Getting Married To Your Sweetheart’s Credit Cards Part 1
written by Credit-HQ ExpertWhen you walk down that aisle to take your sweetheart in marriage, your lives become one. But it might be worth thinking twice about whether that means your credit cards become part of your community property or not. It is not a given that just because you are legally married that you have to combine your credit cards. You can operate with as much or as little unity in terms of your credit use as you both are comfortable with.
What’s Yours is Mind and Mine is Yours – Maybe!
It could be that you or your new husband or wife are not at ease about sharing credit cards that you both had before the marriage. And if this area of your financial life is going to result in a marital spat, it might be worth it to think twice before combining your accounts. It is entirely likely that keeping separate credit card accounts makes sense. So it’s a good thing to think this through so you make the right decision for your family financial picture.
It is quite easy to add yourself to your spouse’s credit cards and him or her to yours. It is just a matter of adding your sweetheart as an authorized user to the account. The credit card company will be more than happy to send your spouse that second card to serve as yet another evidence of your marital unity. Once you have combined all of your accounts, you are as much a financial single unit as you are in your hearts.
It might be a good idea for you and your spouse to have a honest discussion about how you like to use credit cards before you take this next step in combining your lives. If one member of the family loves to use the credit card at the drop of a hat and the other considers it to be a tool to only be used in case of dire emergency, that is probably going to result in conflict in the home concerning credit use. There is no question that if two people are using the same credit account and you both have cards, you can run up a big balance in a hurry. So some caution is in order.
Something to be aware of concerning credit card use is that even if you both have authorization to use a credit card account, the one of you that opened the account is accountable for how that card is used. That means that if you built an outstanding credit rating before marriage, when you open your account to your spouse, if that credit card is not paid on time or if you charge over your limit that is going to start harming your credit rating that you worked so hard to build.
When it gets right down to it, if you add your spouse to your credit card, you are responsible for those charges that your husband or wife puts on that card. This should not cause division between you and your spouse. But it is a foible of our credit system in this country that you should be aware of to make a quality decision.
Did Our Credit Ratings Get Married?
Use used to be that there was a real value to being added to your spouse’s credit account as an authorized user especially if the owner of the account had a great credit rating. Before 2007, the spouse with the lower credit rating saw that credit rating rise by simply being added to the account of the spouse with the good rating. But that is no longer the case after the Fair Isaac Corp. changed that part of how credit ratings are calculated. So don’t allow the positive effect of shared accounts influence your decision about whether to combine your credit activity because it will not change your current credit standing.
A good credit rating for each spouse individually is valuable to you and to the family. So even if you decide to share your primary credit cards, its not a bad idea for each spouse to have one or two credit cards that are only in your name so you can continue to build a solid credit rating.
Click here to see Part 2: Getting Married To Your Sweetheart’s Credit Cards Part 2
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