I am engaged to be married. My boyfriend has about 20, 000 in credit card debt from some past bad decisions and he pays about 4 times the minium each month. But it will take time to get that debt down. As far as I know, he doesn't have late accounts. It is all current. My credit is fantastic. I don't carry any balance, I pay off my balance in full each month. When we get married, how should we handle the credit cards? By that I mean, I don't want to have my name attached to his debt if it is not required. Should I keep my cards as the sole person on the account and he will be the sole person on his account? Or once we are married, will his credit card debt now become my debt. We will marry early in 2005 either in California or Alabama. We are waiting on his job transfer to be approved so it could be either state. Thanks! Jane
Re: Getting married ---joint accoun HIS STAYS AS IS HERS STAYS AS IS ...unless you do some "AU" cards or a "JOINT" or two
Re: Getting married ---joint accoun Since you have both already established credit, what advantage is there to having joint credit accounts? You just both get dinged for the inquiries, and the terms are likely no better than the lesser credit score. You then also affect the debt to credit limit ratios for both, which may affect the terms on your other accounts. Keep it separate, then either party can choose the best new offers received, if you want to open any new accounts that will be carrying balances. This will minimize the total cost of credit used.
Re: Getting married ---joint accoun NO JOINT CHECKING NO JOINT CREDIT (except for house) keep it simple. You can always setup checking accounts to transfer to each other to pitch in towards the bills or split them up. trust me on this one been there done that. Credit can last alot longer than a marriage. bad credit and bad marriage that is.
Re: Getting married ---joint accoun You might need one joint checking account if you run into problems with checks, such as tax refunds, made out to both of you. Other than that, it is a pain to keep track of checking account balances if two people are both writing checks and getting cash from ATM machines. It is asking for mistakes.
Re: Re: Getting married ---joint ac BOTH WRITING CHECKS??? BOTH USING ATM CARD??? Use one or two credit cards and PIF (ON-LINE) from the checking account...CHECKS ARE FOR PAYING BILLS BY US MAIL THAT YOU CAN'T PAY ON-LINE or YOU CAN'T PAY WITH YOUR CREDIT CARDS
Re: Re: Getting married ---joint ac BOTH WRITING CHECKS??? BOTH USING ATM CARD??? Use one or two credit cards and PIF (ON-LINE) from the checking account...CHECKS ARE FOR PAYING BILLS BY US MAIL THAT YOU CAN'T PAY ON-LINE or YOU CAN'T PAY WITH YOUR CREDIT CARDS
Re: Re: Getting married ---joint ac Don't get any joint accounts. You never know what could happen. I don't mean to sound harsh. I was too trusting and got burned. Lessons I learned 1. If you have a joint checking account always keep up with the account activity. 2. Keep a separate checking account and just transfer money to a household checking account as needed. 3. Don't put one spouse in charge of paying the household bills. 4. Always double check to make sure that household bills are being paid on time. 5. The minute you suspect your spouse is up to something and or acting irresponsibly protect yourself.
Re: Re: Getting married ---joint ac My husband and I have separate credit card accounts, but all of our bank accounts have both names. Trust me, if someone dies it's easier this way. The other spouse can withdraw money even if the other is dead. If you have separate accounts, and your spouse dies, any direct deposits, etc that go into that account are inaccessible until you go through the courts. And you may need that money. The way we handle it is that we have several joint checking accounts. One is used for most everything. All of my money goes in there, and I write all the checks. My husband has his retirement check go into his account and then he writes a check to the other account for whatever amount needs to go to the bills. His "spending money" stays in his account. I pay all the bills from the main account. We also have savings accounts that are joint. The good thing about having both names on the account--we recently had trouble with our heat pump. The person who usually services it was on vacation and left the name of another person he recommended his customers use. It turned out that the second company didn't take credit cards and we needed a new heat pump (about $1800). My husband didn't have that much in his account, so he just called me, I told him where the extra checks for the main account were, and he wrote the check for the repair. If his name hadn't been on the account I would have had to take several hours off work to go home and write the check. So, I would keep separate accounts as far as who writes checks, but have both names on the account.
Re: Re: Getting married ---joint ac Thanks everybody for the great advice! I really appreciate it. Sorry it has taken me so long to respond. I had thought I had chosen the option to be notified by email when someone has responded to my post but I guess it didn't work. I'm glad I have checked back on my post. This board is great. I have used it for many years and it has saved me a lot of money and hassles. It's a great resource. Thanks again. I guess I will keep the credit card seperate and have a joint checking account. Cool. Jane
Re: Re: Re: Getting married ---join GOOD MORNING JOE'S PLUMBING DO YOU TAKE CREDIT CARDS??? Ok thank you goodbye GET THE YELLOW PAGES OUT
Re: Re: Re: Getting married ---join I didn't even think about it. We have a guy we normally use. He takes credit cards. He was on vacation, and he left a message "if you have a problem please contact XYZ AC." We did, and it wasn't until later that we found out he didn't take credit cards. Since our regular guy did, I just assumed he would.
