Household finance question
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Anonymous
| I handle bills, DH handles investments. Neither of us has any interest in the other. We meet monthly to review where things stand with balances, outstanding bills etc, and a couple times a year to discuss investments and longer term planning. It works really well for us. |
Anonymous
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We use You Need a Budget (YNAB) and it's been amazing
https://www.ynab.com I'd sooner have a phone that does calls/texts/YNAB and nothing else than keep my iPhone but give up YNAB. I don't know how people live without budgeting (despite doing so myself for most of my adult life). |
Anonymous
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I (wife) handle most of it. The bills, how much we spend on vacation, if we can update the furniture in the living room this year, etc. We made an agreement when we first got married that neither would spend over $1,000 without discussing/agreeing about it first.* I also meet with the accountant each year.
Once a year we together meet with our financial advisor who tells us if we're on track (so far yes), as we've both always saved the max, and adjust/rebalance the portfolio. Advisor makes suggestions about this, as we are both clueless. *twice spouse has broken this rule, and the second time we had a massive fight about it (was a lot of money at the time, and nearly $5k on a stupid sport thing). If I think about it, it still makes me mad, so I try not to. At this point, I don't think he'll ever do that again |
Anonymous
NP here. omg. this isn't a business relationship. Who communicates with their spouse via email. Open your mouths and talk. |
Anonymous
| I handle everything. I use Google sheets to track investments and monthly spending down to the penny. Wife has links to the sheets but never looks at them. We discuss big picture as needed and I send an email about monthly expenses. A bit overkill right now but we are buying/selling houses and doing a reno so we're tracking everything. |
Anonymous
For finance stuff and a DH whose eyes glaze over about it, a written record is kind of helpful. We talk about it, but I also send an email with a link to the docs with the info. This way he knows he can look into the details if he's interested even if he never does. It eases my sense of being solely responsible for how investments do etc--if he objects to anything I'm doing he has the opportunity to say something both when we talk or when he looks it over. If he chooses not to I feel like it's more on him then if things don't work out as planned or whatever--I asked for his input. |
Anonymous
This, but there are certain accounts that are in his name (backdoor Roth, his 529 for DD, I-bonds, anything where it can't be joint or there's a benefit to having more than one), so I'll let him know when something needs to happen there and he carries it out. We don't really communicate about finances but I recognize that this is a huge privilege that comes from not having to watch pennies. |
Anonymous
OP here, I agree. Email is a nice way to update each other. Life gets busy and when we talk, things get forgotten! |
Anonymous
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I do monthly bills and he does investments.
All passwords are written in a little book in case we need to look, check up on something. Once a week I tell him let's do some banking. That includes all bank accounts credit card accounts I also keep a monthly schedule of all bills, when they post and when they are due, whether the info is already in the account or not, if the info needs to be manually put in. We have an open book policy. We both need to be on the same page. |