Fuck off—like your attempt to assert some moral high ground here isn’t condescending and trolling?

I’ve done this all my life—things in my house used to be in a gradual migration back to where they belong. A bag of tools from repairing the 2nd floor bathroom might get deposited next to the door to the basement stairs as I came down the next morning. But then I got married to someone who hates clutter and puts…

I’ve never asked my wife “permission” to buy anything nor has she asked me. We have a good sense of what discretionary income we have and neither of us has any interest in acting irresponsibly as a fiscal matter. I’ll mention larger purchases to her, largely because she does the finances and I’d like to avoid…

Again, the idea of having some amount of discretionary spending isn’t an argument in favor of separate accounts. It is an argument in favor of having come to an understanding with your spouse. Retirement accounts is a red herring. I’d consolidate them all if I could.

Fair enough, I suppose. But OP was arguing that it should be done intentionally, not merely by inertia. So that was what I was really looking at.

You haven’t stated an argument in favor of separate accounts. You’ve basically just said you were too lazy to do otherwise. And the counterargument? Allowing spouse access in the event of your death. Savings, since a lot of accounts have costs associated with them. Administrative convenience come tax time.

Yes, some of us were raised to understand that in marriage, you probably ought to be thinking “us” instead of “me.” Which may explain why I’m still married and you got divorced. Seriously, I’m not trying to be a dick, but given that you got divorced, why are you so intent upon dispensing marriage advice?

The more I think about it, the less I understand this separate accounts shit. When I got married, I made probably 10X what my wife did. That mean I’m supposed to continue to live it up and let my wife continue to stress out about making ends meet? Because I make more, should I have more to spend? That seems asinine,…

The OP equated “exclusive access” to “complete control.” But to be clear, if your spouse can legally withdraw money from the account without your consent—whether they would ever do that or not—I’m going to say they have access and you do not have what I would call control. I’ll also note that I have a joint account…

Again, this is something you can do without limiting your spouse’s access to the account. Which might be handy in case, say, you die.

“My ex and i went with 2 solo accounts”

There’s no reason the same thing can’t be implemented with joint accounts. Just because someone can look doesn’t mean they will. Setting aside the judgment/creditor issue, which isn’t something I worry about, the only point in restricting someone from the account is to avoid withdrawals.

Makes sense to a degree, but it depends upon what state you live in. In my state, a lienholder can’t get at marital assets that easily.

The only discernable rationale I can imagine for this is that you don’t trust your spouse. That seems like more than a financial problem. Or am I missing something?

I was in my local Home Depot this weekend and they had the A19 GE Link bulbs for $11 ea. They work fine with my Hue Bridge and can be controlled by my Amazon Echo, but they aren’t multi-color, just soft white.

I was in my local Home Depot this weekend and they had the A19 GE Link bulbs for $11 ea. They work fine with my Hue…

Realized I should rephrase what I said—there are fixed and marginal costs that are class-specific, so the issue isn’t fixed v. marginal, it is really which costs are specifically attributable to a particular class versus costs that are common to all classes.

The point is that 3rd isn’t subsidizing First Class mail—if anything, First Class mail is subsidizing 3rd. The point of a Postal Rate Case and the Postal Rate Commission is to ensure that each class has to bear its own marginal costs and a representative proportion of the fixed costs. The 3rd class lobbyists and…

When I lived in Switzerland, their postal system had multiple deliveries a day, including weekends, so it was possible to mail a letter and get a response by mail the same day. Granted, that was cross-subsidized as part of the PTT, but our modern postal system isn’t that great if you have seen other first world…

Electrical is usually possible to work around, but opening a wall and finding ducting sucks. That said, it is usually easier to figure out where the ducting is routed.

Amazon Dot.