Posthaste: 57% of Canadians prefer to keep their finances completely or mostly separate from their partner, survey finds

Fifty-seven per cent of Canadians prefer to keep their finances either completely or mostly separate from their partner, according to a new survey by personal finance platform MooseMoney.

The survey gathered responses from 639 Canadian adults in June and found that the most popular setup for organizing finances in a committed relationship was keeping individual accounts and using one joint account to pay for shared household bills (38.2 per cent). Meanwhile, 25.4 per cent fully combined their finances, 18.8 per cent kept them entirely separate and 17.6 per cent deposited their income into a joint bank account but had separate credit cards .

Most of those surveyed said they viewed opening a joint bank account as a more serious commitment (54 per cent) than moving in together (46 per cent) and as a result waited for major legal milestones like getting married (34.5 per cent) or buying a property together (20.5 per cent) before taking that step. Only 15.8 per cent said they would open a joint account when moving in together and 18 per cent said they would not do so under any circumstances.

Canadians’ top choice for dividing shared household expenses while earning different salaries was pooling all the income into one pot (43.9 per cent), followed by a proportional split where each person pays a percentage based on their income (33.9 per cent). However, 17.7 per cent insisted on a strict 50/50 split regardless of income and 4.5 per cent believed that the higher earner should pay for all shared necessities.

Nearly a quarter also said that they have felt pressured to spend beyond their means to keep up with a higher-earning partner (23.7 per cent). Numerous men (14 per cent) and women (21 per cent) even admitted to keeping a secret bank account or credit card that their partner did not know about.

For many couples, financial betrayals seemed to carry more weight than romantic ones, with 29 per cent of men and 39 per cent of women stating that they would be more devastated if they found out their partner accumulated a large amount of debt behind their back than if they cheated.

“These findings show that financial transparency is just as critical to a relationship as physical faithfulness,” Julien Brault, founder of MooseMoney, said in a press release .

Overall, 78 per cent of Canadians said they would consider ending the relationship over $500,000 or more in hidden debt, but the amount they found tolerable varied widely. Some said they would call it quits for any amount of hidden debt (11.4 per cent), while others said it was not a consideration at all (21.8 per cent).

A small minority of men (eight per cent) and women (12 per cent) also confessed that they would consider leaving their current partner if they won a multi-million dollar lottery jackpot tomorrow, showcasing just how important the role money plays in their relationships.

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Today’s Posthaste was written by Noella Ovid with additional reporting from Financial Post staff and Bloomberg.

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