I’d say that we’re both natural savers instead of spenders, so we have never had issues making this work for us.
The bottom line, do what works best for your family. If there are trust issues, or if one partner is a big spender and needs some accountability, then, by all means, go for joint accounts.
We are not allowed to take on significant credit card debt. In addition to our bank account, we also have our credit cards.
We’ve never kept a budget. However, we’ve used for years what has been coined as the anti-budget by Paula at Afford Anything.
This included mortgage, student loan payments, internet, groceries, gasoline, day, and anything else that we paid for regularly.
Writing down our regular expenses gave us an idea of how much we could dedicate to either giving, saving, or additional debt payments.
What is slush money? This would include anything that isn’t a regular monthly expense identified in steps 1 or 2.
For example, going out to eat, tickets to a sporting event, grabbing a latte from the local coffee shop, buying a wedding present, or other random or infrequent expenses.