Learning about poly banking

[alexis_]

Hi, my name is Alexis. We’re building something we believe could genuinely help people especially when it comes to managing shared finances in households with multiple partners or family members. We’ve been digging into how folks handle splitting or combining finances, and we’ve developed a bank account that supports up to 5 members with custom permissions for each member. Think of it as mine, yours, and ours.

Instead of assuming we’ve nailed it, we’d love to hear directly from the community—real insights from real experiences.
How do ya'll manage shared finances? Do you use one account, keep things separate, or a mix of both? How do you split expenses—proportional to income or evenly? I'm looking for insights and tips on what’s worked and crucially what's not worked.

What we're building: https://content-preprod.askzeta.com/

 

[Evie]

Mod note: legit weblink

 

[alexis_]

Thanks

 

[kdt26417]

Hello Alexis,

Good luck in your venture, my V mostly shares income and expenses, although my metamour does have a small account to buy things for himself.

Regards,
Kevin T.

 

[alexis_]

Hello Alexis,

Good luck in your venture, my V mostly shares income and expenses, although my metamour does have a small account to buy things for himself.

Regards,
Kevin T.

Thanks we're pretty excited If you're open to sharing, I’d be curious to know—how did you all arrive at this system? Was it a gradual process, or did you have open conversations early on about how to manage things?

 

[kdt26417]

The three of us really sat down together right in the beginning, and decided to do it this way. Nothing too complicated. The female in our group (the hinge) does most of the bookkeeping for us.

 

[Bluebird]

I have two nesting partners. They both work full time and have their own checking and savings accounts individually. The two of them transfer a set amount into a shared account each payday that I am also on, and I use that to pay all of the bills. I sometimes use Zelle to send cash to them if they spend their own money on something I think should be a household expense, like gas in the car or something.

We meet twice a year for a “state of the union” meeting, where I present all of the info about our spending, and we discuss long term and short term goals, and how our finances reflect those. It’s at these meetings that we decide how much they’re each contributing to the joint account. It’s not the same number and it’s not exactly proportional either. Some of their bills they handle themselves, and depending on savings goals, the amounts change because of these meetings.

 

[alexis_]

The three of us really sat down together right in the beginning, and decided to do it this way. Nothing too complicated. The female in our group (the hinge) does most of the bookkeeping for us.

On nice, does she use any tools to keep track?

 

[alexis_]

I have two nesting partners. They both work full time and have their own checking and savings accounts individually. The two of them transfer a set amount into a shared account each payday that I am also on, and I use that to pay all of the bills. I sometimes use Zelle to send cash to them if they spend their own money on something I think should be a household expense, like gas in the car or something.

We meet twice a year for a “state of the union” meeting, where I present all of the info about our spending, and we discuss long term and short term goals, and how our finances reflect those. It’s at these meetings that we decide how much they’re each contributing to the joint account. It’s not the same number and it’s not exactly proportional either. Some of their bills they handle themselves, and depending on savings goals, the amounts change because of these meetings.

How do keep track of all the bills to pay?

 

[Evie]

To clarify, is your product only available for US residents?

 

[Albert Ross]

From https://www.askzeta.com/zeta-piermont-account-agreement

Eligibility

The Account is available to United States citizens or lawful permanent residents of the fifty (50) United States (“U.S.”) or the District of Columbia who are at least 18 years of age, have a U.S. physical address or with military addresses (APO or FPO), and have a valid social security number or tax identification number. You must also agree to go paperless. This means that you must (1) provide us with a valid email address and (2) agree to accept electronic delivery of all communications that we need or decide to send you in connection with your Account. We may decline to open an Account or issue a Card to you for any reason, or for no reason; this includes if you have had or currently have any other relationships or accounts with either us or Zeta that you did not maintain in a satisfactory manner. We are not liable for any damages or liabilities resulting from refusal of an Account relationship.

(Generally speaking, an America-based financial startup is gonna have a long ways to go to operate in other countries. Regulation be buggin' )

 

[Evie]

Thanks for finding the Ts&C's

 

[Bluebird]

How do keep track of all the bills to pay?

I just use Excel - I have a spreadsheet that I look at every Friday.

 

[Evie]

I just use Excel - I have a spreadsheet that I look at every Friday.

Ha, me too.

 

[kdt26417]

Hi Alexis,

I suppose the main tool she uses is Google, hahaha. I don't really know the details of how she handles our finances, the financial institutions she subscribes to have websites and I'm sure she uses those. That and I wouldn't be surprised if she keeps track of our finances on (a) spreadsheet/s.

Regards,
Kevin T.

 

[alexis_]

Correct @albert

Our main purpose is to plan and automate your finances so folks don't have to manually keep up a spreadsheet. Everyone has access so they see how much is available to spend.

 

[Sisilisko]

We're a V living in two households. Fasaani (the hinge) splits his time between them, and his income goes to the household where he earns it - he's paid by the hour. This way, if I ask him to spend a day doing chores, Hiiri's household income isn't affected

See the next paragraph for the complexities of our "accounting", but I think you'll get lost halfway through and it's not that important. We're using https://www.kittysplit.com/ and an excel sheet. Right now, we're creating our own app, similar to kittysplit but allowing us to incorporate the complex logic of the different kinds of income and expenses, and also track the worked hours, car rides and similar stuff all in one place.

the details:
- Fasaani and Hiiri just pool the income and expenses of their household and that's it.
- In my household, we split costs based on hours worked, not income, so “equal” means contributing the same work time (his wage is much higher than mine, only partly due to the gender pay gap).
We have two shared accounts: one for equally split expenses (events, dining out) and one where I contribute twice as much time (rent, groceries). This reduces tracking, but we often forget to keep the balance above zero, so personal cards get used, and we have to track it anyway.
The car is shared between both households, with costs split by ride length. (We rarely drive —this is Europe.) Some of Fasaani’s income while with me goes to Hiiri’s household for Kenguru’s benefit.
I guess our setup is at the extreme end of how complex it gets in a V-shaped polycule — partly because we're geeks, partly because my money anxiety demands extra "fairness".