…and the pitfalls?
Anything that involves sharing money needs trust and, depending on the situation (such as whether you’re living in a shared house as a student or with a partner), there’ll be differing levels of it. Frankly, if you’re living with your husband, wife or partner, and you share a loo and toothpaste, you should probably know whether you can trust them or not.
Joint accounts mean that someone else will have access to your money, and if their salary goes into the account, then you’ll also be able to see how much your joint account holder earns and vice versa.
But it’s not just lack of financial privacy, you’re binding yourself to another person who may or may not share your monetary nous and any black marks earned against your joint account or joint credit will reflect badly on you too.
And the most obvious pitfall – the other person could simply withdraw all your cash and run off into the sunset.