My husband and I are considering making a radical switch and having me take over the finances and bill-paying for awhile. Jesse has always done the lion’s share of this because he’s the nerd, he’s good at it, and he likes it.
However, we’re both thinking it might be good experience for me to try my hand at it. He also wants me to know how to do it in case something were to happen to him (he’s always thinking of everything to make sure I’m well taken care of!).
Because I’m curious, I thought it’d be fun to do a poll for couples. So, take a minute to vote below:
This should be interesting!
I handle the finances because my husband wanted it that way. It’s just more my forte. He has a hard time remembering to pay things, keeping up with what money we have available, etc. I can be a blessing to him in this way, because it’s one less thing he has to worry about after a hard day at work. However, it IS hard to remember that it’s HIS money too. Lately I’ve been paying everything that’s necessary in our budget then talking to him about what he’d like to do with the extra instead of just divvying it out where I think it’s appropriate. This has helped us have more of a “team” mindset instead of making me the money police. :o) I can let him know what my ideas are for what we should do with it, then we discuss what he’d like to do and usually come to some compromise.
I would like to really encourage you to take this on and learn how to do it. I know someone who was recently widowed, and she had NEVER had to handle a budget before, so it has been difficult for her to know what to do. Even though I’m pretty sure she has been well provided for, she’s frequently fearful about running out of money because she just doesn’t know how far her money will go and what to do with it. Your husband is DEFINITELY looking out for your best interests by encouraging you to try this while he’s here to help you figure it all out.
After 16 years of marriage and my doing it all, my husband just took it over this summer. He felt very convicted that it is part of his duty and responsibility as the leader of our home. I am so relieved! I was not good at staying within a budget and we overspent dipping in to savings all the time. He has us on a strict budget now which is hard for this shopaholic but, we’ll have our savings built back up soon and have funds for other things that come up!
I am relieved that he ‘stepped up’ to this role! He doesn’t want me stressing over it and I did!
I knew I was in the minority. The only I’m surprised by is that I am not in MORE of a minority. It seems like every single other woman I know IRL, except my mom, does the finances for her household.
I PAY ALL THE BILLS AND DO ALL SHOPPING FOR ALL HOUSEHOLD ITEMS BUT MY HUBBY DOES ALL THE LONG TERM STUFF, RETIREMENT, COLLEGE SAVINGS, LIFE INS. ETC.
I understand where your husband is coming from, in wanting you to know what to do incase something happens.
May I suggest that you do it together!!!
My husband in is the miltary so it has fallen my lot to pay bills when he is gone. And I hate it!!! 🙂 I don’t like the stress of worrying about everything getting paid on time and making sure we stay on budget. I also become very demanding because I start thinking $$ should be spent my way.
Do it together so you can learn, but DON’T take sole responsiblity (sp)
my husband has admitted that he’s a giant spender, and has hadned control of all money over to me, since i have trouble spending anything. i pay all the bills, and keep track of how much is in our various bank accounts. he has only the vaguest idea of how much money we have where, and doesnt WANT to know, because he’s convinced he’d spend it if he knew how much we have in savings. he’d also be likely to pay all the bills in one go and then wonder why we have no money for the next few weeks, instead of spreading them out and paying when we need to. so he’s asked me to do it all.
I’m a nerd. I’m good at it. I like it. 😀
I love handling the day-to-day bills and making spreadsheets and lists. So I do it. My husband spends about 5 minutes reviewing the monthly budget and always says it looks fine. We each get x amount (depending on how broke we are) of money as an allowance in cash each month. Still, sometimes I feel terrible that I have to tell my husband he can’t buy such and such unplanned thing because we have no money for it. He’s the free spirit and very optimistic about money. We’re the complete opposite of the typical stereotype about women spending lots of money shopping and men trying to reign them in. Funny, that’s also how my parents were growing up – my dad would buy things and my mom would make him return them. 😀
My husband and I have our own money, separate accounts. My husband takes care of the household bills, utilities, morgage, car, insurance etc…(all the big bills) I pay for the groceries, clothes and household stuff.
I am primarily the one who takes care of getting bills paid and our bi-weekly budgeting system. I do this because I enjoy it and I’m more gifted in that area than my husband and he says that he’s glad I am so willing to do it! But every financial decision we make is discussed and my husband has the final “say so.” I prefer it this way because I know that these decisions aren’t made alone!!
I do the bills; but, I would much prefer my husband do them. Unfortunately, as a truck driver, he is gone way too much to be able to do them.
Hopefully, he will take over when he gets off the road is a couple of years.
My husband and I both have our own accounts, checking and savings. We each have bills we are responsible for and if something extra comes up we discuss how to split the cost or who will pay it. I am considered the breadwinner (I make quite a bit more) so I pay the larger household bills. Its not 50/50 in anyway and its been working for us for 6 years now.
My husband and I both have our own accounts, checking and savings. We each have bills we are responsible for and if something extra comes up we discuss how to split the cost or who will pay it. I am considered the breadwinner (I make quite a bit more) so I pay the larger household bills. Its not 50/50 in anyway and its been working for us for 6 years now.
I actually do all the finances. My husband knows what is going on with our finances but he doesn’t post them into microsoft money or balance the check book, but he is really good at spending the money, lol.
Jenna
http://newlyweds.wordpress.com/
I handle the money and have since we got married almost 11 years ago. Brian works so much that it is easier if I do it. He is a big picture kind of a guy and I’m detail oriented, so it works well. Usually on Sunday I will give him “the state of the union” address. Since he is paid hourly, he usually knows how many hrs. he will be working so that helps me to know how much is coming in. Then we decide where the money will go for the week. It’s a good system for us.
DH is in charge of ours. Though I did my own for years before we met, I have never felt comfortable with the long term planning. (I know how to save but he knows how to make the saved money grow.) As for our bills, he receives them and pays them all online.
When we were first married we did them together. I had banking experience before marriage – my husband had none. When children came along and he was working extra hours he asked me to do it all. I became very “protective” of my budget and felt I was becoming more powerful! I didn’t like that at all and begged him to take over. We tried but work seemed to take over.I would discuss it regualarly with him becuase I hated that feeling! I felt like I was usurping his authority and he is the better saver (he really is). Well to make it short we decided to do our monthly budget together.I make it up, he looks it over and gives approval and make changes were he feels they are needed. I still write out the bills. I like this soooo much(not writing out the bills)! I don’t feel like I’m alone in carrying the burden and he sees where the moola is going and how crazy some of the rates are getting.
I think it is a great idea for both the husband and wife to learn and do the finances. After my father-in-law passed away, my mother-in-law was clueless in how to handle her finances because she never did them. She is still getting help from my sister-in-law.
Try it for a while so you know the ropes at least. If you don’t like it, let your husband take over again.
Lisa
I’ve always handled the bills in our family, even when we were both working and had no children. I don’t know why, it just happened that way. Now that I am at home full time and responsible for the running of the household, it makes sense that I should be responsible for managing the money too.
I do the bills n our family only because dh doesn’t want to do them and would rather I do them and just let him know what is going on with everything. For large purchases we decide together on them but I do the bills, the shopping (both household, grocery, kids, etc) he hates to shop for anything and I hate it less so I do it! We need to work harder on putting money away but we are getting there! We made our decisions on who would school the kids, do the bills, etc before we got married and have stuck to it for the last 19 years!!!
I voted both of us – but I actually do most of the bill paying and keeping track of where things are. Then I give the bottom line to DH and we decide together what bills get paid or waited on, etc. He’s involved in the decision just not the actual paying of them 🙂
For us, this has changed over the years. For a while it was both of us, then it was him, then it was me. It’s changed based on who had the most time & energy to focus on it. (When he was working full-time and going to grad school he had NO time for bills.) It’s really best when we both work on it. This helps us maintain the same goals and keeps us in our budget better.
My husband handles the car insurance (though we discuss deductibles, etc together first) and a lot of our savings type stuff. I handle the mortgage, monthly/weekly expenses like utilities and groceries, we each handle our own credit cards (which get paid in full each month) and Roth IRAs. We both have access to all the accounts. We both manage our daughter’s 529.
My DH has no real idea of grocery prices, so that’s why I handle that. plus I like it. And the drugstore game! I am not much of a risk taker with my retirement account, he is a little more than I am so we have different investment profiles.
I pay our bills and handle most of our finances (insurance decisions, IRA, etc.) DH delegated this to me at the beginning of our marriage, as I was a bookkeeper. I leave everything out and labeled for him in such a way that he could easily take over if something happened to me. I was in the hospital for two weeks during a pregnancy and he was able to locate and pay everything thanks to this.
We also have regular, informal meetings about our finances. For example, if either of us wants to spend over a certain sum on something that’s not an emergency, we discuss it first. Even though I’m the one doing most of the record keeping, he keeps a check on everything himself.
I do all finances in our home and business. Dh makes the money and I manage it. Since we started doing Dave Ramsey’s program, we’ve been working together (for the first time in our marriage) to fine-tune the budget, but I do the actual management of it, as well as bill paying.
I always figured I was in the majority handling most of the family finances, but from the current results of this poll, it looks like I’m not.
I manage our joint checking/savings account and use it to cover all of our major household bills and our joint credit card.
My husband and I have always maintained our own separate accounts as well. We each have our own credit card and use our accounts to cover that. It gives us the opportunity to have a bit of mad money to spend as we see fit without having to run everything past one another. Major purchases are discussed even if we are using our own account.
I think my husband always has known that I have a frugal side, I used to keep a spreadsheet (too hard with kids) of the typical regular/sale prices of the grocery and H&B items that we purchase (by size). This let me know on the fly if I was getting a good deal or not when I found an unadvertised special at the store or if we were at a warehouse club (surprisingly, many of the bulk items are cheaper bought on sale at the grocery store, so I stock up there).
Well, we have no bills that are not on autopayment, so you don’t have an answer that fits us. The odd bill that we get(probably less than 20/year) in the mail I write the check for and put in the mail.
I (the wife) take care of the finances because I really enjoy it and have more time to devote to it.
In case of my untimely demise, I have written a “Job Aid” for him explaining all details of the accounts and procedures for day-to-day management. We keep it in a secure location along with a backup of our data. I update it about once a year.
You should definitely give it a shot!!
I pay the bills and my husband balances the checkbook. We both always know where the money goes.
I read how some people are not talking to their spouses about the finances. I hope that changes.
I didn’t take the poll because my answer was not there. We switched off. I handled them at first because the utilities were in my name. Later, he asked to do them. So I let him. And then I found out that he just didn’t bother to pay most of the bills on time. We had plenty of money, he just didn’t get around to it.
I went ballistic and took over. Then we switched off every few months and he stopped not paying them. However, he would never, ever sit down and budget with me. His idea of savings was to not spend more than we had. He never saved any money except to buy himself toys.
Needless to say, we are divorced.
I am completely CLUELESS when it comes to our finances. My husband is great about trying to keep me informed, though, and I try to be smart in my spending.
It’s my passion to save and secure for our future… as a result I’m the one who pays the bills, manages the budget, tracks our savings, etc. I let DH know how things are going, how much savings we have, and run by him what I think our financial goals should be. The response I get, “Ok honey, whatever sounds good to you.” I guess I shouldn’t complain, he is slowly- but- surely learning 🙂
I handle our finances for many reasons. 1–I’m at home more and have the time. My husband has to work so it just made sense for me to do it while I’m at home and on the computer. (we use electronic banking and e-bills and all that). 2–I’m more organized 3–my husband (and he would admit it) is well…VERY forgetful and cannot keep things like this straight in his head or even keep up with it in a program (I use Moneydance).
I am a single mom, so I do it all. Yipee! I actually have my budget on my blog:
http://strivingtoliveeachdayhisway.blogspot.com/
I enjoy the money saving tips on your blog. -Becky in NJ
My husband handled the bills and budgeting up until 3 months ago. Because work became extra busy for him, I took over. WOW – what an eye-opener! I suddenly became much more conscious of how much I was spending, and I was so much more excited when I came in “under” for any budget category. It has been great for me to understand it all from this perspective.
My husband and I come up with the budget together, but I am in charge of paying the bills, balancing the checkbook, and taking care of misc. charges that pop up. I let him know if our budget can handle it or if we need to “meet” to decide where to scale back that month.
I used to handle the finances with major decisions being made by both of us. However, recently we both decided it was better for our family if my husband handled the bulk of it. We felt like it was more of his responsibility to take care of that area of providing for us, and so far it has gone well. When I handled it, I was very anxious over every penny and now I just rest and trust my husband and the Lord to provide our needs.
My husband is happy to have me do it. I’ve handled it for all but about 3 months of our 24 years. He trusts me and is comfortable with how I handle it. He okays the budget and gives me imput. I do the bills. Neither of us spends much without discussing it with the other. If I told him It’d ike for him to take it over, he’d not be excited to have the opportunity.
I pay the bills. I’m better at it. At one time, my husband did it and we paid lots of late fees!
Now we have 3 accounts: His, Hers and Ours.
We each get an “allowance” each pay period and all the bills are paid from the “Ours” account.
This is finally what works for us. In the past my husband would make a debit purchase that would upset our account because he didn’t know about outstanding checks or payments that had been made. Now, we don’t have that problem because he knows his own budget.
I definitely do the bills. Unfortunately my DH did it in the very begining of our marriage and when I was checking the back statement against our checking registar, I realized that he was rounding up purchases. Say if it was 38.65 he would make it 39 dollars even. It drove me crazy and that was the end of my husband touching the checkbook. I am a nerd myself and the penny pincher around here. Awhile my husband is a very giving person and enjoys sharing everything. Which is a good character of his however some things we need to hold back on!
i do it. My dh did it while I was in law school, but now that I’m a SAHM, I do it all–helps relieve him of the burden, esp b/c he is VERY busy. I balance the checkbook, manage the money, create the budget and pay all the bills. Fortunately he is incredibly naturally frugal and easygoing–makes my job easier. 🙂
(Of course $$ decisions are made as a team. I wouldn’t spend more than $100 without asking him, and vice versa–actually maybe not even more than $50.)
I do all of it because I’m just better with numbers and such than he is. And I actually kind of enjoy it and he would hate it. We make all the big decisions together, but all the details are up to me.
For most of our marriage my dh took care of the finances and just told me not to worry about it. Well, we wanted to save for a vacation to London and he asked me to take care of the finances so that we could save more! Well, we went on a great vacation (I’m very thrifty!) but my hubby wanted the finances back but had to admit I was really good at it. We decided to work as a team. I can get so frugal and so future thinking that I forget to have fun NOW. My hubby thinks of the now rather than the later (although we always saved and invested!) and can get carried away leaving us with less $$$$ than we could have with not much to show for it. Together we make a close to perfect balance and we keep each other in check.
I do the majority of the financial work in our home, but my husband is very involved in knowing where we are at with the money. Just last month we were able to pay off our debt with the exception of our mortgage, so we are experiencing a re-focus of our vision with our finances. I do all the bill paying, and I know how much money is in the account on any given day, but I don’t spend money without him knowing about it. I feel that we have things divided according to our natural talents and abilities. If anything ever happened to either one of us, the other would know what to do, and that makes me feel very secure.
We’ve found things work best in our marriage when it’s both of us working off the same amount/account. I pay some bills, he pays others, and we both get together when the paycheck comes in to figure out where the money will go. If one of us is in charge, the other tends to be completely in the dark about spending and that leads many, many problems, not all financial.
I feel like most of my friends who are married have the wife do the bills or they do the bills together. It might be generational that now women do it most of the time.
It is ALWAYS good that both people in a relationship know where the money is coming and going.
Up until this last month, my husband did everything with the finances. He’d just say sometimes, “we have to cut back this month” and we’d go on a slim budget to catch up. But now that we are on the Total Money Makeover plan, we work on it as a team and I LOVE IT!! I keep track of the spreadsheet and log how much bills are when they come in and he does the actual paying part. (I’m terrible at mailing stuff!) He does set most of them to be paid through our bank directly out of our checking at scheduled times, which helps. But with both of us doing the finances now, we are always on track of how much we have, how much debt we are paying off and what’s new coming up. Between the two of us, we catch little expenses we may have missed. But let me tell you, it might be good for you to do a big portion yourself for at least one month. That way you know how it all works and how much things cost. I had no idea what our gas or electric bill was running now.
Good Luck, Crystal! You may find it to be fun!
I handle the bills and budgeting, but we go over it together once a week so that he knows what is going on!
Until about 4 years ago, I was completely in control of the finances. I always thought it should be the both of us. I prayed about it.
I hated feeling like I was solely responsible if things were going well or if they were going really bad financially.
Four years ago my husband stepped up and took a very active role in our finances. It has been a welcomed relief.
Now we both know where we stand financially all of the time. And we are finanlly on the same page about how to spend or not spend our money.
Kristie
This Side of Eternity
http://www.savingdollarsandsense.com
I started doing my husband’s finances when… well, we had only been dating a few months and he asked me to take over his checkbook and pay his bills for him. He really, really hates anything to do with money and although it doesn’t exactly thrill me, I have helped us work towards our financial goals and he likes that I can tell him how much we have budgeted for “x” expense. And we do discuss major financial things and I value his input a lot.
I do all of the actual number crunching, but we both decide how we will spend each and every penny we receive for the next month. This way I don’t feel like I do everything and Jesse doesn’t feel like he has no say where the money he earns goes. This has worked the best for us. Good luck!
We both know all aspects of our finances. We monitor our accounts almost daily (mainly to make sure there are no fraudulent charges)but also because “out of sight out of mind” works with money too … we like to watch and make sure we’re staying on track.
Anyways – for bill paying the husband has set up most of our bills as automatic payments (which through gmail he’s set up to be notified a day or two before each bill is removed.)
The few bills that need to be mailed in I handle. I write “PAID” across and he files them. We both know how the others “job” works and at any time could do the others “job” if needed.
When the hubs and I were dating in college, I found out that he was all kinds of finance charges on his credit card. After we got engaged, I immediately merged our finances and declared myself CFO.
It went like this: We were moving out of the country, so we no longer needed my car. DH had this smallish debt. I sold the car, and used the money to pay the debt — on the condition that he would henceforth leave the finances to me. I promised we would never be in that position again.
Eleven years later, we have both kept our promises.
Just fixed my url from previous post. Apparently I don’t know how to spell.
I pay the bills online, check the bank statement daily, do the budget and get the cash for my husband to use during the week. He doesn’t like doing any of this, it makes him stressed and frustrated. I like the control. He has input on big money purchases but I do the day to day to day…..
I have to say that working together is your best bet. I write the checks and do the online bill pay, but the decisions are made together. If you’re talking about just the logistics of how everything gets paid, then it should be the more organized of the two of you. Otherwise things might get overlooked. As long as you’re comfortable that you’d be able to do the organization side if you had to, then why not stick with what works? It sounds like you’re on Dave’s plan and have stayed debt-free with your current system. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?? 🙂
At first it was just me. Then we went through Financial Peace and decided to let him have a go at it since he didn’t know how to balance a checkbook even. He learned, we were fine and now I am back at it because I am at home the most and have the most time to keep an eye on things.
I am accountable to him though. So I guess we do it together too!
He knows at any given time how much is in checking and savings because we communicate over finances. Don’t want any surprises.
I am just the data entry person I guess 🙂
As a numbers nerd married to an artistic type, I handle the bill paying and day to day budgeting. However, I firmly believe that God has set my husband as the head of the household and that means following his lead in the big picture of our finances.
We sit down and agree to general direction and priorities, and I make it happen. We regularly have informal discussions about tweaking things here and there (ie – he’s okay with me couponing and finding deals, just not “too much”).
I’ve found that even when we spend money that I didn’t necessarily want to but my husband did, God is always faithful and provides what we need. Although some days it sure is a test in Biblical submission!
I do most if not all of the finances because DH is in the military and can be gone for months on end so it’s easier for me to do them.
Hmmm… I guess you can say I am also a nerd hahaha. I do the finances in terms of paying bills, looking forward to the next few months, projecting expenses, savings, etc. My DH is a financial planner but he’s not very patient or detailed when it comes to keeping track of expenses. He is, however, superb at investing, which is what he does 🙂 So, I stick the money into the savings and when it reaches a certain point, he can take some and invest it.
We both have “allowances” but for the most part, we discuss big expenses with each other to make sure the other person is ok with spending the money.
I used to do it. Dh does it now. We “meet” every weekend to discuss what is what. I also get “my” money at that time.
We each take care of our “own” finances. We each are in charge of part of the income and we use it to pay our own expenses plus we are each in charge of some of the bills.
This works for us because we have different styles. I like to have everything balanced and know where everything is. He likes to keep a general idea of things in his head without having to write everything down. We can each keep doing things our own way without driving the other person nutso.
Also, I have a somewhat conservative investing style, and he has a more aggressive investing style, so with each of us in charge of some of the money, that’s good diversification.
This puts us in the odd position of occasionally “lending” each other money. Neither one of us wants to ask for help, so that helps keep us motivated to do a good job with our part of the money. But if things come up, of course we aren’t going it alone.
We are working on setting up a system so we can each discover and access each other’s accounts if necessary.
**
Oddly enough, my parents have a similar delegation-type of system. My dad used to take care of their finances, but he’s entrepreneurial and overly optimistic which led to problems. Finally my mother decided to get a paying job and to take over all the common bills except for the house. After that point, the utilities were never cut off, though occasionally we would get evicted and have to move. (They haven’t moved in decades now, though, so that’s good!) My mother also quit getting ulcers after that point.
We divide the responsiblity. He sits down to carefully balance the checkbook once a month when our statement arrives. He also keeps track of our investments.
I organize/pay the bills and maintain the checkbook throughout the month. If any bills are higher than normal, I’ll run it past him just so he is aware.
Any major purchases (over $100, and even some over $50) are discussed before the purchase is made.
Well, my husband has recently taken a more active roll in our finances. In the past, he would hand me his check, we’d briefly discuss what was due, then I would sit and pay everything and balance the checkbook.
Since my pregnancy and the birth of our second son, I just was not able to keep up with it very well.
Now, he has put together a whole budget program on his computer at work. He figures everything out and I simple write things in, pay bills online, or mail them when necessary.
It really works great for us! I like knowing what is going on without having to “think” through budgeting, etc.
Since we learned about Dave Ramsey and began budgeting more strictly, our system really works for us. There’s a lot less stress knowing in advance where the money is going to go.
We work together in the following way: my husband manages the budget spreadsheet and pays bills. I visit the ATM once a week to get our envelope money. We go over our budget together at the beginning of each month and whenever changes need to be made.
When my husband deployed to Iraq last year and I managed all our money, I was continually thankful for his organized budget spreadsheet and automatic billpay. His organization was the gift that kept on giving while he was away!
I’ve been taking care of all the financial stuff since shortly before we got married because he was that happy to not have to deal with it. I’m the nerd and use Quicken for record-keeping and reporting and Excel for budgeting and he regularly thanks me for taking care of it because we’re (he’s) in much better financial shape now.
I do keep him informed on passwords and where to find the info if anything were to ever happen to me, and of course we discuss big purchases (house, cars, appliances) but we’re very blessed to have enough breathing room in the budget that we don’t really have to stress over things the way we used to; I budget for the year (and discuss it with him) and then tweak as needed each month, but the tweaks are minor as our sinking funds are well established.
We plan our budget together and any large purchases, but I handle the majority of the finances and bill paying, for several reasons: I love it, I’m good at it, I have more regular time to do it (he’s a surgery resident), I do most of the shopping for the family and, like Stacy said, I like to know what exactly is going on, so I would be looking at it all the time anyway.
I think that you must make decision together and be on the same page, and that it’s always good for all members of the household (both spouses, plus kids) to know how to plan expenses, pay bills, balance the checkbook, etc. For the day to day getting it done, though, it seems to work best when one person takes the lead so nothing falls through the cracks. Who does it in each family depends on who has time, ability and desire to do it or who wants to get better at it. You both need to be comfortable with whatever you decide. That said, though, both spouses need to know where you stand financially and the person not handling the nitty gritty needs to know what all is involved so they could take over if needed.
Good for you! I think it’s really important for both husband/wife to be very familiar with finances.
My husband and I have similar spending habits and we both like math, but I handle bills and balancing the checkbook. I personally haven’t found it to be an extra stress. One thing that has made bill-paying a LOT easier (and saves on postage too!) is online banking! If your bank offers this, check it out. They’ll even mail the bill for you to someone who doesn’t offer online payments. We use FNB Olathe.
My DH and I both kind of do it. We use separate joint accounts and just kind of each pick a few bills each month to pay, and then others we have automatically withdrawn from either account every month. The only reason we are in debt is because I like to spend money (he’s a saver), but I’ve been working since December to live cash-only and become consumer-debt free and hope to have that accomplished by August 2010.
My honey asked me to handle the finances when we were engaged, which works great for me too since I love numbers and planning. He loves that I plan ahead for expenses and non-monthly bills (something he’s never been good at) as it lowers his stress level.
Ideally, I would love him to be more involved in the day-to-day maintenance so he would know what to do if something happened to me, but he’s only recently stopped getting a deer-in-the-headlights scared stare when I show him the budget so I think that might be off in the future still. 🙂 Numbers are not for everyone, but I think he’ll get there eventually where he can at least learn how I do things so it won’t be greek to him if he has to manage things.
For the time being, we are on a tight budget and he supports it 100% – which is what makes it possible for me to be a SAHM. If there is something that he wants, then we work out a way to get it, usually by a combination of saving and selling some things we don’t need. He’s such a sweetie and it’s so rare that he asks for anything, that we always find a way – and without resorting to credit cards!
We are self-employed/incorporated… so that adds some extra “fun” to our finances! Because I’m the money geek, I do the finances as far as actually writing out the bills and keeping the QUicken files going… but we definitely discuss how finances are going TOGETHER. It’s a team effort!
I handle the money around here. DH is deployed about every other year or so, so it just makes sense for us. We tried having him doing it for a while at one point but it just really isn’t his area of expertise (despite the dual Math and Business degrees!) I keep him informed, though.
We just completed FPU, and we now do the bills together as Dave Ramsey’s suggests. It’s worked well this way and has been a whole lot less stressful!
My husband does it but when we set up our monthly budget we go over all the categories together and make the decisions.
The Man Beast makes the money and I write the checks – however, I make sure to discuss bill paying with him so he knows exactly where the money is going. I refuse to take all the responsibility. It’s a joint effort, for sure.
I do home and my husband does the business. His has the much harder of the two. You are organized so this probably won’t be a problem for you. But once I had three kids and my schudule got busier I found it hard to fit it in. I dreaded taking the time to sit down and balance things out, pay bills, budget, etc. Now I have a set day and time to do it and it is much easier to handle. Once a week I just do it and it does not become overwhelming. Do you use a budgeting program like quickbooks or something? I was just curious how you keep track of everything. Is it really just by the envelope type system?
My husband is in school working on a major in accounting and…I handle the household finances. We make the decisions together, but I do the bill paying, checkbook balancing, etc. I’m enough of a control freak that if he was doing it I’d be checking it over anyways, and I’m more detail oriented than he is.
There was never any question about it in my marriage, I take care of all the financial stuff. My husband and I are complete opposites – he doesn’t like math, I love it and used to work as an Accounts Payable Clerk when I was a teenager.
It’s worked out very well, my husband never stresses over the money, he can swipe the debit card worry-free and we don’t bounce checks. 🙂
I always tell him what’s going on with the money, even though it doesn’t mean much to him, or doesn’t register as anything. I could tell him that we have $5,000 in the account or $1,000, and it means the same to him. He assumes that I have plans for most of the money or that I’m saving up for a major expense.
When my husband does want something expensive (like a computer), he’ll work out the numbers with me, and do his best not to push me over the edge by not leaving any breathing room. Life DOES happen! 🙂
Right now I do all the finances. I have been doing them for about 10 years now!! My sweet hubby did it when we first got married, he would forget to enter things in the check book or use the Atm card and not enter it!! Things went a bouncing !!! He handed my the check book and said have fun! I have been praying that he would take this “job” back. with so many little ones , I find it hard to put the time aside for this. Plus I really don’t like this job!!! I love being a helpmeet to my hubby, just don’t like this job! I do think every wife should at least know how / what to do in this area. At least you are prepared for whatever life brings.
Blessings-
Rachelle
I take care of all the finances. My husband is in the Navy so he is out to see A LOT. I am good with numbers and a better saver. And it wouldn’t get done if my husband was in charge because he is so busy with work and gone all the time.
My husband does the day-to-day bills, I do the forward planning, investing, and taxes.
My hubby stays away from the money, for the most part. He likes not having to worry about it, and I think I’m pretty good at it. 🙂
My husband is in charge of our finances, although I’d like to be. He is a little, um, lax about things.
I grew up in a family where my mom did it, but HATED doing it. I always thought it would be nice to have a guy who did it. And it is, to an extent – however, he isn’t as thrifty or frugal as I am and tends to be carefree about spending. That’s why I want to be in charge, but he’s not good about letting go of that. 😉
DH technically handles most of the balancing, entering and bill-paying. He’s much better with numbers and organization than I am. (I never balanced my checkbook before we were married!) However, we work together to set the budget and make major decisions. Also, it takes both of us to stick to the budget we set!
I pay all the bills and do all the budgeting. DH and I make any big purchase decisions together, of course.
My husband did all of the finances the first four years of our marriage; but two years ago I asked if he wanted me to take over (he was getting overwhelmed at work and also working on his masters…still is), and he was happy to give that chore to me. He still calls the shots and somehow keeps a running tab in his head (probably since I don’t spend much anyway), but I pay bills, enter receipts, and reconcile. My only downfall is that occasionally I get sidetracked with home stuff and have to ask him to pay a bill online (he likes paper copies of everything). ha
DH did all of our finances for about 9 months after we got married. Then he deployed very unexpectedly for 11 months. And I was completely lost because I hadn’t been paying the bills. So, when he came home from that deployment, we decided that I am the one that pays the bills. Technically, not a lot needs to be done, as virtually everything is set to come out automatically, but now I know, when DH deploys (and he’s done so 14 times in 9 years of marriage) that I’m not up a creek without a paddle.
We’ve both tried doing it alone before and both made bad financial decisions so we both do it together now. I pay the bills as they come in and he keeps track of savings and pay credit card balances. It works great for us.
Hello!
I handle the finances at our house for the same reason Jesse does, ahh the nerd thing comes in pretty handy sometimes:)
I have full control of everything and the only mandate from my husband is to not get us in trouble with the IRS or run us into bankruptcy. 😉 Other than that his eyes glaze over when we talk money.
Actually George is pretty good with money and it isn’t a problem for me to handle the finances because I like to do it a lot (nerd, nerd, nerd) and I do it for my clients too.
Can’t wait to read what the other commentors have to share!
Trixie
I handle the bills, but my DH always knows whats going on.
I am the one with the skills in this area so I do all of the bill paying. Every 2 months or so, I remind my husband how to access our accounts and what the passwords are so that he is equipped, “just in case.” Kind of like how Jesse wants you to know.
However, major purchases and financial decisions are made together.
I have been paying the bills and everything since right after our wedding. Hubby missed a few payments and I nearly killed him for the late fees. Now 7 years later it has never happened again, unless the US postal service lost a bill and we did not receive it.
I handle all of the bills, budgeting, and everything. I enjoy doing it, and I’m good at it. He is always aware of what I do and when I do it because we communicate about money freely. We discuss the budgeting, major purchases, and financial decisions. He definitely has some input, but he tends to defer to me for the most part because he trusts my judgment.
I’m the geek and the financial detail person. DaHubby’s the visionary and “idea man”. We have our Dave Ramsey family business meeting the 3rd Sat of each month to go over the budget for the upcoming month. While I write the budget, he gets approval and/or veto power. LOL He’s better at the bigger picture while I’m the DR-junkie who chipping away at it everyday! LOL
I tried handing the responsibility for the money to my husband a few years ago after he complained about our “broke” condition. (We weren’t.) By the end of the first month, he not only didn’t ever want to see our checkbook again, but he never again asked me what happened to all the money he thought we’d have! We handle decisions more cooperatively now, but I still do the nuts and bolts stuff.
I’m sure you’d enjoy handling that aspect of things for a while. You’re not confused about money the way he was at the time ;-). Still, I think it’s best to let the real nerd drive most of the time. We get a little antsy when we’re not in charge…
My husband is mostly in charge of the finances but we work mostly as a team. I write checks for bills when he is really busy but he does the balancing of the checkbook and figuring out how much we need to put into each category for life from each check. 🙂
We have been good for each other for sure, I am the penny pincher and he is more lenient with finances so we always discuss in length purchases with pros and cons and we try to wait at least a week before buying something to make sure we really, really want it.
My Husband did the bills for the first 4 years of our marriage, then I did it for the next 6 years and now he’s back to doing it again. We sit down each Sunday and go over things together, so we each know the status though. With a toddler, he has more time than I do right now. Also, he’s more of a spender and it helps him to see just how much goes out each week (or more often) when he logs on.
I’m guessing that since all of us ladies read this wonderful blog on frugality, we’re more involved with the family finances than the general population!
My husband is overjoyed to leave our finances to me. The only thing he does is balance the checkbook periodically since I’m not very good at math. 🙂
I do my bills and about 70% of my mom’s bills for her. She does her checkbook, but I pay her bills via internet for her.
My DH is good at it but doesn’t want to fool with it. He doesn’t mind me doing so long as we have money in the bank, bills are paid, and if he wants something he can use his card and not worry if there is enough money to cover it or not.
I “handle everything” which means an Excel spreadsheet, paying bills, etc. But he definitely inputs his expenses and we make decisions together. I have just a bit more time than he does, and also more attention to detail so I just keep everything organized. Plus I do most of the shopping/spending so I just enter it right away.
Hm. My Mom had to give over the finances to our Dad many years ago. She just said that it gave her too much of a “control” mindset over how much he should be “allowed” to spend (pocket money, entertainment type purchases, etc.).
I am sure that some women wouldn’t have this problem, but it was a problem for her, so she had to trust God to take care of all of the finances from then on.
Now Dad gets my sister or I (we are 24 and 22) to pay most of the bills when he gets them in the mail, or once in a while if we are busy my Mom or he will do it. But he recieves the bill and decides when he wants it paid.
I’ve done it, and we got in debt…my husband did it and we got in debt
Now we both do it and we are getting out of debt. He sees things I miss and vice versa.