BUILDING YOUR FINANCE WORKING AREA

Yet another approach we’ve seen is to establish three checking accounts: one for household expenses and one for each of the two partners. In the most common version of this method, each spouse allocates a portion of income to a common household pool but keeps a portion in a separate checking account for independent expenses.
This approach preserves a measure of independence for each of you, but it also invites some of the problems of the single checkbook—specifically, all bill-paying responsibilities tend to fall on the shoulders of one spouse—and thus should be considered very carefully before implementation.

How you got into debt is particularly significant because the work you need to do and the changes you want to make will be different if, for example, your debts were caused by a job loss as opposed to uncontrolled spending. Determining your priorities will help you later in the budgeting and rebuilding process at the moment of dealing with your financial arrangements.

Your first step is to prepare your workspace. Clear an area in which you can work without having to move things for a while (in other words, a table that you don't need to clear off for meals or for doing other work). This project might take a bit of time, and if you need to get back to it later, you don't want to get slowed down or possibly sidetracked by having to put everything away.

You want your work area to be someplace you'll see it regularly so you'll be reminded that you should be making progress. However, you don't need to set up your work area
where visiting neighbors are likely to see it. This is not an exercise in humiliation, just a way of making it diffcult to forget.

One decided advantage here over the dual-account approach: There is a common account, and it can be used to save money for big-ticket purchases and long-term goals. Without some mechanism for joint savings, it isn’t clear who will pay to fix a leaky roof, or if either of you has enough money to cover the repairs. Trust us. If you don’t have money saved in a joint account, the roof will spring a leak.

A word about on-line banking: It works, and it can be a great boost for timesaving and efficiency. If your bank offers on-line accounts, you can get started by setting up a list of creditors that accept on-line payments; many will, although you will encounter some exceptions. When you’re ready to pay any bill, click on that creditor, type in the amount owed, and click your mouse again. That simply, your bill is paid.

After you identify your work area, gather the following items:

■ Pens, pencils, erasers, and pencil sharpener:
■ Pads of lined paper and lots of scratch paper
■ Calculator
■ All outstanding bills, loan vouchers, and statements of
any kind (including mortgage, student loans, and any
thing else that you owe)
■ Paycheck stubs
■ Information about other sources of income (interest pay
ments, child support, royalties, and so on)
■ Information about assets, savings, and property

You can make it simpler still by incorporating a recurring payment feature, so you won’t have to enter each payment. Quite a few companies, utilities chief among them, can automatically deduct payment from your checking account. However, you may prefer the greater control afforded by on-line banking. You know exactly what you’re paying, before it’s deducted. With automatic drafts, the opposite is true. Only after the payment is taken do you learn the amount of the bill.

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