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How one couple thrives on a joint checkbook and common credit card.

Susan and Thane Young of Sacramento believe in teamwork. Right from the beginning of their 15-year marriage, they chose to merge their finances, sharing bank accounts and credit cards and making joint decisions on how to spend and invest their money. Two children and five addresses later, they have found that their partnership approach to money management still works--but not without some bumps along the way and some fine-tuning in the future.

"When we were first married, we had one huge fight," recalls Susan. "It was about Thane's credit card bills. I realized we were probably still paying for dates with his old girlfriends before he met me," she says.

Thane, a lobbyist who manages his firm's West Coast office, concedes that he had about a dozen credit cards when the couple got married, while both were working in Washington, D.C. In his image-conscious line of work, it was easy to fall prey to a perpetual charging habit. But with Susan's help, Thane says, he has weaned himself from plastic.

Susan and Thane grew up in middle-class families (she in Ohio, he as an Army brat who moved a lot) and neither had much spending money. While the experience made Susan frugal, it gave Thane a bent for buying things at stylish stores. As a couple, they discovered a way to blend his taste with her thrift: Yard sales and auctions became a part of their weekend routine.

A year after the wedding, their evolving money-management style took another turn: Daughter Sarah was born, and Susan quit her job as a project manager for the National Association of Home Builders. Thane, 43, has been the breadwinner ever since, while Susan has stayed home to care for Sarah, 14, and 9-year-old Chelsea.

It's never bothered her, says Susan, that she doesn't have an independent income. "Thane and I decided right from the beginning that if we had a baby, I would quit my job. The kids would come first."

Communication and compromise

For many couples, developing a compatible style of managing money is difficult. "Money is the number-one reason that couples fight and get divorced," says Ruth Hayden, an educational consultant and author of For Richer, Not Poorer: The Money Book for Couples ($12.95; to be published in September by Health Communications Inc.). "The real issue for most couples is fairness: `If you get yours, will I get mine?'" Hayden, who teaches a money-management class for couples in St. Paul, tells her students that most of them could skip the class if they just went home with someone else. "We somehow marry our opposites," she explains. "When we are dating, we are stimulated by someone who is very different from us. But in a longer-term relationship, we are frightened by it." Hayden tries to teach partners to compromise without feeling that they are giving up their autonomy.

The Youngs discovered for themselves that compromise and communication were crucial to their success. "For years, I handled all the bills," says Thane. "But Susan worries about money more than I do. So rather than justify what I was doing, about ten years ago I said, `You do it.'"

Now his paychecks are deposited directly into their checking account. Susan pays the monthly bills, and Thane handles the investment decisions, which include managing mutual fund accounts for the girls' education, selecting funds within his company's profit-sharing plan, and contributing monthly to a life insurance policy. They use their Visa card, which earns frequent-flier miles, for routine purchases but discuss major outlays in advance and usually pay the bill in full each month.

"We don't sit down and do a budget, but we have an idea of how much discretionary spending we can afford," Thane says. "And we time big-ticket items, such as car purchases, to make sure we don't have two payments at the same time."

Susan has dabbled in some money-making ventures, such as assembling and selling gift baskets, and recently turned her passion for antiques and collectibles into a small retail business, which she hopes will establish her financial identity and produce some income to fund a retirement account of her own. As it is, Susan has little credit in her own name--only a Macy's charge card--and no life insurance or retirement savings. But she's been a full partner in the purchase and renovation of a series of homes that have earned the couple substantial profits.

The Youngs' only debt is the mortgage on their contemporary ranch-style home, which runs about $1,800 a month. They have paid off both of their car loans, so their next-biggest monthly expense is a $450 utility bill that reflects the cost of maintaining a 4,000-square-foot home with an inground swimming pool. But that may soon change.

Taking home the profits

"We're ready to sell this house and buy down," says Susan. "It's more house than we need, and the market is going up. I see it as part of Sarah's college fund." They estimate their home is worth about $500,000--some $175,000 more than they paid for it a few years ago. (Couples can pocket up to $500,000 of profit on the sale of their home tax-free.)

While the idea of trading down to a smaller house may seem downright un-American, the Youngs have often bucked conventional wisdom in their housing decisions.

Two years after they married in 1983, they borrowed $5,000 from Thane's parents to buy their first house. In a hot real estate market with sellers in charge, real estate agents wanted nothing to do with the cash-strapped newlyweds.

So Susan and Thane took matters into their own hands and bought a for-sale-by-owner home without an agent. Three years later, the sellers' market worked to their advantage: They sold the home they had fixed up and bought another, again skipping the agent and saving on commissions. By the time they had repeated the sell-buy-renovate cycle a few years later, they were old pros.

When Susan and Thane moved from Virginia to California eight years ago, they focused on homes that had been repossessed. First in San Luis Obispo and later in Sacramento, the Youngs bought a house for a fraction of its market value, overhauled it and filled it with an eclectic mix of antiques and shabbychic castoffs.

"That's why our homes have been so easy to sell," says Susan. Each time they traded up, they threw themselves into renovating and decorating. "Everyone who sees our house comments on the distinctive style. Lots of people suggested that I go into business as an antiques dealer. So I did."

When Thane got an unexpected bonus last fall, he gave it to Susan to start the business she calls The Good Buy Girl. With rented space in a local antiques mall, she began buying decorative items and furniture to resell. So far, it has been fun and something she and Thane can do together: Both enjoy scavenging for antiques, and Thane is handy with repairs.

"We're pretty smart spenders," says Thane. "Susan's business gives her the ability to spend money with the significant possibility of making money in return." But they're not sure yet if their new enterprise is profitable--they haven't been able to find the time to set up a bookkeeping system separate from their joint personal checking account.

Catching up with the bulls

While the Youngs have rigorously managed their debt and spending, they agree that they need to be more aggressive in their investments. Except for employer-sponsored plans, Susan and Thane have sat on the sidelines during most of the biggest stock-market boom in history--something they have vowed to change. If they trade down to a smaller house, they will use some of the proceeds to fund their retirement stash and bolster Sarah's education fund, with college four years away.

They already allocate $500 a month to Thane's cash-value life insurance policy, which they plan to use for retirement income and as an asset they might borrow against. There's also money in a profit-sharing plan that Thane's employer started a few years ago, which is split between moderate and aggressive mutual funds. And Thane plans to start participating in the firm's 401(k) plan, contributing the maximum allowed by law and funneling most of it into stock funds.

That's a good move, says J. Jeffrey Lambert, a financial planner in Sacramento. "These people are very smart. They know how to make money. They need a portfolio that will keep that money working for them."