18:19 raises an interesting point. If OP is actually confident that he and DW will still be together at retirement, he can partially compensate for her cash hording by being hyper-aggressive with his retirement funds. DW won't have a say in that.

What's your total financial picture?

Combining both your investments & savings, what % combined do you have in equities v. bonds v. cash (money market, etc.)?

That number will give you the bigger picture view of where you are and whether, overall, it's too conservative.

These days I balance a weakening bond market vs. a shaky equity market v. no interest in cash and still have more than 50% in "cash" to avoid downside risk. Even so continue to average good returns over 1, 5, 10, and 20 yrs. while greatly mitigating losses in big downswings (e.g., down 12% when everything was tanking 30-40% in '08-09 &c.).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may be off key here, but investing in cash is irresponsible, almost as much as someone who doesn't invest at all. I understand being conservative, but putting more than an insignificant amount of retirement funds in cash is really stupid.

I think everyone understands that OP's wife is being at best irrational and at worst really really stupid but what's off-putting about it is his attitude- that because of this one stupid thing his wife is doing, he regrets his marriage. Everyone's spouse does something stupid- some smoke, some are overweight/don't take care of their health, some rack up credit card debt, some do a combination of stupid things that may, in the long run, have a hefty cost. If my husband has a heart attack and is incapacitated because he eats badly (this is just an example), isn't that much worse than putting cash in a 401(k)? My parents are friends with a couple where the husband is a surgeon and a brilliant man in general, and he decided that he would like to take up beekeeping, and long story short he ended up in the hospital and it was a disaster financially and otherwise- do you think his wife was like "I regret marrying this guy because of this dumbass beekeeping idea?" Deciding that you regret your marriage because of something like that is sort of heinous- it's for better or for worse, for richer or poorer. If we all thought that way everyone would just get divorced.

1. He didn't say he regrets his marriage. He said sometimes he thinks he made a mistake. I suspect that an extraordinarily high percentage of people on marriages have as some time or another thought they might have made a mistake by entering into the marriage. I think there is a huge difference between saying "sometimes I think I made a mistake" and "based solely on the fact that my wife makes questionable investment decisions, I intend to divorce her." Y'all are massively over-reading what he said.

2. I think there is a gender element here because almost daily in the relationship thread a DW says "I love my DH there's just this one [insert at best irrational and at worst really really stupid] thing he does. Any advice?" and 25% of the posters write in to say that DW is a fool for still loving him and has only herself to blame for not leaving DH immediately.

3. I am pretty sure OP is not just annoyed about the bad investment; he's annoyed that DW appears unwilling to hear him out when he explains why it is a stupid investment. I suspect the apparent lack of trust, and not the lost money, is what causes him to sometimes think he made a mistake.

4. Finally, yes, I think some people in the thread really don't understand how stupid a decision it is. Its not "oh she's wasting some money," its "oh, she's possibly wasting more money than she makes in salary."

Anonymous wrote:This may be off key here, but investing in cash is irresponsible, almost as much as someone who doesn't invest at all. I understand being conservative, but putting more than an insignificant amount of retirement funds in cash is really stupid.

I think everyone understands that OP's wife is being at best irrational and at worst really really stupid but what's off-putting about it is his attitude- that because of this one stupid thing his wife is doing, he regrets his marriage. Everyone's spouse does something stupid- some smoke, some are overweight/don't take care of their health, some rack up credit card debt, some do a combination of stupid things that may, in the long run, have a hefty cost. If my husband has a heart attack and is incapacitated because he eats badly (this is just an example), isn't that much worse than putting cash in a 401(k)? My parents are friends with a couple where the husband is a surgeon and a brilliant man in general, and he decided that he would like to take up beekeeping, and long story short he ended up in the hospital and it was a disaster financially and otherwise- do you think his wife was like "I regret marrying this guy because of this dumbass beekeeping idea?" Deciding that you regret your marriage because of something like that is sort of heinous- it's for better or for worse, for richer or poorer. If we all thought that way everyone would just get divorced.

Anonymous wrote:OP, here are a couple of ideas.

1. Show her that there are different kinds of risk and that one of those risks is inflation risk. She will lose money through inflation if she's not earning anything on her money.

2. Does she get a company match? Can you convince her that the match is "free" money that she wouldn't have had anyway and to at least invest that with some risk?

Signed,
A SAHM who has a finance degree and is less risk averse than her husband

Number 2 is how I rationalized my division of my 401k. Government account. I kept the five percent of "my" money in the g and f funds, and the four percent matching in the riskier funds. Of course since I chose that allocation in 2009 it's not looking so good right now!