We at Make Love, Not Debt have distrusted social media for a little while now. We’ve only personally embraced it in the last year or so and finally have wrapped our brains around the whole thing.

And now we love it.

Over the past few weeks I’ve added the oh-so-ubiquitous sharing buttons found on everyone’s and their mother’s blogs to each of our blog posts. I hope that in doing so I’ve made it easier for you to share our pearls of wisdom to the interwebs. We urge you to use them, at least for the fact that I worked really hard to get everything just right.

We’d like for you to help welcome us to 2008 and help us be more 2010. We ask you, our awesome readers, to help us establish a presence on Twitter and Facebook. And as a reward, each week for the next four weeks we’ll be giving away a $25 gift card to Amazon.com. 

As you may have guessed by the presence of a big blue bird for this entry, this week we ask that you follow us, @lovenotdebt, on Twitter. Each person who follows us will be eligible to win 25 smackaroos good at Amazon. The deadline for following us will be next Thursday, May 27, at 11:59 PM CST.

Good luck, we look forward to communicating with you in 140 characters or less fewer!

photo: TheTruthAbout…

It started, like all dalliances do, because I was having problems with my partner. My needs weren’t being met. My list of little dissatisfactions was growing longer — an irritation there, an annoyance there, and suddenly my eye started wandering off toward other options.

Then Charles showed up. "Talk to me," he campaigned. It was tempting.

So I did it. I snuck some money out of my bank account and handled it over. And it was great! So I kept doing it, on the sly, and suddenly there I was, months in, turning into someone I never thought I’d be: A two-bank-account gal.

OK, I’m being melodramatic, but it’s also fairly true. Monogamy is our cultural default for marriage, and it was always my default for banking relationships. I like simplicity, and my financial situation is pretty straightforward: One income-generating job with biweekly paychecks, some scant savings, basic retirement accounts, and small bits of occasional freelance income. I don’t have investment accounts, multiple revenue streams, trust funds or any of the exotic complexities that would require more complicated arrangements.

So it literally never occurred to me that I could split my everyday checking account up and store parts of it at two different banks. Until I accidentally did it.

I’m a serial monogamist with banks: I go all-in with one and love it to bits until the inevitable smash-up. Things always end badly. Since college, I’ve opened accounts with three different banks. Two were shut down by the FDIC; one got bought by a rival and shut down. When my last bank, WaMu, got whacked, I was tossed to the wolves at Chase.

I tried to make things work with Chase. I was tired of account-hopping. Chase can’t get shut down by the FDIC, I figured — I’m pretty sure that right before Armageddon it’ll be having a steel-cage match with Bank of America for dominion over the American economy. I liked having an ATM on every street corner. (Literally! Chase has ATMs in every Duane Reade drugstore in NYC, and there is a Duane Reade on the same street as every office or apartment I’ve inhabited.)

And for a few months, Chase put on its best manners for us WaMu refugees. It was in full suitor mode, keeping our account terms the same and offering incentives to stay put.

But then the fees started. And the half-truths. Just months after promising not to charge for outside ATM withdrawls — WaMu’s entire raison d’être for many customers — Chase slipped an "oh actually we’re gonna charge ATM fees" line into the itty-bitty fine print of my monthly statement.

When I found out, I started planning the divorce. I always said I wouldn’t stay on those terms — I have an irrational hatred of ATM fees.

So I went looking for someone who would treat me right, who wouldn’t charge fees, and Charles Schwab ended up on my short list. I decided to give it a whirl, and opened an account. My plan was always to get things set up at Schwab and then give Chase the boot. It would be cathartic, like showing up with the U-Haul and clearing out.

But there was one tiny complication: My soon-to-be-ex had a few addictive qualities I kept wanting to take advantage of just one last time. Like those 14,000 ATMs Chase has plastering the U.S. ATMs that don’t even need deposit envelopes when they suck in your checks! And branches — branches every 200 feet!w

"I won’t make the switch until we finish buying the apartment," I told myself. "I’ll keep two accounts open just a tad bit longer …"

And then, like a lightening bolt, it hit me: I could keep both. As long as I wanted.

Sophisticated money managers will laugh at this, I know. There are personal finance-bloggers who play bank-account arbitrage, strafing the landscape with new accounts to take advantage of minute differences in rates and terms. But I’ve never been like that; I like things simple, basic and traditional. So these past few months have been heady.

Suddenly, I am a Sophisticated Financial Personage, with two accounts. I have choices. If I want to wire money, or withdraw cash, or even just talk to a teller, I can pick where I want to go.

Here’s the practical details. (That’s how it always seems to be when you take the scary leap from monogamy to polyamory — first, there’s the big rush of excitement; then your life gets consumed by logistics.) This approach only works because of an unusual quirk: Like most banks, Chase charges monthly maintenance fees unless you maintain a set minimum balance or have direct paycheck deposits, but unlike most banks, Schwab doesn’t. So I can keep my Schwab account alive, for free, no matter how little activity it has.

I’ve kept my biweekly paychecks going to Chase, but I siphoned off a few hundred dollars to keep parked at Schwab. That means anytime I want to withdraw cash from a non-Chase ATM, I can use my Schwab card to do it, fee-free. I’ve essentially turned my Schwab account into a savings account. I’m using it to isolate cash I’d like to keep stashed, and when I withdraw cash, I transfer money out of my Chase account to replenish the Schwab balance (free, but it typically takes 2-3 days to clear).

Right now, this approach is working brilliantly. I’d be happy to keep it up indefinitely.

But I’m also on guard against Chase making yet more changes to its account terms, in ways that will irritate me further. Most Chase accounts charge a monthly fee unless you keep a minimum balance on hand. If they start pulling that, I’m gone. My little feathered Schwab nest is all ready to become my main account.

Like most people with a bit on the side, I’m casting a pretty critical eye these days on my primary partner.

photo: Gustavo Minas

When Her and I first moved into our modest apartment, we bought some room-darkening pull-down shades to cover our windows. Back then we didn’t have a lot of money to spend on window treatments so we cheaped out and bought some low-quality stuff. Fast-forward five years and the shades are cracked and torn and don’t do a very good job of keeping out the light.

A little background as to why this is so important to me. I cannot sleep if a single sliver of sunlight catches my eye in the morning. This is usually a good thing duing the work week as it is relatively easy for me to rise out of bed. But during the weekend this is torture. I hate being wide awake at 7:00 AM on a Saturday morning, envious of Her’s sweet, blissful sleep.

We found this out when Her and I went on our honeymoon. After the, uh, festivities of the first night of our honeymoon, we knew that we would be tired so we made sure to close all of the drapes in our hotel room so that we could savor the sleep. The next day I woke up and looked at the clock and was surprised to see that it was 2:00 PM in the afternoon! The room was still black as night, and I couldn’t have asked for better sleep.

It has been more than a year and a half since the Great Honeymoon Sleep of 2008, and we were finally fed up with the poor light management in our room. After Her’s unsuccessful journey to Home Improvement earlier in the week, we decided to go to our favorite home improvement store, Lowes. We immediately found what we wanted: room darkening cellular shades.

We picked these for a few reasons: first, they darken the hell out of the room. When the shades are down, it is like night. Second, they offer some insulation for our drafty windows. Third, they are cordless meaning that our cats and other small mammals won’t get tangled.

We did pay a relatively hefty price: $180 for a set of three. I think that’s a fair price to have the chance to sleep like the dead.

photo: somebox

My husband David and I recently tackled the Big Scary Most-Expensive Thing You’ll Ever Buy investment: buying an apartment. In New York City. It was one of those "well, they say if it doesn’t kill us it’ll make us stronger …" experiences.

The most financially fraught moments came at the end, at the closing table, where we forked over checks for pretty much every dollar we could lay our hands on legally. (We didn’t end up knocking over any liquor stores, but we briefly considered it when we saw the five-figure bill for property transfer taxes.)

But emotionally, the big money-related hits came early on, when we had to decide how much we could afford to pay and what trade-offs we’d be willing to make.

A thing we rarely agreed on. Even the best-matched couples aren’t going to have identical preferences and priorities.

On the big-picture stuff, David and I were fairly in-sync. We had similar ideas about what kind of total monthly payment we’d be willing to shoulder, and we were both dead-set on only considering a 30-year fixed mortgage — no ARMs or interest-only exotic stuff for us, thanks.

But within the rough framework of "we can afford X," we had the usual stack of disagreements about what we should use that money to buy. The #1 rule of NYC real estate is "you will never get everything on your wish list unless you double your price range." What stuff couldn’t we do without?

I wanted a short commute. David wanted a second bathroom. I wanted two bedrooms.  David wanted a nice-looking block.

I didn’t care about the block or the bathrooms; he thought a one-bedroom would be fine and wouldn’t mind an extra half hour on the subway. Everything on the list came with a price tag. So how could we pick? Whose wishes got to win out?

I’d like to claim we talked it out like sensible adults, calmly bartering swaps from our own personal want lists. "OK, this place is a little further from the subway than I would like, but it has that second bathroom you want, so let’s go for it  …"

There was some of that. We picked a building fairly quickly — which, I’ll admit, catered more to my preferences than his. Commute: great! Neighborhood aesthetics, not so great.

But the building is fairly large, with more than 100 apartments and dozens of different floor plans available. Therein commenced the "discussion" about compromises.

Which eventually escalated to yelling.

We only had one really epic fight, but it was a full-decibel affair that led to several hours of us speaking to each other only via the cats: "Kea, go tell the human being on the other side of the room that if he wants dinner, I’m leaving it on the counter."

Finally, a day later, when we decided to again acknowledge each others’ existence, we hammered out a framework for decisions. The only way we (ok, I) could see to make either-or choices was to bow to the wishes of the partner who cared more about the issue.

I would have preferred a walk-in closet to a second bathroom. But David felt really strongly about that one, so I said OK to his extra room and goodbye to my shoe-and-handbag haven. On the other hand, I desperately wanted the apartment with a small terrace — the proximate cause of our Waterloo, since David hates heights. After some extensive pleading on my part, he finally agreed to it.

Buying a house (ok, in our case, "tiny living cube") isn’t the only pricey investment that brings clashing wants to the fore. Cars, schools for the kids, even expensive appliances or furniture seem likely catalysts for showdowns. I’m curious how other couples have negotiated the peace treaties.

This is the frist post from our new writer, Stacy. We’ve introduced her yesterday, and you can also find more about her in our about page. We hope you enjoy!

photo: michellemarie

Keeping separate bank accounts with your spouse or similarly intertwined partner has a whole spate of logistical issues attached. How do you split the bills? How do you make sure none slip through the cracks? How closely do you track your partner’s finances – and how do you ensure you’ll have access in an emergency?

There’s also the philosophical issues. Why are the accounts separate, and do you both have the same reasons, or at least understand and respect your partner’s rationale if it’s different?

My husband David and I have always had completely separate accounts, and in our case, the reason is simple: We both like the independence of managing our own money and trust each other to do so sanely. Plus we’d risk violence if I saw the details of his spending on collectible CDs or he saw the price tags on my handbags.

But for split-account couples, there’s another wrinkle that can sneak up on you. What happens when one partner starts vastly out-earning the other?

That can be an issue for couples with joint accounts as well, of course. It’s easy to tie a lot of self-esteem up in careers and paychecks, and every couple – even if only one works outside the house – has to make decisions together about the pragmatic and emotional ramifications of their joint earning power.

But it’s always seemed to me that couples who pool all their funds have already made one major choice: All our money is our money. If one side suddenly starts generating significantly more of it, yay, but it doesn’t fundamentally alter the household financial dynamics. The shared pool simply gets larger.

With split-account couples, the math is trickier. The seesaw tips.

Some couples have to deal with this right off the bat. I know a teacher married to an investment banker, and a computer guru paired with a historian. No matter where you come down on the relative merit-to-society of each position, they’re clearly not carrying equal salary potential. Those couples had to sort out early on how they wanted to handle the mismatch.

But for an awful lot of couples, it sneaks up.

It did for us. When David and I moved in together, we were both young and entry-level at our various jobs – journalism for me, statistics for him. We made almost identical salaries. That first year, he made $2,000 more than me. Then I got a promotion and made $5,000 more than him. Then he got one and outpaced me by $2,000 again — and onward the leapfrogging went for half a dozen years. We roughly split all our household bills and maintained a fairly laissez faire attributed toward each others’ finances.

Then came The Big Promotion: A new job with a giant leap up in title and salary. Quite abruptly, one paycheck was 30% larger than the other, a discrepancy big enough to pay our annual rent.

Which made us realize: We’d never talked about this. We never planned for it. It hadn’t even occurred to us to discuss or plan for it. Suddenly splitting things straight down the middle, 50/50, didn’t seem quite so obvious and fair.

Fortunately, we turned out to be philosophically in synch on the matter: We both have a commie streak. From each according to his ability, etc. We shifted bills around so that each of us was still paying about the same proportional share of income into the household expenses, even though one person ended up shoulder more in absolute dollars. It was a fast, easy decision. Figuring out how to spend a sizeable five-figure windfall involved far less wrangling than my reaction to finding out what David spent on eBay last week for a rare Marillion CD. (I wasn’t aware it was possible for small plastic disks to cost so much.)

But we got lucky. I’ve seen the economic mismatch cause all sorts of angst and arguing, especially when it pops up for long-established couples (a sudden job change – or loss – is the usual catalyst). If you’re each used to paying the same into the household in total dollars, it gets fraught when that becomes a much bigger burden for one half of the couple than the other.

To the long list of questions it’s essential hash out before you pair up with someone for good – how they feel about career goals, having kids, moving to new places, retirement savings, debt, the Yankees, etc. – it’s helpful to add one more: How will we handle our money if one of us is making two or three times as much as the other?