A recent Yahoo Finance survey unveiled that over 60% of individuals share a joint bank account. Yahoo Finance's Molly Moorehead joins the Live Show to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of maintaining a joint bank account.
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Editor's note: This article was written by Angel Smith
Video Transcript
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BRAD SMITH: There are often a few steps that couples take when they're in a relationship, moving in together, maybe getting a pet, a little furry friend, and thinking about children, non-furry friends. Getting a joint bank account? Oof, yeah. That wasn't your thermostat rising. It's just that hot of a topic here.
Yahoo Finance ran its own poll, and the results are clearly mixed here. Nearly 32% say they have all joint accounts. 30% say they have both joint and separate, and 38% say they have no joint accounts. Ooh, spicy. So, could joint accounts be the right thing for you? That's the big question.
Let's bring in Yahoo Finance's Molly Morehead to break it down further. So let's start with what a joint account is for our viewers, who might not already be privy to this and this-- this debate.
MOLLY MOORHEAD: The spicy debate.
BRAD SMITH: Yes.
MOLLY MOORHEAD: So a joint account is a regular bank account, could be checking or savings, but it has more than one owner. Usually it's two people, could be more. But the important thing to understand is that it's not half and half. It's not I own half and you own half. We all-- We both own all of it. So not really shared in that sense.
BRAD SMITH: So walk us through the pros and cons as people are deciding for themselves, joint bank accounts or not.
MOLLY MOORHEAD: A big pro is transparency. So if you and your partner have an account, you can both see what's coming in and what's going out. You don't have to wonder, where did that $200 go? It's all there for everybody to see. And that can make things simpler if your-- if you live together, own a home, you're managing those expenses. An easy way to do that can be out of a jointly held account.
On the other hand, that transparency, that's a plus to some people. Might-- Might make others uncomfortable. I don't want you seeing all of my Starbucks runs. Thank you very much. And so if you want to maintain some privacy, one thing I like is the approach of have a joint account for shared bills and then keep your own account on the side that's just yours.
BRAD SMITH: I'll be totally forthright and say, I know exactly where that $200 went. It went towards a delivery in LEGO set. But anyway, how about a checklist to know if this might be the right account alignment for you?
MOLLY MOORHEAD: Yeah. Some good situations very common, like we talked about, couples who are kind of merging their lives get a joint account. But then, also, a good one is a parent of a child, maybe a pre-teen or a teenager who's learning to manage money. A joint account gives that kid some spending power helps them learn about money management, but the parent has oversight.
And then lastly, if you have an aging parent, if you're an adult child of an aging parent, who maybe just can't manage their money all on their own anymore, this is a really good arrangement with some safeguards in place. And a lot of people find that helpful as their parents are getting older.
