Welcome to "Couples + Money" (opens in new tab). Forget about questions about your sex life. Let's talk about something more personal. Let's talk about what you and your partner do and don't do with your paychecks.

Every other Thursday, couples interviewed by Marie Claire talk candidly about how they divide their finances. All the details of what each person pays personally, what they split 50/50, who pays the tab at restaurants, who fights over bank statements, and more.

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This week, financial coach (opens in new tab) and seasonal agent for Turbo Tax, 42,000 annual income Christine Stevenson Seale, 53, who earns $42,000 a year ($3,500 a month), and her husband Joe Seale, 63, an engineer who earns $57,480 a year ($4,790 a month - disability income, after taxes); they have been together for 14 years and live in Temple, Texas.

Christine In March 2008, we were each watching a play at our local community theater.

Joe We got married in late 2012 and started living together six months later. I was in the Pacific Northwest at the time.

Christine I told her I would have to quit my job and move. If I couldn't get the job I needed, I would be solely dependent on his income. I said, " He said, "If something should happen to you, you should have disability income insurance. Two years later, this tumor began to show itself, and within a couple of months I had an MRI that showed the tumor had reached inside my spinal cord and into my brain stem. Surgery had to be performed immediately.

Joe: I had insurance on my car and house, but I didn't pay much attention to other insurance. I was very prejudiced against insurance. She went the other way and got disability insurance, which really saved her.

Christine: We hadn't had health insurance for several years. But we belonged to a healthshare ministry that fell under an exception to the Affordable Care Act. We had to wait 6 months for his coverage. He had no income, but had built up an emergency fund for 3-6 months. I also received financial assistance from family members. I did not work for a year to care for him. The great thing about HealthShare Ministries is that the bills are paid in cash. So I got a significant discount: 40 to 50 percent off. Had we had insurance, it would have cost us close to $1 million. The bill was $850,000, but with the discount it came to $275,000. We paid the first $300 and then he got 500-600 personal checks through HealthShare Ministries (his illness is allowed to be shared with all members). So we never had to worry about him financially. There were many blessings from this major event that could have killed him. And our faith has deepened dramatically.

Kristine: We have five chickens in our backyard, there were six of them, and it turns out one was a rooster.

Joe: It costs me about $25 to $30 a month, but I don't have to buy eggs.

Christine: Sometimes I take care of the dog, but my seven children, ranging in age from 22 to 36, are all grown and independent.

Joe: I remember being pretty conservative. We had no debt, and her financial secret was her car.

Christine: It was very important to pay off my debt as quickly as possible, so I worked overtime and lived on less than I earned. Credit card debt, student loans, car loans. He was very supportive. That's an awesome goal."

Kristine We don't share anything. We're married.

Joe: We are both independent adults. I had such questions in my mind, but she just said it. 'We need to set up a joint account. Do we use my bank or yours?' I was caught a little off guard, but agreed. Getting married is, among other things, a spiritual commitment. I said, "Yeah, okay, but I want to use my own bank."

Christine The hardest part was getting his checking account into our joint name. It was hard to give up an account that I'd had for so long. It's just a bank account. But it was an adjustment

Christine I try to budget a couple of times a month, at the beginning of the next month. Now it's two or three times a week. We are remodeling a small bathroom, so I pay the contractor and double check my cash.

Joe, I keep my budget on EveryDollar. What expenses do I have next month? I'll say, "I need a prescription," or "I need to change the tires on my truck." She does the same thing

Christine We are very open. My parents give me a check for a birthday present and I say, "What shall I do with this money?" I say. He says, "You decide, it's all yours."

Joe: I have a "private" checking account, and she totally knows that. I'm trying to put some money away so I can buy her something nice. It's one of those open secrets, but I try not to talk about it.

Joe: I grew up on a cotton farm in West Texas. My mother and stepfather were born during the Great Depression, and the economy was pretty tough. We weren't poor, but we weren't wealthy. When I was five years old, I was paid to work on the farm. The hourly wage was $0.25. We opened a checking account, they paid me and taught me how to deposit, and by the time I was 10 I was depositing and writing checks under their guidance. By the time I graduated from high school, I had overhauled my car with my own money and labor. I went to college on a Navy scholarship, which covered most of my expenses, but I also had a lot of savings. I spent almost nothing

Christine When I was 11 or 12, I wanted a horse, and my parents said, "When you turn 13, you should get a horse." I knew that if I wanted something, I had to save money for it. My mother made me write on a piece of paper what I thought I needed to have a horse, and I made two columns, one for what I needed and one for what I wanted. That was 40 years ago, but it left a very strong impression on me. But when I was 19 years old, I got out of that process. I took a job as a secretary at a large investment firm in Manhattan. I had all kinds of information on my hands. So I realized, "Oh, I know how to make credit cards." So I got my first credit card with a $200 limit at JC Penney, and from the age of 39 to 45, it was a love-hate relationship, with lots of ups and downs. Minimal payments, always in debt.

Joe: We got married when I was 22 and racked up quite a bit of debt over the next 18 years. By the time we got divorced, I had to take it over. It took me a few years to get out of that, but by the time I met Christine, I was debt free.

Christine One day I was driving to work at the IRS. I had started listening to the Dave Ramsey show. When I heard this couple on the radio yelling, "We are debt free," I literally burst into tears. 'I don't want to be this way. I want to be debt free. Right before I met Joe, I thought about that very seriously

Christine, food expenses. It wasn't so much a fight as it was, "Oh my God. How did we spend all this money? Four hundred dollars a month for two adults is a reasonable budget. We have organic food, we're very careful about what we eat, and we eat what we buy. Usually it's $475-$500. It remains a mystery. We've come to accept it.

Joe I guess about six months into our marriage: who does what. Who pays what. How to budget. It was very difficult to blend our styles. I tend to forget the details quickly and look at things in the big picture. At one point, I said, "This is her system. This is her system.

Kristine We don't budget for entertainment. We still have fun, but it's very simple. My daughter and I are going to Australia and I've been saving for years for an overseas trip. I need about $500 more. It was my birthday this month, so I said, "How about I put $200 in for your birthday?" I said. Then I said, "I want to take dance lessons this month." I said, "Okay, I'll leave $70." [Christine So, after Joe gets his master's degree in a year and a half, we're thinking of going on a honeymoon. But we put that on hold. Car replacement funds. And really, really, really retirement funds. We maxed out our IRAs at the beginning of the year as fast as we could. There are other things we want to redo in the house. We move at the speed of cash. But that's really great. We just get the bill from the contractor, shell out a couple hundred bucks, and sometimes they give us a $100 discount. There is power in cash. There is power in cash.

Interviews have been abridged and edited for clarity. Interviewing and editing by Catherine J. Igoe. Design by Morgan McMullen. Illustration by Studio Patten.

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