<prompt> Human: Hi PF. I will keep this short. We are a young married couple that currently does not have joint finances on paper. We have been together for 4 years, married for 1. We are running our business as a primary source of income, rent an apartment, and lease a car. I pay the rent and utilities water, electric out of my own funds thats another story; it is money I earned before marrying my husband and will last us long enough to pay for housing without touching our primary income. We pay the car lease, insurance, phone, groceries, travels, and whatever else from the income we earn through the business. We have no debt or other expenses.We both have our own credit cards two credit cards each and business cards debit, credit. Our credit scores are OK, I think, for people our age - 770 FICO. The reason Im writing this is because we plan on buying a house in the near future and I was wondering if, for whatever reason, we should join our finances on paper, as well. Specifically, should we have joint accounts? Should we authorize each other on our credit cards? Do joint finances have ANY benefits in the long run, if the spouses already agreed who pays what and how? Thanks yall.  <response>: Joint finances make it much easier to make financial plans as a couple of maintain good communication around money manners. They also foster thinking about yourselves as a single unit...rather than thinking in terms of whats mine and yours. A couple of specific examples where this helps a lot are with child rearing and pursuing further education. With a split finance model, figuring out the fair way to distribute expenses when one spouses income drops significantly can be tricky and holds the potential for resentment either that one partner isnt pulling their weight, or that the other is being stingy with their higher income. In a joint finance model, it doesnt matter who brings in the income, it all goes in the same pool, so changes that lower income get absorbed by the household as a whole without figuring out exactly how to divide responsibility. 