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Play to your strengths. Some people hate looking at the big picture: They don't care about retirement savings, interest rates, or the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Others don't like nitty-gritty stuff such as clipping coupons and looking for sales. Let each partner be in charge of the stuff they're good at. (I'm not very good at grocery shopping, for example; that's my wife's bailiwick. But I love being in charge of refinancing the mortgage and choosing mutual funds.)

It's rare that partners agree completely on how to handle their money. The key is to find as much common ground as possible, and then compromise on the rest.

Joint or Separate Finances?

Perhaps the biggest question facing married couples is whether to merge their money or keep it separate. Most people getting married for the first time merge their finances; many folks entering their second marriage keep things separate.

Really, though, the degree of merging is up to you. Some couples have only a single joint account where they put all their money. Others keep a seldom-used joint account for certain needs but otherwise maintain complete financial autonomy. Most couples fall somewhere in between. Don't let anyone tell you that there's only one right way to merge finances. Each relationship is different, so the correct choice is the one that works best for you and your partner.

Many couples find that the ideal solution is some sort of blended system; they share a joint account for household finances, but each partner has a personal account to do with as they please. When you take this hybrid approach, the real decision is about how to divide the household income:

If you and your partner make roughly the same amount, you could contribute equally to the joint account, and then keep what's left over in your personal accounts.

If one partner makes significantly more than the other, she could fund the joint account entirely on her own and keep the remainder in her personal account. Her husband could simply keep his own income in his personal account to do with as he wishes.

Some couples use a proportional system: If one partner earns two-thirds of the household income, say, he contributes two-thirds of the joint account. After funding the joint account, the partners can do whatever they want with the leftovers.

A final option is to use the "adult allowance" system. In this case, both spouses put their entire paycheck into the joint account, and then withdraw a fixed amount into their personal accounts every month.

If you use a hybrid system, it's absolutely vital to let each person use the money in their personal accounts however they want. (And it's also good to have rules about what expenses are paid from the joint account.)

Kids and Money

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Expenditures on Children by Families http://tinyurl.com/USDA-kids), the typical middle-income family will spend about $11,610 per year to raise a child born in 2008. (For low-income families, the average will be $8,500 per year, and for high-income families, $19,250 per year.)

These costs only increase as the kid gets older. The typical middle-class household will spend over $200,000 to raise a child from birth to age 18. That's nearly $300,000 when adjusted for inflation, and these figures don't even include college!

Tip

How much will it cost to raise your kids? The USDA has a handy cost-of-raising-a-child calculator that gives you a rough estimate of expected annual expenses based on where you live, your income, and your kid's age: http://tinyurl.com/USDA-kidcalc.

These numbers aren't meant to scare you out of having kids, just to give you some idea of the costs involved. There are ways to reduce expenses (cloth diapers, hand-me-down clothes, and so on), but there's no getting around the fact that raising kids requires a serious commitment of emotion, time, and money.

When a new baby arrives, if both parents work, couples face a big decision: Should one parent stay home with the child? (If so,