Mixing love and money may be good for finances and relationship

Merging accounts helps align a couple's financial goals and draws them closer

- Lisa Rabasca Roepe

When Nia Darville Stokes-Hicks and Armondi Stokes-Hicks married two years ago, they set up five bank accounts.

Each had an individual bank account for personal spending, and they shared a cheque account for paying household bills. They had a joint savings account and yet another account for money they set aside to use together. They weren't unusual—34 per cent of couples in the US have a mix of accounts, and 23 per cent keep their finances entirely separate.

With American couples marrying later in life, maintaining separate accounts has become more common than it once was. By the time most people reach their late 20s and early 30s, they've been working for six or more years, have set up their own cheque and savings accounts, have established personal credit and might even own a home or a brokerage account. Often people want to maintain their own financial independence after marriage, but experts say this isn't necessarily a good idea, especially if you're thinking about long-term goals such as saving for retirement.

Gone are the days when couples get married right out of school, open their first bank account together and learn how to manage money, said Mr Bill Nelson, founder of Pacesetter Planning.

Having separate accounts made it more difficult to see the household's total financial picture, said Mr Stokes-Hicks, 28, a former Netflix writers' production assistant who works as a Starbucks supervisor. He and his wife agreed to simplify their finances when they realised they weren't using their individual bank accounts—they were spending with their credit cards and paying them off using the account for household bills.