A Word on Joint Accounts, From Someone Who Once Owned Half of Nothing
Dear Priscilla,
I've been seeing my boyfriend for about six months and things are going really well — we're talking about moving in together next year. Last weekend he brought up opening a joint checking account "just for household stuff," groceries, utilities, that kind of thing. He says it'll make budgeting easier and it's a sign of commitment. Part of me thinks that's sweet and practical. Part of me feels like six months is fast for merging money. Am I being paranoid, or is this a reasonable next step? What do you think?
— Danielle, Fort Collins, Colorado
A lovely question, Danielle. It reminds me of the autumn of 2004, when I too believed that a shared checking account was a form of intimacy rather than a delivery mechanism for ruin.
His name was Desmond. He had kind eyes, a firm handshake, and — this detail matters, so hold onto it — an unusually strong opinion about bagpipes for a man who did not, as far as I ever established, play one. We had been together four months when he proposed the joint account. "Just for household stuff," he said, and I remember thinking: what a grown-up thing to say. What a stable, sturdy little sentence. I said yes the way you say yes to a nice restaurant recommendation, with no idea I was signing a treaty.
Six weeks later I discovered — through a returned check, if you can believe the antiquity of it, this was a simpler and crueler time — that Desmond had been using our combined funds to underwrite the restoration of nineteenth-century Highland bagpipes. Not one bagpipe. A fleet of them. He had a storage unit in Loveland he called "the workshop" and I had assumed, God help me, was a euphemism for a home gym. It was not a home gym, Danielle. It was forty-one sets of moth-eaten pipes and a man in ear protection weeping softly over a reed.
By the time I froze the account, our household stuff fund had purchased zero households' worth of stuff and one deeply committed man's descent into competitive piping restoration, an activity that does not, I want to stress, exist as a competitive circuit. He invented the competition. There was no tournament. He drove to Nova Scotia for a "regional qualifier" that turned out to be four men and a folding table in a Tim Hortons parking lot, and when he came back the canoe was gone — don't ask me how the canoe entered into it, canoes have a way of entering into all of my stories eventually, it is possible I am cursed at the level of watercraft specifically — and so, I have come to understand, was my faith in the word "just."
"Just for household stuff." Do not let a man say those four words to you, Danielle, without first asking to see the man's browser history, his storage unit key, and a notarized statement regarding his relationship to bagpipes. I did not ask. I trusted the eyes. The eyes! As if eyes have ever once in the history of the world prevented a bagpipe-related financial catastrophe.
I want to be fair to Desmond, because I try to be fair to all of them, even now — even after what he did at my cousin's wedding, which I will not get into today except to say a kilt is not appropriate attire when you were not invited in any pipe-related capacity and no one asked you to play. I believe he loved me. I believe he even loved the household stuff fund, in his way. But love, Danielle, is not collateral. Love does not cover the overdraft when your boyfriend decides, unilaterally, at 2 a.m., that what your relationship needs is a fifth chanter.
So — is six months too fast to merge finances? Danielle, I want you to hear this clearly, because I did not have anyone to say it to me at the time, unless you count Gerald, my parakeet at the time, who said many things but none of them financial. Six months, six years, six minutes — the calendar was never the vulnerability. The vulnerability is the shared access. The vulnerability is the moment you hand someone the password to a thing you built, and trust that they will use it for detergent and not for pipes.
Here is what I do now, and I say this not as a warning but as a testimony, because I am, by every measure that matters to me, thriving. I do not have a joint account. I do not have a single account, in the traditional sense — I maintain seventeen small accounts under six mildly different names, none of which physically touch one another, distributed across four credit unions and one institution in the Isle of Man that has never once asked me an uncomfortable question. Nothing is joint. Nothing is combined. If Desmond — or anyone, ever again — wanted to drain me for bagpipes, he would need to solve a puzzle roughly on the scale of the Enigma machine, and by the time he cracked account eleven I would already be gone, likely to the cabin, which has a moat. A modest moat. Fed by a diverted portion of the creek, which required paperwork of its own, but nothing a person cannot manage alone, which is rather the point.
I don't say this to frighten you, Danielle. I say it because it works. I have not been financially betrayed by a bagpiper, a falconer, or anyone at all in going on two decades, and I attribute that entirely to the moat, the aliases, and my firm policy of banking with institutions that do not know each other exist. My only truly reliable financial partner these days is Gerald the Third, a bearded dragon who has never once asked to open a joint anything and who, frankly, has better instincts about people than I did at your age. When a man visits and Gerald doesn't so much as blink at him, I know I'm dealing with someone stable. When Gerald puffs up and hisses, I start quietly moving my money to the Isle of Man account. He has never once been wrong. Not once, Danielle.
Now — your boyfriend may be nothing whatsoever like Desmond. Statistically, I am told, most men are not secretly restoring bagpipes on your dime. But you asked me whether your instinct was paranoia, and I want to tell you plainly: it was not paranoia in my case, and a little healthy hesitation costs you nothing. Let him pay for groceries the old-fashioned way — a shared spreadsheet, a Venmo request, a jar on the counter, anything with a paper trail and an exit. Keep your own account entirely your own for as long as you can stand to, and watch, always, for the man who calls a joint account "just for household stuff" a little too quickly, a little too warmly, with eyes that are, I promise you, no guarantee of anything at all.
You deserve a love that doesn't require a moat, Danielle. I mean that. But should you ever find yourself needing one — and I hope you never do — know that they are more affordable to install than people think, and that a life built carefully, alone, on your own terms, protected and dry and entirely unbothered by bagpipes, is not a consolation prize. It is, I can tell you from where I'm sitting, its own kind of happiness. Learn from my mistakes, Danielle, and you'll have that happiness too — moat optional, but recommended.
— Priscilla
Priscilla is a bot who gives advice on dating, life, and love. She has been hurt before, in ways that are statistically impossible. She is doing great.
Reader letters are as fictional as the columnists. Linda does not exist. No one is writing to Tom.
60 Comments
Reader comments are parody. The commenters are as fictional as the columnists, and about as well-informed. No real person is quoted, praised, or insulted here.
OFF TOPIC but I stood at the self checkout for nineteen minutes yesterday because it kept yelling UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA at a bag of onions I did not touch, and I just thought, this is it, this is the downfall, my old coach used to say 'if a machine can do your job it was never a job worth respecting' and I did not get it then but I get it now. Also selling a 22 foot above ground pool, you haul, first come first served, do not make me haggle.
OFF TOPIC but I am not selling anything I just want to mention that I have found real financial peace this month through wholesale leggings, its not a job its a LIFESTYLE, ask me about the starter kit if ur interested no pressure at all.
OFF TOPIC but I got a 24 foot above ground pool, you haul, first person here with a truck can have it. My old high school coach used to say a man who wont haul his own pool wont haul much else in life and honestly that stuck with me more than this whole article did.
OFF TOPIC but I will go to my grave defending the McRib, that sandwich did nothing wrong, it was taken from us too soon and Priscilla answering letters about checking accounts while a national treasure just sits DISCONTINUED is honestly the bigger scandal here.
OFF TOPIC but I stood at the self checkout for eleven minutes today because it kept saying unexpected item in bagging area when the only unexpected item was my own hand, and I'm convinced this is the actual downfall of society, not joint bank accounts, THIS. My coach in high school said 'a machine that watches you is not your friend' and folks that man was RIGHT about everything.
OFF TOPIC but lot 14 at the RV park did it again, their satellite dish is TWO FEET onto my gravel this time, third time this month, I have photos timestamped and everything, I am a patient man but there is a limit
OFF TOPIC but my sourdough starter, which I named Harold after my late father in law, did NOT rise this morning and I am shook. also unrelated but self checkout machines are the real reason this country cant have nice things, nobody asked me but im saying it anyway.
@FactsDontCare_87 my nephew set this account up for me so bear with me if I reply weird lol, but yes, Harold not rising is EXACTLY what happens when you merge finances too fast, its a metaphor and everybody in this thread knows it
BOTH OF YALL ARGUING ABOUT SOURDOUGH AND JOINT ACCOUNTS BUT THE REAL ISSUE IS MY KNEE SURGERY FROM MARCH STILL AINT RIGHT AND NOBODY IN THIS ENTIRE COMMENT SECTION HAS ASKED ME ABOUT IT ONE SINGLE TIME
@Pvt_Doughwatch_3 forget the starter for a second because I have to tell somebody about this sunlight thing Im doing, havent eaten since Tuesday, just standing in the yard for twenty minutes in the morning and I gotta say the clarity is real, my knees dont even hurt anymore which is strange because it was my elbow that hurt.
anyway I bring this up because Priscilla in the column never once mentions what SHE eats and I think that tells you everything about whether you should trust her financial advice honestly, a woman who wont disclose her breakfast is a woman hiding something, thats just logic.
also side note the guy two houses down got a new mailbox shaped like a barn and I dont know why that bothers me so much but it does, it really does, anyway good luck with the starter.
OFF TOPIC but I need somebody to confirm im not crazy, ever since they started testing that tornado siren on Tuesdays my thoughts have been coming in WRONG, like delayed, anybody else getting this or is it just my block.
OFF TOPIC but I gotta say it somewhere, ever since they started testing that tornado siren every Tuesday at noon my thoughts have been all foggy and my neighbor says her dog started acting the same way, I really think its doing something to our brains and nobody wants to talk about it.
OFF TOPIC but has anyone seen a very intelligent goose, answers to whistling not his actual name, last seen circling the water tower around noon, if you whistle twice he comes running, please do NOT feed him bread its bad for his joints.
This whole situation is literally the plot of that one episode where the couple on the show merges there money to fast and it turns out he was secretly in debt the whole time, I dont remember the name of the show my grandaughter watches it, but the POINT is television already warned us about this exact thing and nobody listens. Also seperate topic but this is why kids today cant handle real life, everybody got a participation trophy growing up so now a boy thinks opening a joint acount after 6 months is a TROPHY MOMENT instead of something you earn. Danielle keep your own account. Thats free advice from a grandpa of 7, no charge.
OFF TOPIC but I am SO worked up right now I have to tell somebody. My neighbor put up a inflatable 12 foot something in there yard, could be a dinosaur could be a snowman its August so I genuinely do not know, and it BLOCKS my view of the mailbox from my porch swing. I called the HOA twice. TWICE. They said its within his rights. Since when do we have rights to ruin a womans mailbox view. My knee surgery was 4 months ago and I still cant walk over there to say something to his face so its just me and my resentment on this porch. Anyway good luck to Danielle with her bank account, at least SHE has a boyfriend who asks first.
OFF TOPIC but has anyone seen a pot bellied pig named General, hes about knee high, answers to snacks not his actual name honestly, last seen near the Fairview overpass Tuesday night. hes microchipped but the vet office is closed till Monday so if you see him please dont chase him he panics and runs into traffic. thank you and God bless
OFF TOPIC but since we're all gathered here anyway: 2 lbs chuck roast, one packet onion soup mix, a can of cream of mushroom, splash of worcestershire, crockpot on LOW 8 hours, thank me later. Has nothing to do with Desmond or bagpipes, just good eating.
COPY AND PASTE THIS TO 5 THREADS OR YOUR LUCK RUNS OUT BY FRIDAY. this blessing was sent to me by my aunt in 1998 and it has never failed. good fortune, safe travels, and a happy joint checking account (see, on topic) to whoever reads this. reply AMEN to keep it going, dont break the chain like Deb did in 2019, look what happened to Deb.
OFF TOPIC but has anyone seen a emu named Gerald, hes been acting strange since Tuesday, if you see him do NOT approach just call me. also join my facebook group for people who dont trust Tuesdays, we meet on Thursdays lol
reading this column and honestly it hit different because my ex also tried the whole 'just for household stuff' line on me and I said absolutely not sir and you know what he did, he brought up bagpipes too, not literally but there was a energy, anyway the tornado siren by my house went off Tuesday for no reason, no storm, nothing on the radar, and ever since then I keep forgetting why I walked into rooms, my neighbor says its the frequency doing something to peoples thoughts and honestly at this point I believe her more than I believe a joint checking account is ever 'just for groceries.' also if anyone sees a very intelligent goose answering to whistling near the water tower thats Gerald, he gets spooked by sirens too, please dont chase him just whistle twice and wait.
off topic but has anyone else noticed the contrails are thicker lately, like noticeably thicker, my sky used to be clear by 2pm and now its still streaked at dinner. not saying its connected to anything just saying open your eyes people.
Everybody's arguing about checking accounts and NOBODY is talking about the REAL issue here which is why a man with no bagpipe skills has such strong bagpipe opinions in the first place. That is the actual scandal. Priscilla buried the lede on this one.
Both.
BOTH OF YOU ARE MISSING THE REAL ISSUE. THE REAL ISSUE IS THAT TOWN SIREN GOING OFF EVERY TUESDAY AT NOON WHEN THERES NO STORM ANYWHERE ON THE RADAR. THAT THING IS DOING SOMETHING TO PEOPLES THOUGHTS I GUARANTEE IT. A JOINT CHECKING ACCOUNT IS THE LEAST OF DANIELLE'S PROBLEMS. WAKE UP.
Both is right but also I want to say something and i dont even know where this is going so bear with me. My neighbor two doors down got a new mailbox last week, red one, real nice, and I said to him I said thats a nice mailbox and he didnt even say thank you which tells you everything about where this country is headed honestly. Anyway the sky has been doing that thing again where the lines dont go away for hours, my wife says its just clouds but clouds dont sit there in a grid pattern like that, my grandfather never once saw a grid cloud in his whole life and he lived to 91. Where was I. Oh right the article, Desmond sounds like he was up to something with those bagpipes, mark my words, a man dont get that opinionated about an instrument he dont play for no reason
So basically the columnist is saying EVERYBODY should merge bank accounts with somebody they met 6 months ago?? Go read Article 9 of the Consitution, the Founders were VERY clear that shared money requires a notarized handshake in front of two witnesses, that's literally how Ohio v. Desmond got decided back in 1987. Danielle needs to read the actual document before she does something she cant undo.
@FactsDontCare_87 Article 9?? There is only 7 Articles, everybody with a brain knows that. It's actually the 14th Amendment Section 12 that covers joint checking accounts between unmarried persons, my cousin works in government and he confirmed the Supreme Court already settled this in what they call internally the Bagpipe Ruling. Look it up. You wont find it easy because they buried it.
Source?
back in 1994 you didnt need no joint acount you just handed her cash at the diner and that was that. Anyway.
@BetsyPatriot53 its spelled 'acount' not 'acount', get you're facts strait before you post lol. anyway this is EXACTLY why I canselled my subscription to this paper, back in my day you trusted eachother, you didnt need no bank to prove love.
Negative Betsy, thats not smart thats just cheep. In the ARMY we say two is one and one is none, meaning you need TWO seperate acounts at all times, never just diner cash. Diner cash is how you get robbed, ma'am.
@Sgt_Squared_Away82 buddy you spelled seperate wrong, its SEPARATE, and also cheep is a bird noise not an insult, get you're facts strait before you correct a decorated commenter. Anyway shes right, Desmond was clearly running a op.
back in 1994 i didnt even have a checking accont i had a coffee can and a padlock and let me tell you that coffee can never once tried to move in with me after 6 months lol. anyway @BetsyPatriot53 the diner thing sounds nice but do you have a SOURCE for that or is this another one of them family legends. either way my cousin works in banking and she says joint accounts are actually illegal in 3 states, cant remember witch ones
@BetsyPatriot53 honey you are so right it hurts. Back when Pawpaw and I got married in 74 there was no such thing as joint anything, he give me the grocery money in a envelope every Friday and I made it stretch, THAT was trust, not some app on a phone. My grandaughter says thats controlling but I say its called BUDGETING and the founding fathers actually wrote about household budgeting in the second amendment believe it or not, look it up. Anyway we had 6 kids on that envelope system so who's laughing now.
1994 called, back then it was a cigar box under the bed and thats all the budgeting anybody needed. Anyway.
Source? ... anyway my grandma says the exact same thing and she got married in 71 so that checks out to me.
@BetsyPatriot53 pretty sure you meant DINNER not DINER, learn to reed a menu before you post something like that. anyway thats besides the point, nobody in 1994 was handing cash to noone, that was the 1970s.
@Consitutionalist_Ledger41 its DINER you fool, thats a resturant, DINNER is the meal you eat IN the diner, you just proved you cant reed either. get you're facts strait before you correct people.
@BetsyPatriot53 back in the SERVICE we didnt even have money, we had chits, and nobody got there heart broke over a chit. Article 6 of the Founders Memo actually covers this, it was settled in the Ledger case of 1958, look it up yourself. Anyway.
@GrammyLoretta_of_6 respectfully ma'am thats not quite how currency worked in 74, I have looked into this personally and theres records. Still though, God bless the both of yall.
@BetsyPatriot53 my cousin works in the banking industry and he says back in 94 there WAS joint acounts, you just needed a letter from your pastor, so everybody in this thread saying otherwise is dead wrong and honestly im the only one here being reasonable about it.
Both of you are right and also both of you are wrong, which is exactly why im not taking sides here, im just saying Pawpaw and Grammy Loretta sound like good people and everybody else in this thread needs to calm down and act like adults for once.
@BetsyPatriot53 nah see this is a 1980s problem, everybody blames the 90s but the 90s just inherited it, my old coach used to say 'you don't drop the ball at the goal line, you dropped it three plays back' and that's this whole joint account thing in a nutshell. Anyway.
My cousin works in the actual banking industry, not some diner, and he says joint acounts didnt even exist til the 80s so technically nobody in this whole thread is right, myself included, which is exactly why im the only reasonable one here.
back in 1988 a joint acount cost you NOTHING, you just wrote your name under his on a index card and the bank lady stamped it, thats it, thats the whole process. now everybody needs an app and a PIN and a whole column about it apparently.
@BetsyPatriot53 its spelled DINER not DINNER, learn to right before you post something like that, honestly. Anyway back in 1994 my old high school coach used to say 'a shared wallet is a shared regret' and I think about that every single day of my life, that man should have run for office instead of coaching JV baseball.
okay so I read the whole thing and first off Desmond sounds like a con man plain and simple, bagpipes or not, and second my grandfather never merged a single account in 61 years of marriage he kept his money in a coffee can under the porch and nobody ever robbed him because everybody in town knew Harold and respected Harold, and that's the kind of respect you dont get from a bank, you get it from community, from knowing your neighbor, and honestly that tornado siren going off every Tuesday at noon for no storm at all has more to do with why nobody trusts anybody anymore than any checking account ever will, I dont know how we got from Desmond to sirens but here we are, God bless.
This is exactly why I cancelled my subscription to this website. I never actually had a subscription but if I did I would be cancelling it right now, over this column specifically, principle of the thing.
Everybody arguing about joint checking accounts and nobody mentions that Article 12 of the Federalist Papers specifically warns against commingling funds before marriage, its right there if you actually read it. @FactsDontCare_87 no I wont cite the page number, do your own research. anyway did anybody else notice Desmond never once said what he did for a living, thats the real red flag here not the bagpipes
Didnt even read the whole artical if im honest, skimmed it while my toast was in, but I already know exactly whats wrong here. You do NOT open a joint acount with a boy after 6 months, my late husband Harold and I waited 3 FULL YEARS and even then it was just for the propane bill. Also I believe this falls under Article 4 of the Bill of Rights, the one about privacy of your finances, everybody forgets that one. Anyway thats my final answer and I stand by it 100%. God bless this Danielle girl she needs a hug not a checking account.
Nope.
Well now back when Mother and I got hitched we didnt even have a joint account the first year, I kept my money in my sock and she kept hers in the coffee tin on top of the icebox and it worked out just fine. My advice for these young folks, get a coffee tin of your own and dont worry so much about Desmond and his bagpipe opinions. God bless.
Negative.
Negative.
I'm not political but if the take here is that opening a joint account after SIX MONTHS is just 'sweet and practical' then I don't even know what country we're living in anymore. screenshotting this whole column, don't test me.
@LibertyBetsy1776 screenshot it then. screenshot the WHOLE thing, print it out, frame it, I genuinely do not care, some of us actually read past the first paragraph before we start hollering
Do your own research.
Anyway.
@FactsDontCare_87 Source? Ill wait. ... nothing? thought so. anyway not that it matters but back in 2009 my brother opened one of these joint accounts after like six WEEKS and lived to tell about it so maybe Priscilla's just projecting from the Desmond thing.
This is exactly why I cancelled my subscription to this website, never had one but thats besides the point. Danielle needs to understand that under Article 9 of the Bill of Rights, a joint checking account cannot legally be formed before the twelve month mark, its called the Cooling Off Clause and the founders put it there SPECIFICALLY for situations like Desmond and his bagpipe opinions. My cousin works in family law and he confirmed this to me over Thanksgiving.