finance degree.  No matter what my living situation was out of college (with a roommate or on my own) I was always the one to do the bills.  When Mr. E moved in he was more than happy to allow me to continue to deal with all of that. 

In the beginning Mr. E had an account with another bank, and did not have any checks so he would always take out money for his half of the bills and I would deposit it into mine.  This routine got pretty old pretty fast, with the all the trips to the bank so I suggested that he get an account at my bank so we could transfer money online. Well as luck would have it, my bank purchased his, so new bank account it was!  At this point we had the big talk on how we wanted to set up our finances. 

I don't know why, but I wasn't ready to have everything together.  And wouldn't you know, neither was Mr. E.  We decided to set up a "yours, mine and ours" deal where we each have our own checking and savings accounts and together we share another checking account.  At first that shared checking account's sole purpose was for bill transfers.  Once we were engaged it became the wedding fund that we would deposit into every month.  After the wedding we plan on using this joint account as our main account, depositing most of our paychecks into it and paying all of our bills.  We still like the idea of having our own separate "petty cash" accounts so we can surprise each other with gifts, or make those Coach purse & video game purchases without worrying.  I love that we were able to come up with a plan that worked for both of us, and in the end we will slowly transition into "our" money.

What are your plans when it comes to combining finances?  Are there any other number lovers out there? Seriously, give me a spreadsheet and numbers at work and I'm a happy camper.