What kind of “debt” do you have that is a surprise? This seems so strange to me. Are you talking about one time unexpected expenses — like the HVAC died and we have to replace it? Or like “hey, I went out and bought a fancy car without talking to you first?”

If you follow ramit sethi on IG he has a lot of scripts

You should schedule regular family finance meetings. Have an agenda. Come prepared. Put it on the family calendar.

We both throw things out randomly, but always sit down to discuss it thoroughly if it's called for. But we both watch our expenses and investments continually.

A couple of times a year my husband does a detailed net worth update and we talk about it. We tend not to have any surprises except for things like recent home insurance increases and we just discuss them when they arise. We are both pretty savvy when it comes to our finances and we are on the same wavelength when it comes to not wasting money. This week I did tell him that we had a $27k balance on a credit card from Christmas and booking business class flights to Europe and he just rolled his eyes.

This….is our normal way of talking about it. “Oh, this came up”

What debt does he throw at you that you were unaware of?

If you have a normal way of talking abou finances, how do you go about it with your spouse? Currently I will be cooking eggs on a Saturday morning and DH will throw out news or an update about some debt we have. It throws a bomb into my morning.