There's a folder on our kitchen table labeled MARRIED STUFF in Tessa's handwriting, and for most of October it got thicker. The wedding was September 13th. The paperwork, it turns out, was a second, quieter event that lasted about six weeks and involved a lot more waiting rooms.
Some background: the house was in both our names from the day we closed in April 2024, and we've split the mortgage since the start. So I assumed the house part was done. Mostly it was. Plenty else wasn't.
The deed
A coworker mentioned that he and his wife had re-deeded their house after they got married, and I realized I had no idea whether that was something people do or something he did. I asked Rick, Tessa's dad, since he's an accountant. He said that was a question for a real-estate attorney, not him, which is very Rick.
So we booked a one-hour consult for $150. The attorney walked us through how we held title as two unmarried co-owners and how married couples can hold title in Michigan, and what the difference means in a few situations we'd rather not think about. I'm not going to repeat her explanation here, because it was about our situation and I'd probably get part of it wrong. If you're wondering about your own deed, that hour was worth it to us. We decided to re-deed the house as a married couple. She prepared the new deed, we signed it in front of a notary, and recording it with the county cost $30. That was the whole bill.
Beneficiaries, which took eleven minutes
This was the part that bothered me most once I thought about it. On my work retirement plan, the beneficiary was still my mom, from when I started the job in 2020. Tessa's listed her parents. Same story on the group life coverage we each get through work. If something had happened to either of us this summer, the money would have gone somewhere neither of us would have picked now.
We changed all four, each other as primary and our parents as contingent, through the online portals at our jobs. Total time was about eleven minutes, and it was easily the most useful eleven minutes of the month.
That conversation led to the next one. Group life through work ends if you leave the job, so we've started pricing term life policies on our own. We have a couple of quotes. We haven't decided anything, and I'm not going to pretend I know what the right amount is. We're reading, and we'll probably talk to someone who does this for a living before we sign up for anything.
Tessa's name, everywhere
Tessa decided to take Brennan, and that kicked off its own checklist. She ordered certified copies of the marriage certificate from the county clerk and then worked through it in an order she'd looked up:
- Social Security first, since most other places check against it
- Her driver's license at the Secretary of State
- Payroll and benefits at her dental office
- Our bank and her credit card
- Our home and auto policy, which was one email to our insurance agent
- The mortgage servicer, which needed a form and a copy of the certificate
- Consumers Energy, the city water account and Xfinity
Her verdict, halfway through: "I've signed Novak on four forms by accident this week." The list had nineteen lines when she started. Two are still open.
One shared account, two of everything else
The biggest change was the boring one. We opened a joint checking account just for the house. The mortgage autopay moved there (it went up to $2,127 with the October 1st payment, thanks to escrow), along with the utilities and the $150 a month that goes into our house fund. Both paychecks feed it with a set amount every payday. Our personal accounts stay separate for everything else.
Before this, every house bill came from one of two accounts depending on who set it up, and once a month I had to reconcile the house sheet against both. Now it pulls from one place. The planner in me has never been happier with a bank.
Tessa set the one rule we needed: "If it's for the house, it comes from the house account. If it's a tool you wanted anyway, it comes from yours." I've already tested the edge of that rule once at Menards and lost.
The folder is thinner now. The term life quotes are still in it, right on top, where we have to look at them every time we open it.
