Chequing out

I think Michelle is right - we're kind of following the "normal" steps of a relationship, and on the weekend, we took one more. No no, it's not the couch purchase - although that was very exciting.

We opened a joint chequing account.

The next step in a "normal" relationship

First of all, let me point out how annoying it is for the computer to tell me that I'm spelling chequing wrong every time I write it.

Anyway, after talking about it for weeks, and thinking about it even longer, we decided to open a joint account. Now for some reason, whenever people hear this, they automatically assume that you'll be sharing all of your money, instead of having your own accounts in addition to the joint one - that just isn't the case. I don't know who (in their right mind) wouldn't want their own account to control their own money.

Every time I saw an article online I kept seeing people saying "be careful, it's hard not to have an account that's YOURS", and I thought, why does it always seem to be one or the other? We want both.

So that's what we did.

Since we'll be splitting monthly costs down the middle, we'll be putting our respective halves into the account and paying for things from there. For example, our rent will come from cheques from the joint account, and we will pay our internet bill through their as well. It's easy, and simple, and when we go shopping, it just makes the most sense. Way better than the whole "Well, I bought groceries this week, so you buy them next week" kind of reasoning - that just has arguments written all over it. We're both way too practical.

So we went with PC (where we both bank already) - it took about 10 minutes, and we got some free ice cream, but the accounts are more valuable than that.

PC - saving me 15 dollars a month since 2011.

Some of the good that we've already noticed...

• Transfers are instantaneous - because we're both banking individually with the same bank, we're able to pull money from our personal accounts into the joint account in an instant. This helps when we're planning to go shopping and didn't plan a couple days ahead of time.
• We both use our existing cards - we didn't have to get new ones, they just added accounts under the savings tab of our debit cards (we both have savings accounts that aren't debit-friendly)
• We feel more equal - like I mentioned above, it's something you have together and it really helps with keeping you on even footing. 

All in all, I think it's safe to say that I think it's a great idea. It seems like every article I read was "Beware...", "Be Careful!" or "Do you really want a joint account?" - and I really don't understand!

Keep your own money, and share some together. It might make all the difference.

Cheers