Account Integration and Consolidation for the "Newly Wed" couple
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@IRJ said:
I posted this on SW because I wanted a variety of opinions, but I wanted to post here as well.
Marriage and children are definitely a big commitment. There are alot of things that run through a man or woman's mind when it comes to marriage and/or starting a family. One of the things that never came to my mind was account integration.
How do you handle it?
How should it be handled?
Let's start out with the obvious ones and then talk about the other accounts that may come to mind
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Social Media Accounts - I have seen couples that share one and I have also seen couples that each have a separate account.
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Google Play Store or Apple accounts - I have never had to worry about buying apps or devices for anyone, but my self. We have many paid apps that we have both bought over time. I guess the first thing to do is understand the legality of purchasing apps. Are they only supposed to be purchased for one user at a time or is it ok to share apps between family members under one google account?
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Online Shopping - Do you have different Amazon or online shopping accounts between family members. Of course Amazon Prime is probably shared between most families, but do you just give your account to your wife or do you make family accounts and deactivate your old accounts?
Social Media - separate accounts and say you're married to each other. I hate having to try and figure out if it's the husband or wife posting on Facebook when they share an account...
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Google/Apple accounts - separate...you each had your own. What advantage do you get from joining them? None really.
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@dominica and I share an Amazon account, as that is just shopping. We share Netflix and Hulu and things like that. Netflix has individual users anyway. But things like Facebook, Twitter, etc. are just creepy to combine together. Those things are representatives of individuals and there are ways for them to show that you are married or whatever. It's jarring to other people to talk to a "person" and have it be someone else. And it is simply kinda weird. And when you tie them together you can't use them for communicating to each other. @dominica and I chat and post on FB to each other regularly, for example.
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Online Shopping - personally, I know my parents have separate accounts but that's just because my father used eBay heavily back in the 90s and early 2000s and my mother used it years later for a totally different reason. Again, separate or one account, it doesn't really matter. You're probably using the same credit cards for both accounts so they don't care and neither should you. IMO YMMV
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@thanksaj said:
Google/Apple accounts - separate...you each had your own. What advantage do you get from joining them? None really.
Actually we join them and the kids use the same one too. It means we buy software once and we get it as a family. Don't need to buy software for each person in the household.
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Take it from someone who has been married a long time.
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You are separate people keep social media accounts separate. The only time I think you might want to combine is when you have a child for picture purposes (but even then separate accounts is better). You both have different interests and things to share. It should be clear to friends/family/business associates who is posting what.
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Google Play (don't know don't use it) Apple we all have our own cause if we combined them there is some sync issues across the IPhone/Ipad getting calls and text messages. You can share and turn those things off but. Easier to have your own.
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Amazon Prime we (husband son and I) all have separate cards for when we purchase but we share an account.
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If you combine shopping accounts you can do things like Prime and have it make sense and you can get higher volume and combine orders. We shop for products as a couple, we buy as a couple, so our account is ours.
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Yes we shop as a couple and we shop separately and both of us shop for our respective businesses all through the same prime account. Makes are volume higher and we split the cost of prime between the accounts to (taxes in my house are annoying to figure out).
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@Minion-Queen said:
- Google Play (don't know don't use it) Apple we all have our own cause if we combined them there is some sync issues across the IPhone/Ipad getting calls and text messages. You can share and turn those things off but. Easier to have your own.
Ditto on the Play store knowledge.
Using the new Family account functions from Apple on their devices works out well.
My devices do not ring/get messages on my wife's devices but we can download each other's purchases. -
Here's how my wife and I do it:
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Social Media Accounts - separate, although we usually have each other's passwords to stuff just in case we need it for anything (and because we trust each other
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Apple store - one account, since it saves on having to purchase apps multiple times.
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Online shopping - we usually share one account, although there's minimal overlap on where we shop, mostly Amazon. We do have separate wishlists though.
Finances - one bank account, but we use envelope budgeting and put money into individual spending sub-accounts, so that we have money that we can each spend without checking in with each other. Major purchases we decide on together.
If there's any disagreements on what you guys come up with then there is usually an underlying issue that is driving it, so don't stop with the surface issue. Perhaps one of you has been burned in the past, or has a family history that is relevant.
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Social Media accounts - separate! My gosh, my eyeballs might fall right out of my head from how hard I roll them when I see combined accounts. We all know those people have trust issues, and if you're considering it because you don't trust the other person not to have shady communications, or innocent communications that you decide are shady, then there's a bigger issue. Maybe couples therapy would help. (Not directed specifically at you, but "you" in the broader sense of "lots of people")
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Apple ID's - we use one to save money on apps that we all use across multiple devices. As long as you fix the settings so that you're not automatically downloading everything and sharing every phone number, etc., it's great.
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Online shopping - we share an Amazon Prime account because it would be silly not to. That's really the only site from which we both make purchases, so we don't share accounts on say Oldnavy.com, but then again, it's not like Scott ever orders his own clothes or anything, and if he did, we'd probably just share it.
ETA: bank accounts - we had separate accounts at the same bank, so we just added the other to our accounts. Now we mainly use Scott's for everything, and if we have a specific designation for funds, we might move them to my account. It's just easier this way. I really like @Nic's idea of designating subaccounts for spontaneous expenses. Good idea.
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Our biggest problem is we have all had apple accounts for a long time. Now that we can combine them it's a pain so it will stay.
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Art and I each have a separate free spend account that we put a certain amount in each week (envelope idea just with credit/debit cards). And then a joint account for paying bills out of.
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As a soon to be married person this is helpful. Thanks everyone.
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Our bank accounts are "separate" as in we each have our own savings and checking. But we have access to each others. So we aren't keeping money from each other, but we can track where it goes to when we need to.
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Oh yes we both have access to each others accounts but they are separate.
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Ideally go for separate houses.
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Mrs nadnerB and I use seperate email addresses, social media and amazon accounts.
We share the financial stuff. -
@dominica and I have a shared wiki to track information. We highly recommend that. It has been invaluable.
