Married mustachians - how do you manage your finances? [2022]

We have :

My account at raiffeisen with member plus
My wife account at bcv for free with family package
A joint account at bcv for free with family package
Two neon accounts for travel expenses.
A n26 account that will be closed soon.

Credit cards with cashback cards. One bill for all CC paid with joint account.

We have 2 children. My wife reduced her work percentage to 80%. We agreed that we have one “portfolio”. My money is her and her is mine. 15 years of common life make things more simple :slight_smile:

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Pretty much what we settled on! Joint account at Raiffeisen with Member plus, Neon for both (spending money + for travel), two cashback credit cards for expenses. Though we both decided to reduce our work to about 60 - 80% :slight_smile:

I am preparing for when my girlfriend will start working in the next months (she is still studying) and have some doubts on the credit cards.

We are going to have one joint account + 2 separate accounts and that is clear. What is not clear is how to optimize the credit card strategy. I assume you want to keep some expenses separate from the joint account so you won’t be using the same credit card you use for groceries when you are buying gifts.

How do you deal with this? Currently I just have the cash back credit cards and use those but I am thinking of how best do it when we are in two.

Thank you!

Doesn’t your individual account have its own card? We have joint cash back cards linked to the joint account and for individual stuff, I’m using my individual account.
If it needs to be a credit card, just sign up a new one like Revolut, Coop or Migro. I prefer Revolut since it’s an ok solution for purchases in EUR and abroad in general.

If you manage to convince your wife to keep less than 15k in cash, let me know how you did it.

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Hey everybody are there any news on the joint account market that I am not aware of. Since the last article, one year has passed by. We are with PostFinance at the moment and are looking for other options. Or does anybody have a nice solution of managing their finances of a household without a joint account?

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We have a joint account onto which we put some fixed amount of money every month (somewhat taking into account that I earn several times what my wife does) which should cover all common expenses (it doesn’t always, so I have to top it up). I pay all taxes, because most are due to my high income anyway.

We used to share a joint account where we’d transfer some amount every month. Now that we are married, we change things a bit : both our salaries go onto the joint account, from which both of us retake a fixed percentage of what he/she earned that month.
This way there is always enough money to cover regular expenses and each one pays according to their revenue.

Side note : at our cantonal bank (Jura), we have everything, that is, three income accounts, three savings account and four debit cards (one for each individual income account, two for the joint account) free of charge, which is nice :smiley:

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IIRC I pay 40chf for each card, but I think they were free for the first year.

The E-Bankng is fine, except I find it less secure than, e.g., PF, where I would need to be re-identified for each payment, while if someone would steal my device while I would be still logged in, they could transfer money to any account they wanted (perhaps there’s a setting, but it must default to the least secure option).

It’s a good offer because of the museum entries, I only wish I’d use it more often.

So both parties have the same percentage of pocket money which is there for leisure, investing etc.?
Or do you already save/invest a fixed amount and take out a fixed percentage for personal expenses/leisure?

Our joint account covers all our expenses, except for big purchases (e.g. recently : washing machine and dryer), for which we contribute an extra amount from our (separated) savings account. The percentage is pure leisure/savings/investing or a give to the other one :slight_smile:

That means if one earns more, he/she will receive a higher amount on his/her personal account. That also means that common expenses are not shared 50:50.

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In our case, we opened a joined account by Raiffeisen (witch is “free” if you take a 200.- share). We pay on our salary ratio (2/3 for me 1/3 for her).
And with that, we pay everything. Except from our saving, 3rd pillar and pocket money. Which is very convenient to follow a budget.

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Our case: family 2 kids but we apply the same since a while

Join account Both salaries arrive here and all common expenses are paid from here
Personal allowance (1k each per month) goes to our personal account → high budget but lower number create frictions with my non.mustachian wife.

I heard that if one account holder dies then the bank account is blocked. That would stop me from having both salaries coming to the same account. Would be happy to learn if it is true.

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As I heard, it depends if the account is labeled «person A and person B » or labeled « person A and/or person B » : with the second wording, the account should not be blocked if only one person remains.
Confirmation by a lawyer (@Yanikuza ?) would be welcome !

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I can confirm your word. It depends on how the married couple set up their joint account. You can either ask that every order needs the confirmation of the other one (A and B), or if one or the other can order something without the consent of the other (A and/or B). In this case, your account should not me blocked and in the worse scenario, if your wife/husband want to transfer a large sum of cash to a private account, it’s possible (happens a lot with past clients who were getting divorced :joy:).

However, it could be blocked by the family or kids of the deceased (at least ask it to a Court in order to block the other one to use the money for inheritance matter).

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The former is a collective business relationship while the latter is a joint business relationship.

In a collective business relationship typically all account holders signatures are required to make any changes. It is quite common that the account holders grant each other the right to make ordinary payments.

In a joint business relationship there is some leeway and some operations can be performed by only one of the account holders by default. However, any significant changes on the business relationship typically still require all account holders signatures.

Thus, while it is true that a joint account won’t be directly blocked, you may still be prevented by the bank to perform some setup after a death (including converting the business relationship to an individual). I wouldn’t recommend to use a joint account as your main nest.

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The account get blocked after a grace period, which is long.
I’d worry more for other hidden costs (I’m pointing finger at you, bank starting with C and ending with R).

Also “most” bank want to maintain a relationship with the customers, so they are not that draconian.

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Finally! Neon is starting a joint account!

Ja, du hast das richtig gelesen: Eines unserer am längsten erwarteten Produkte, das erste vollständig digitale Gemeinschaftskonto der Schweiz, wird schon in Kürze an den Start gehen! Bald kannst du also mit deinem/deiner Mitbewohner:in, Partner:in, deiner Frau oder deinem Mann ein neues neon-Konto teilen, das nahtlos in deine neon-App integriert ist. Dann könnt ihr endlich eure gemeinsamen Einkäufe von einem Gemeinschaftskonto aus bezahlen, jede:r mit seiner/ihrer eigenen Karte – so werden eure täglichen Finanzen Schritt für Schritt einfacher. :raised_hands:

Wenn du dich schon darauf vorbereiten willst, stelle sicher, dass du und dein:e Gemeinschaftskonto-Partner:in an derselben Adresse wohnen und ihr beide ein eigenes neon-Konto habt.

Let’s hope it’s also free. Then I’m definitly switching our joint account to them.

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Just seen the thread

In our case.
Raiffeisen join account both salaries goes to the same place
All general bills are paid from this account and every basic family (groceries, kids, schooling, rent…)
then 2 satellites accounts (I have Yuh my wife neon) where we send 1000 every month for our personal expenses (including holidays, clothes,…)