[JohnFen]

What works for us is to have a joint account as well as each of us having our own individual accounts. We both set aside a portion of our income as a kind of "allowance" that goes into our individual accounts, and the rest into the joint account. All household expenses gets paid from the joint account. How we spend the money in our individual accounts is entirely up to us, but any optional expenses (hobby, vacations, date nights, etc.) come out of our individual accounts, not the joint one.

We found this to be excellent for us. It eliminated a lot of confusion and dispute (because you don't have to explain, justify, or get permission to spend money from your own account), and the surprise bonus was around gifts and date nights -- if you're paying for those things out of "shared money", that's fine, but if you're paying for those things out of your own, private money, that makes it more of a gift.