Sanity

Remember the old saying, what his is mine and what mine is mine. Don't believe it? Ask a divorce attorney.


Seriously though, I do freelance work and what I've done is AFTER all the bills are paid I put a little bit in a separate "play account" and buy myself or our son something. My tax return goes towards bills and credit card debt but we will take a vacation. There is always room for compromise.

ManDup

Even more important are the divorce laws. Not that you are getting divorced, but if you're interested in the legal aspects of it that's the place to look. In Texas, which is a community property state, it goes like this: any gift or inheritance or money/property brought into the marriage is separate property. Anything earned in the marriage is community property. So that's the law, at least here.

Of course from a practical point of view, I'd say that hobby money is strictly the earner's, up until it affects the primary income source in some way (have to cut back real work hours to do the "hobby" etc.) This might cut both ways, of course.

FWIW, in my marriage I handle the finances, they are entirely joint, there is no extra source of income, but we are both on the same page as far as frugality and the importance of being debt-free.

wild_irish_rose

In our household, it was always "our" money until he wanted something expensive that I didn't think we could afford (I was the one paying the bills, we were both making good money but he made more). When I was 8 months pregnant and going on maternity leave so would have no income for several months (which was going to make our mortgage payments TIGHT during that time), he went out and bought himself an $18,000 motorcycle without telling me until AFTER he had already bought it. Needless to say, I was PISSED. Especially since we hadn't even finished buying the necessary stuff for the new baby yet and we already knew that child care expenses were going to take up a good chunk of my income once I went back to work.

And two years later, when he filed for bankruptcy after we separated - what conveniently got left OUT of the bankruptcy settlement - his expensive motorcycle and his even more expensive SUV. While we lost our house, I lost my car, and we destroyed our credit rating for the next 10 years.