DINKs have been having a moment. Child-free millennials have spent the last few years flaunting champagne breakfasts and last-minute luxury trips on TikTok, all funded by the money they’re not spending on nappies.
But a new financial power couple has arrived.
“For decades, the average American couple sat down at the kitchen table to combine finances after arriving home from their honeymoon,” Shruti Joshi, president and chief operating officer of the financial planning company Facet, tells Fortune. Not anymore.
Now, the company has taken stock of a new breed of couples, who don’t share a bank account or a household pot of money—and it’s become so common, they’ve even been given a name: SPLITs.
They’re partners who keep their finances separate while sharing one plan for the future, and Joshi says they make up a growing share of the households Facet works with.
“Our planners are used to working with couples who each hold their own savings accounts, debts and 401(K)s, while sharing a plan that ties it all together,” Joshi adds. “We saw this pattern so frequently, we knew it deserved a name of its own.”
Why more couples are keeping their finances separate
One big shift is behind the trend: the stigma has gone. “A generation ago, keeping your own account looked like betting against your relationship,” Joshi says. “Today, it’s seen as a sign of maturity and people are much more open to talking about finances than a generation ago.”
People are settling down later and entering relationships with savings, investments and retirement plans that took years, even decades, to build. “They don’t want to take those apart to merge with a partner. And they shouldn’t have to.”
“More women also now have serious earning power, and when both partners have careers and comparable incomes, there’s less reason to funnel everything through one shared account.”
Growing up amid high divorce rates has also made younger couples more conscious of protecting their financial independence. Plus, merging everything into one pot can be messy; One partner may be paying off student loans while the other is debt-free with a pristine credit history.
It’s why SPLITs reap the same benefits as DINKs—two incomes working just for them—but without pulling every penny into one account, each partner can spend, save and splurge on their own terms.
Meet the new power couple—but there’s a catch
DINKs have long been the couple to envy on paper, with a median household income of $193,900, compared with $151,900 for dual-income couples with kids, per Pew Research Center. They do have less wealth overall, at $214,700 against $361,500, mostly because they’re younger and less likely to own a home. But they’re also skipping the sky-high cost of having kids.
Couples with children carry about $70,000 more in debt, per the Federal Reserve’s 2022 data. And then there’s the price tag of the bigger house and the four-by-four.
When you factor in loans, credit cards, and mortgages, child-free couples were around $100,000 in debt, but that rose to $168,000 for couples with kids.
SPLITs have the same setup: two incomes and, for now, no childcare bills. The power comes from how they manage their money.
They can still pool money for big goals like buying a home or traveling the world. But financial autonomy means they don’t need to justify splurging on themselves. “They’re less likely to feel the need to hide a pricey new jacket or justify a weekend trip with friends,” Joshi adds.
They’re also building their own credit and retirement savings, and protecting their wealth should things turn sour.
But the setup only works with regular, honest conversations about who pays for what. And that in itself is the superpower, with Joshi noting it results in SPLITs talking about money more often than couples who pool everything and may avoid the topic altogether. “That dynamic keeps them on the same team, eliminating a lot of common money fights.”
But there’s a catch. The setup is perfect for childfree renters. If you want to buy a home together or start a family, it suddenly becomes less of a flex.
“The financial plan you settled on when you were happily childless and renting a townhome in the city may not be the same one you need when you decide to buy a house and have a baby,” Joshi says, adding that mortgage providers and tax codes favor a joint account.
“SPLITs know their lifestyle works best for them, but they’ve been dropped in the middle of a financial landscape that doesn’t support couples with separated finances.”
The post Move over DINKs: SPLITs are the new financial power couple—they have two incomes, no kids yet and no joint bank account appeared first on Fortune.
