Comments on: Relationships and Money: Are You Communist, Socialist, or Capitalist?

By: James

James — Sun, 23 May 2010 07:56:25 +0000

I used to be capitalist until me and my partner had kids now were more communists although our money is separate we still half with everything and this works well for us.

By: Christina

Christina — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:51:03 +0000

Interesting. For the capitalist couples, how do you file taxes, jointly or separately? If jointly, who pays or gets the refund? And what if your spouse’s money management has incurred taxes that you wouldn’t have if you were managing it? If separately, you are not getting the benefit of filing jointly if ones makes significantly more than the other. And how do you divide housework? Down to the middle?

By: Rico

Rico — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:44:58 +0000

Interesting, how there is still a viewed “bread winner” role in a majority of heterosexual marriages, and thus Communist model is the default.

To share some insight with you, most of my friends are in committed Gay relationships (10 years +) and all of the relationships are a mix. They are Capitalistic with most of their income and expenses (one person’s name is on the utility bill, the other pays for cable, separate retirement plans, bank accounts, credit cards, etc.) However they are Socialistic on the big items (rent/mortgage/ property, trips/ cruises, business ventures).

None of them–and I really mean NONE are in Communistic relationships outside of MAYBE sharing 1 credit card.

By: John L

John L — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:41:17 +0000

I’m a communist and my wife is a capitalist. We don’t have any conflict about this, curiously. She’s a generous person, she just likes being independent, and she feels guilty when she spends what I view as our money.

There was a great speech by President Reagan where he talked about the evils of communism and the Great American family values, or something like that. I enjoyed the irony, since I’ve always thought of Marxist communism (“from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”) as a family value.

By: Ways to Deal With Finances as a Couple

Ways to Deal With Finances as a Couple — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:59:19 +0000

[...] Utterly confused? Read the breakdown of each system. [...]

By: Carol Topp, CPA

Carol Topp, CPA — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:32:00 +0000

My and my dh of 25 years are communists.

We tried your adult allowance idea 25 years ago as newly weds, but found it wasn’t really needed. Maybe because we are both pretty frigal and didn’t need “blow accounts” as Dave Ramsey calls them.

Here’s my husband’s two rules for happy marriage:

Marry someone cheaper than you are and meaner to the kids. You will have nothing to argue about!

By: Sunday Link Rodeo 15

Sunday Link Rodeo 15 — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:57:40 +0000

[...] Relationships and Money: Are You Communist, Socialist or Capitalist? from @mymoneyblog A great way to simplify and explain political economics and its affect on your relationship. Which do you think is best? [...]

By: TL

TL — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:59:17 +0000

We’re between communists and socialists. We have been married for 8 months. We have seperate accounts we manage but have everything on Mint so we know what is going on with the other’s accounts and our names are on both even though I generally use mine and he generally uses his. He pays the monthly bills (mortgage, utilities, cellphones), I pay the less regular bills, groceries, taxes, insurance, home improvement and extras like vacations. It suits our personalities better for him to pay the regular bills and for me to shell out the huge amounts for property taxes, new chimney etc. He makes twice as much as I do since I am a grad student but I worked before hand so the house downpayment was all me. We both contribute to IRA’s we plan to use together. He has his 401k and I have one from a previous employer. I contribute to my IRA and when his savings account gets big, nudge him to contribute to his.

I couldn’t imagine really keeping the money seperated. I think it would lead to fights when it is important in marriage to be a team that works together and desire what is best for your partner as much as what is best for you. But having our seperate checking accounts prevents oopses from not knowing when the other is paying the bill and making sure there is enough pulled from savings to cover.

By: kd

kd — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 07:01:41 +0000

I’m on my second stretch. The first marriage we did thing socialist, me being the lower income and come divorce we had to split things evenly anyway.

On my second marriage I just couldn’t be bothered to do a socialist approach. Knowing full well that our marriage dictate an equal split on a divorce, I opted for communist. My wife makes less than me and prefers a socialist approach. Interestingly enough that is one of the few things that conflict in our relationship.

By: Pedro

Pedro — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:51:33 +0000

For us married folk, I think the communist pot works easiest. It also supports your commitment to the partnership. Even if you were to get a divorce, you generally have to split the assets anyway (minus what you had before you got married, lest you have a prenup).

By: Debbie M

Debbie M — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 04:21:54 +0000

Communism and socialism sound nice here, but then I would feel guilty for making a small salary and not being achievement oriented; we’re capitalists.

However, we also have subsidies for when one person (not always the richer one) wants to share something too rich for the other one’s blood. (Maybe the subsidies mean we’re a little socialist; probably it means we’re bureaucrats.)

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 02:56:58 +0000

@simplesimon clever!

By: simplesimon

simplesimon — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 02:43:35 +0000

I’m single and have complete control over my finances.

Call me Joseph…

…or Adolf.

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 02:32:07 +0000

Married 20 years as communists! I never thought of it that way, I always considered us one single entity but it is a very thoughtful analogy.

We decided for my wife to stay home and raise the kids. As a capitalist should she have starved? Gone on welfare?

By: David

David — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 01:31:01 +0000

I’ve been living with my girlfriend for a couple years now. We keep a tab for groceries and household expenses so that gets split. We used to split rent, but then I bought a house with my money, and she pays me rent, but even with me getting the benefit of paying off the mortgage she’s not paying half. I’d rather split things 50-50, but she can’t really afford to, so it’s not much of an option at the moment. To keep things simple I’m paying for all major house expenses…therefore the house itself is “mine”.
I don’t know how people keep things separate if kids are in the picture. Pooling money would make it more difficult for me to be frugal. I have a lot less incentive to buy in bulk or to buy a cheaper but effective product if I’m only getting half of the savings. It’s a less efficient system in that the other person is an intermediate in the cause and effect equation.
Essentially sharing all your money and resources works out pretty poorly if you get divorced (half the people do) and keeping things separately might become nonsensical when hypothetically you are looking into retirement homes or taking trips, and one partner would basically have to leave the other one behind to not share the money.

By: DCnTN

DCnTN — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 23:35:46 +0000

My spouse and I are not communist, we are a single financial entity. I think it’s a deceptive idea to confuse a true partnership with communism. (I do understand that this is just a though provoker).

It probably makes a difference that when we got married we were 21 and 22 respectively and completely broke. She was just graduating college and I had five years left. She put me though college and I have earned almost all the income since. In the 28 years since we married I have never thought of money as mine or hers. It has always been ours.

By: Alexandria

Alexandria — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:20:32 +0000

P.S. We didn’t physically combine all of our assets until we had kids. I think having kids just adds another layer. Even our cars used to be very his/hers, before kids came along. We had never bothered to make all our accounts joint before that – even if we treated them as “one.”

By: Alexandria

Alexandria — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:18:50 +0000

Socialist – financially anyway.

I think a lot of it is living in a community property state – it’s not like separating out our money makes a difference if we were to split, etc. We married together, young, with equal assets and wages. (Since then my spouse has not worked almost a decade – to raise kids – but hasn’t changed our philosophy). I’ve always realized that it was easy/logical for us to share everything because we came into the marriage on such equal financial footing (& also because we see very eye-to-eye financially). BUT, on the flip side, I can’t see marrying someone that I don’t trust 100%+ and that I can’t have the same money relationship with. I am just used to being completely on the same page to my spouse.

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 19:33:49 +0000

My SO and I (we live together) are capitalist. I make more than her, but he doesn’t want to split expenses any way than 50/50. Maybe if we get married we will become socialist.

By: Mike H

Mike H — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:44:26 +0000

That’s really funny, I just got married 2 months ago and I feel like we’re 100% communist, but I am politically libertarian and a strong capitalist for everything outside my marriage. Luckily, we’re both pretty frugal, and right now were grad students making practically the same. I keep track of all the money and pay the bills because I enjoy it, it’s a hobby for me. I give her updates every month or so and we can basically buy whatever we want, but we are contentions and let each other know when we bought something small and we discuss at length any big purchases, like our new puppy or the big screen TV I really want.

By: PA CPA

PA CPA — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:33:57 +0000

I’d have to say my wife and I are communists in spirit. While we share everything, technically not everything is “jointly” owned. Part of that is due to certain accounts being opened for incentives and such. She actually greatly dislikes this though and reminds me all the time “Make sure you’ve updated the ‘just in case’ file.” so she’ll know where everything is at (and remind her why it’s there) when I go .

By: Moneymonk

Moneymonk — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:19:23 +0000

Looking at this list. I am definately a Capitalist !!

But there is that saying “socialist when poor, capitalist when rich”. It all depends what side of the coin you are on.

By: John

John — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:45:35 +0000

I would say that I’m between a socialist & a capitalist. I believe in splitting joint cost equally, but using a joint account to pay those bills. I am also for a joint saving account for vacation & other large shared expenses, such as purchasing home furnishings, completing a renovation, etc. However I would always keep your own personal savings and/or checking out for your own discretionary spending. Obviously if you are in a committed relationship a larger portion of your income would go towards funding the joint accounts, but I would ignore your personal accounts. As for retirement, it is far enough away that I will take some time to figure out what would be best.

By: Maury

Maury — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:35:05 +0000

Yeah, I know one married couple where the guy was investing, and the gal was paying off high interest credit card debt. He was earning a lot less on his investments than she was paying. Still, his logic was somewhat sound as I can understand him not wanting to be an enabler as that might hurt them worse down the road. It was an interesting situation.

One pot for our family… I trust my wife completely with our finances which is nice. We are both pretty cheap.

By: SavingFreak

SavingFreak — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:30:00 +0000

We would fall under communist in our family. We treat all money as ours and sit down each month to figure out how we are going to spend it. In doing counseling with couples we find that people who work together make their money go much farther than those who separate their money in to different accounts.