[hnruss]

This is exactly the system that we use. The downsides that we have encountered so far:

- Pooling our money in a shared account makes it seem like we have money than we actually do, leading to overspending

- We each have different ideas of what is a necessary expense

To fix this, we had to start communicating a lot more about finances than we used to. We wound up creating a spreadsheet to track recurring expenses and calculate our monthly budget. We decide ahead of time what we're going to spend money on, and talk about it when unexpected expenses occur.

The benefits of this system seem to outweigh the downsides, so we'll probably keep doing this for the foreseeable future.