<prompt> Human: My fiancé and I are merging our finances. This is the system weve come up with: all personal savings up to this point will remain separate. Next month, well have our pay checks direct deposited into a joint savings account. Each month, we will transfer into the associated checking account enough money to cover our monthly expenses plus a little extra. This account covers joint expenses like bills and groceries. We will also transfer into our personal accounts a percentage say 10 of our own personal income for that month. The personal accounts will be used for things like gifts, date nights, materials for individual hobbies, etc. Heres the thing: one of us makes three times the others salary. This system seems fair in that all income is treated as joint income for the purposes of joint expenses but individual expenses are tied to salary. However, this does mean that the higher earner is paying a larger portion of all joint expenses.My two questions are this: Has anyone tried a similar system before, and how has it worked outwhat would you change? And what percentage of income do people recommend we place in our personal accounts? We are maxing out our individual retirement accounts and we have no issues meeting our monthly expenses right now. Only one partner has any debt student loans which we plan to pay off aggressively without sacrificing too much liquidity. ETA: I want to clarify that individual expenses are only things like gifts to one another or the rare gift to yourself like a luxury item only one person will use. Movies, dinners, etc. that we do together will be joint. Splitting expenses down the middle doesnt feel quite right for us given the large disparity in pay. One partner would be actively saving, investing, and able to afford a higher quality of life than the other. The higher earner might feel pressured not to do things they can personally afford because the other partner cant responsibly afford it.Were very open about finances and trust each other when it comes to spending and saving. We just wanted to see what system worked for couples with large pay disparities.EDIT 2: It sounds like all joint expenses or a same-dollar-amount fixed allowance for both people each month works better for most people. Thanks!Assistant: This is really more of a rrelationships topic than a PF topic, but here goes. Youre likely to hear a lot of conflicting opinions about this, but heres what has worked for me. I am married and I make nearly 3 times as much as my SO, but we have 100 joint accounts. Other than maybe a couple hundred dollars in fun-money stashed in the sock drawer, we do not have any separation of finances. 100 of both of our paychecks are deposited into the same checking account every month. When it comes to paying for household expenses, the money comes from that joint account. Theres no thought given for who pays for which expense because we both pay for all expenses. I look at it like this. When we decided to get married, we decided we were both committed 100 to the relationship, including the merging of our finances and debts. Does that carry some financial risk? Sure it does, but I would not marry someone whom I dont 100 trust.It gets a bit trickier when youre talking about your fiance rather than your spouse, though. I personally would not merge finances until youre married because, if something were to go sideways in the relationship, at least marriage has some legal ramifications and is harder to get out of than just breaking up. Human: Thanks for your comment. For what its worth, weve set a date for the wedding and it isnt far off, were just being proactive because we dont see a point in setting up a system the day after we get married; plus, this gives us time to see whether the system works. Additionally, when I say individual expenses, Im referring to a very small number of things, it would only apply to things like gifts for the other person or occasional gifts to yourself e.g. an expensive model kit for the partner who likes building models. Its important to us to have some independent finances for things like gifts to each other to feel like real gifts not an item we both had a hand in buying. Furthermore, personal accounts help the lower earner retain some autonomy and not feel guilty if they make a big purchase for just themselves e.g. model kit or feel like they have to ask the higher earner for permission.  <response>: 100 joint money is the only thing that works in my opinion. Ive been married or living with my SO for 12 years now. Weve swapped who makes more or less than the other a couple times and there have been some very large disparities. Currently one is unemployedThe thing with marriage is that there is no more yours and mine. Youre saying the lower earner needs their own money to not feel guilty about big purchases or feel like they need to ask permission, but I hate to break it to you - in a marriage big purchases should be discussed.My suggestion would be to set up a household budget, all income coming in and all expenses going out, whats left is divided among spending and saving. If youre afraid of or unwilling to discuss large purchases with each other you may not be ready for marriage. Marriage is truly a joining together and becoming an us. If you think someone will be petty or hold resentment over spending or get into arguments over it instead of compromise, thats a pretty big issue that should be addressed head on, not tried to cover up by a convoluted two income expense sharing system.We have joint everything, small things 50 or less get bought without discussion, bigger things get discussed first. Sometimes they arent, but neither of us abuse the system or hold resentment. The key is love and a true desire for the other to be happy.Think about what youd do if one of you became unemployed for an extended period. Probably share everything, give each other spending money, right? Why not just do that all the time? 