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" You&amp;#039;ve got better things to do than fight over bill paying. Keep the peace with these pointers on how to pool checking accounts, keep the credit cards separate and more.   For many couples, money is a subject to be studiously avoided \u2014 or, more likely, bickered over. Joanne, a hotel administrator in Dayton, puts it this way: &amp;quot;All our fights are about finances; we just can&amp;#039;t get a grip on it. I feel as if there are all these money rules that everyone else knows, but no one ever told me and Dave about.&amp;quot;  Of course no one told them how to handle their money. It&amp;#039;s a topic that too often just isn&amp;#039;t discussed. But, say the experts, the more you and your husband do talk \u2014 rationally \u2014 about your finances, the richer you&amp;#039;ll be. Smart handling of married money can earn you higher interest rates, enhance your credit rating and protect your financial future. Granted, you and your husband may never be the greatest financial team since Dow met Jones, but these tips can help you decide if, when and how you want to share funds. Remember though, these are strategies, not rules \u2014 and they&amp;#039;re based on what will work best for you financially. Most couples deal with their confusion about money by &amp;quot;doing nothing, which is the worst mistake you can make,&amp;quot; says Adriane G. Berg, author of Financial Planning for Couples. It means you&amp;#039;re neither making your money work hard enough nor planning for your future \u2014 and that&amp;#039;s just the short list. Remedy the situation by calling a household financial summit. Pull out all your statements, get acquainted with your situation and goals and start the dialogue. If you&amp;#039;ve been clinging to those individual bank accounts from your single days, forsake them now for joint accounts. The larger combined amount will work harder for you \u2014 it will probably earn more interest (many banks pay higher rates for higher balances), minimize fees (for instance, no charges for cash-machine withdrawals) and give you other perks, like free checking.  Don&amp;#039;t just plunk all your money into a combined checking account, though. Put just enough money in the bank to qualify for free checking. Open a money market account as well, which will earn a bit more interest; see our advice on investing additional money for future goals. Then manage your pooled money as Sherry, a publicist in Providence, does: &amp;quot;We put both our paychecks into a joint money market account and transfer what we need for expenses to our joint checking account at the start of each month. It really helps us keep track of how and where we&amp;#039;re spending our money.&amp;quot; The financial experts insist you&amp;#039;re better off pooling your paychecks, but let&amp;#039;s say you want to keep some money private. Maybe you want to buy your husband a birthday present without his seeing how much you spent. Or maybe, like Jean, a Los Angeles talent agent, you don&amp;#039;t want your husband complaining about how much it costs to get your hair highlighted. Then try out a &amp;quot;spooling&amp;quot; (splitting plus pooling) arrangement. How it works: Open his, hers and ours accounts (and be prepared to pay monthly fees, quite likely, on all of them). The bulk of your paycheck goes into the larger &amp;quot;ours&amp;quot; account, to pay the mortgage and other monthlies; the rest gets deposited into your smaller individual account, to dole out the money for personal expenses. If one of you has brought a separate, sizable account to the marriage, don&amp;#039;t make your partner pay for it. Despite all this talk of pooling paychecks, here&amp;#039;s a scenario to consider: Let&amp;#039;s say one of you brought a serious chunk of change to your marriage and didn&amp;#039;t merge it with your spouse&amp;#039;s money. (Incidentally, in most cases such assets, whether stocks, bonds or a savings account, do not automatically become community property when you wed.) If you&amp;#039;re filing taxes jointly \u2014 and you&amp;#039;ll probably get the best breaks if you do \u2014 then both of you are paying taxes on the interest that only one of you has been earning. Out of all fairness, the person with the money should either cover all the taxes due \u2014 or share the account&amp;#039;s income. Granted, you may be paying two membership fees, but you really must avoid the Mr. &amp;amp;amp; Mrs. path on this one. If you have a joint credit card and blow the budget, your family credit rating is ruined \u2014 and with it any hopes of, say, a car loan for the foreseeable future. With individual cards, even if one of you goes on a major spending binge, it won&amp;#039;t destroy the family&amp;#039;s creditworthiness. This can be a challenge if your money styles don&amp;#039;t mesh. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ll want a bigger house in a few years, but we couldn&amp;#039;t agree on how to get there,&amp;quot; admits Rebecca, a sportswriter outside of Dallas. &amp;quot;My husband wanted to gamble on hot stocks; I&amp;#039;d rather hide the money under the mattress.&amp;quot; Then they hit upon a model program: They sat down with a financial planner who arranged to have a realistic amount deducted from their joint checking account &amp;quot;before we could burn it,&amp;quot; says Rebecca. Half goes into a money market, which they can withdraw from without penalty if an emergency strikes; one quarter goes into blue-chip stocks (their value will fluctuate, but over time they typically earn a healthy return); and one quarter goes into a steady, stable bond fund. Pitching money into a joint retirement &amp;quot;nest egg&amp;quot; account with your husband may feel cozy, but it&amp;#039;s not a money-savvy move. In a basic savings plan, taxes aren&amp;#039;t deferred, meaning you owe them right away on the interest, at your current tax-bracket rate, rather than at retirement time, when your rate should be considerably lower.  Instead, the experts advise taking advantage of a 401(k) plan, if your employer offers one, and investing in an individual retirement account, or IRA. &amp;quot;Nothing beats IRAs and 401(k)s,&amp;quot; says Judy Phillips, head of Harris Bank&amp;#039;s Investor Center in Chicago. You&amp;#039;ll benefit on two fronts \u2014 a tax deduction every year you contribute, plus earnings that are tax-deferred. A note for at-home moms: Your husband can make contributions of $2,000 to both his own IRA and one in your name, known as a spousal account.  Congratulations: You just got a spot bonus or an inheritance. But rather than blowing the whole amount on fun stuff, take a cue from Leane, a mortgage broker and mother of two in Portland, Oregon: &amp;quot;My husband and I made a pact that a third of any windfall goes toward &amp;#039;financial healing&amp;#039; \u2014 like beefing up our kids&amp;#039; college funds.&amp;quot;  Warning: Never put a windfall in a checking or savings account while you decide what to do with it. &amp;quot;Put it in a money market or one- or two-month CD to earn more interest,&amp;quot; advises Imre Kov\u00E1cs, a financial consultant at Fahnestock &amp;amp;amp; Co., a Wall Street brokerage firm. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;ll have a greater windfall waiting when you figure out how to spend it.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/love-sex/relationships/advice/a191/smart-couples-ll/>