Gender divide on financial literacy.

[LOL!]

Long-time married. We are a team when it comes to finances. Many many years ago, we created a joint family e-mail that we use for all things that we both need to know about: family, friends, and financial things. It is the e-mail known to all our accounts, credit cards, loans, online shops like Amazon, Chewy, etc. So either of us can see or ignore bill pay reminders and so on. What comes through the physical mailbox is also potentially seen or ignored by both of us.

But to go one step further, we split up paying bills online, so that both of us know how it works. I pay some bills, she pays some bills, and some are automatically charged to credit cards.

The idea was that if one of us died, the other would be aware of all the family financial things.

 

[EastWest Gal]

LOL - Excel is my binkie.



DH pays all the bills, I mind the investments. He's (unnecessarily) intimidated by investments, but I know he would pick up the basics quickly if I check out first.

That is our division of labor too. But in the past 4 years we’ve paid more attention to one another’s financial chores, especially since we hit FI and a major source of life stress is gone. DH has been squirreling away cash from his gigs to purchase a new (used) alto sax. Finally his old sax had too many problems and he discussed wanting to buy the sax he dreamed about since high school. My response was: “what took you so long?”

 

[Jeffman52]

My wife pays most of the bills. I deal with our retirement accounts, budget and savings. We always, together, talk through any changes to the budget or big financial spends.

 

[COZICAN]

All of our monthly bills are on auto pay and DW insists on "checking them off". She kept a check register up until just a few months ago. I do all of the investing and any other financials. I try to keep her updated as to where we stand but she really has no interest. She does know how to access everything should the need arise. Our best friends are totally opposite.

 

[youbet]

My wife pays most of the bills. I deal with our retirement accounts, budget and savings. We always, together, talk through any changes to the budget or big financial spends.

That would be us too. DW is in charge of routine bill paying, keeping cash in "the envelope" for our pocket money needs and manages low six figures of cash in the bank (CD's, MM and checking). And she does that responsibly and well if things stay routine.

I handle investing/managing the FIRE portfolio, analysis and strategies for handling various big bux situations, tax planning and prep and seem to be the lead dog as we move into estate planning (where we're long overdue).

While DW enjoys handling the details of her end of things, she's not inclined to be the one defining the mission statement but rather enjoys executing the mission statement. Therefore, I'm casually looking for trustworthy firms/people to handle taxes, investing and financial situational analysis for her should I die or become incapacitated first.

We don't follow a written budget but I glance at the checking account, MM and CD's from time to time to see where we are. We do discuss general cash flows supporting routine household expenses and their trends and always talk about significant purchases.

 

[LeaveItBetter]

Anyway do you think women are more likely to leave the financial lifting to the guys even today?

Trick question in my household as we are both women, but all things financial definitely fall to me. There's an envelope in the safe that has a list of accounts and two people to call if should check out unexpectedly - our FA and my employer. DP doesn't have any interest in other details. The good thing is that she's on board with our plan. She may roll her eyes when it's time to make catch-up contributions, but one mention of ER and she goes along.

I would guess that the women on this forum, and maybe even those married to the guys on this forum who have been pulled along by ER strategies, might be more financially aware than average. That said, in my extended circle, it's a good mix of men and women that tend to handle finances. I have female friends who have gotten screwed in divorces because of their lack of interest/understanding and others who run the money show.

 

[JustCurious]

Anyway do you think women are more likely to leave the financial lifting to the guys even today?

Yes.

 

[GreenER]

Yes.

I set up and handle all of the income and investments and do the ACA strategizing. I'm more interested in investing and was the driving force behind FIRE. We have a monthly budget and he does the bills (always has), tracks our spending and sends me a monthly copy of all bills and total monthly spend. We both strategize collaboratively on taxes, but he does them and I check them. I used to do the taxes and can muddle through, but he is better at reading legalese and is more computer savvy . We need to put a memory stick in the safety deposit box with passwords and account numbers, so that I could more easily go on line to pay if he was incapacitated. I try to keep him abreast of what the investment strategy is but he's not all that interested. I am trying to simplify and I do have a list of where accounts are and approximate values. There's enough easily accessible investments in joint accounts that he would have plenty to tide him over until he figured it out. He's perfectly capable and he has all of the documents we use annually for taxes in addition to my list of where all of my investments are. Again though, we really need this info in a secure place for him. Bottom line is that we both could manage but we really should patch those holes!

 

[Gumby]

When the young wife and I were first married, I was a Navy submariner -- out of touch with the rest of the world for months at a time. Of necessity, she handled all the finances while I was underwater. Since leaving active duty in 1986, I have been in charge of all of it. Based on her prior performance, I am confident that she will do fine after I shuffle off this mortal coil.

 

[audreyh1]

I think you’ll find a lot of the women regularly posting here are handling a good chunk of the family finances and the retirement planning because, well, they’re regularly posting here!

 

[Katsmeow]

I would guess that as a group women (particularly older women from a marriage where there is enough money to invest) are a bit more likely to leave it to the husbands.

The women on this forum due to its subject matter are probably not typical. That said, this forum has a lot more men posting than women.

In our house, I do everything financial. Both the routine bill paying and budgeting and the investing. The other day I was planning to do something that I wanted to run by DH. Almost as soon as I started talking, he said that it was up to me. I nonetheless insisted on explaining the options to him and getting his blessing on it since it did involve making a choice.

 

[Ready-4-ER-at-14]

I do our financial stuff, have found all our RE, and do our taxes. Spouse handles all our bills mostly via smart phone. I have a spread sheet will all the accounts and account numbers, she knows how to get to that and all our online accounts with passwords which I've documented. I do drills with the kids also as how to find this stuff too.

She pays all the ongoing bills, which are basically utilities or a credit card. If she died the lights might go off before I found out how to get access and pay. I'd probably have to contact every company directly to get access and find out most are on autopay. Some how I suspect and expect that she intends to outlive me and has faith that I'd figure it out fairly easily if I had to.

 

[traineeinvestor]

We have a mix of separate and joint accounts. DW handles her own investments and I handle mine + the jointly owned ones. She handles most of the day-to-day expenses such as utilities and groceries while I deal with the less regular ones such as school fees, the car and a few other things.

If anything happens to me, she knows where everything is ... except, of course, the details of my wine collection.

 

[MichaelB]

Buddy Hackett joke from back in the day

Husband and wife in elevator in Vegas hotel. Wife tells husband she lost $50 gambling, husband starts yelling at her. Wife responds “you lost even more”. Husband says “ yeah, but I know how to gamble”.

Morningstar says there is no significant difference in mutual fund performance when controlling for gender.

 

[brett]

We brought up our daughter in such a way that we asked her to assume that she was a single mother with two children. Helped her to understand the need for job/career and financial skills. We told her that this was a prerequisite to having a family.

Also encouraged her to live on her own prior to marriage/co habitation so she could have experience doing all those things on her own. Builds character and smarts.

When we married forty odd years ago my spouse had never done this. Over the years this has changed. She can add two and two, has financial smarts. Even though I handle the financial paperwork she attends all investment meetings because much of it is her name. Much easier these days. Who writes cheques? A quick scan of our chequing account will provide most of the data anyone needs for our non investment transactions.

Fast forward about ten years and the daughter is involved in their businesses. I overheard her say to her spouse.... lets discontinue this line, the gross margin is too low. We can get 40 points on the other product and the inventory and handling costs will be lower. I was astonished. She was listening and learning even though in her youth she spent every dime she had and it had to be brand name labels.

 

[Sue J]

I knew I was not the only one dealing with a spouse who avoids anything financial.

DH has always had an avoidance thing about numbers/math/money. Interacting with any of that makes him itching and fidgety. Managing a credit card is far too abstract and fuzzy. He can deal with cash if he has to so we use cash for all the local spending. Now, he is a smart man, he just has a thing about anything financial.

He knows I enjoy all these things and all the spreadsheets to keep track, summarize and analyze all of this. So he deals with it by avoiding all of it and trusting me to handle everything. I really do enjoy it all but I've tried to involve him to some degree because he is an adult who worked many years to get a pension that supports us. HE has an income and HE has expenses and taxes, etc and HE should have some contact with his financial life.

I've always done the taxes and then I review with him how it went and what changes happened. He acts like he paying attention for a few minutes and then that's it, he's reached his saturation point. This year I told him in January that I'm ready to file, I'd like to go over it with him. Later in February I said I want to file it already he said to go ahead, we will go over it later. Uh, huh. Later still hasn't happened so I put a note in the folder explaining the relevant things I wanted to explain. He won't look in that folder unless I'm gone.

This is frustrating to me because we do quite well living on less than his pension. I'm proud of how we live and I'm thrilled with how much he enjoys his retirement. And he just detaches from all of it. If there is food in the house and the bills are paid and he has money in his pocket to buy crap at thrift stores then he does not care about the rest of it. I could have a secret bank account or a gambling addiction and he'd never notice.

 

[harllee]

I am the wife and I have always handled the investments, retirement planning, budgeting and taxes. DH handles the day to day bill paying--he says he will "do anything" to avoid having to do taxes even though I have told him with Turbotax it is fairly easy.

To the OP--I have had some recent experience appealing our property tax valuation (DH was not really involved although he did take some pictures). I am in NC and you are in a different state but send me a PM if I can be of any help. The first thing I did was get a copy of all the details on my house that the tax department had--# of baths and bedrooms, square footage, amount of land, etc. I found that the tax dept. had listed too many bathrooms and had the square footage too high. So it helped reduce my valuation to get those corrected in the first place. Then I found comparable sales in my area and made the argument that my house was overvalued based on the sold prices. The first person at the tax dept. I met with would not give me much of a reduction and discouraged me from appealing because I would have to attend a hearing and "it would be a lot of work." I told the tax person that I was retired, had plenty of time and that I thought it would be interesting to go through the appeals process. The next day the tax person called me back and further reduced my valuation which I accepted. So my advice is to not let the tax people intimidate you, lots of times they will settle with you just to get rid of you, especially if you tell them you are willing to appeal.

 

[aja8888]

We have been married 22 years (2nd for both of us).. When I met DW, she was a District Manager in commercial real estate, handling fee managed investment properties. This job included setting operating and capital budgets for numerous investment properties all over the US, hiring employees, and reporting operating performance on a monthly basis for each location. She would travel to NYC twice a year for budget meetings with investors. She knows her stuff, financially.

Since we have been married, I have done all the investing, bill paying, paying taxes, handling contract negotiations, investing and financial planning. She is "cold" to it and just really wants her credit card and the checkbook to deal with now that she is retired. I am good with this and have an MBA in finance and lots of experience with all things needed to handle the house and whatever.

My guess is that she just got burned out with the financial stuff during her career and as long as I have it "handled, she is good with it all.

When she worked, we had an office in the house with two workstations and she would spend hours at night and on weekends creating Excel worksheets for investor review. No wonder she is tired of the financial stuff.

 

[6miths]

I think it is a couple preference. One partner likely winds up with more responsibility simply because it is more efficient and less confusing that way.

 

[reneeh63]

My guess is that it still may be a matter of pride in a few women's eyes that they've never HAD to get involved with the money or dirty their hands with it! Kind of like never having to look at a price tag before buying something?

Perhaps the men who leave all the finances to their wives are just less likely to admit it than women who leave it to their husbands to do? ....likely a bit of both.

 

[audreyh1]

Growing up in the 60s and 70s, I figured out very quickly that the culture encouraged women to look to marriage for their financial security. As divorce rates skyrocketed from 1965 to 1980 many women found themselves in an extremely insecure financial situations, often with children to raise alone. It was imperative to me to achieve financial independence on my own in the sense that I would support myself financially.

It's honestly hard for me to envision women feeling pride in not having to dirty their hands with money. Is this the trophy wife set? I never actually met a trophy wife.

 

[Katsmeow]

About 10 to 15 years or so ago, DH and I were debating who does more work at home. This was when we were both working full-time. DH did a lot of the cleaning since it bothers my allergies. I did all of the financial stuff including bill paying, budgeting, investing and I did all the other paperwork type stuff. He opined that he didn't think bill paying/budgeting took much time (we had 3 kids at home at the time). So, I told him to have at it.

I turned Quicken over to him and said I would be happy to help but it was his to do. 30 days later as we were starting to get late notices on bills that he had overlooked and we were scrambling to move money around, he gave it all back to me and said he would never say another word about who worked harder. And he never has....

 

[Moemg]

It's honestly hard for me to envision women feeling pride in not having to dirty their hands with money. Is this the trophy wife set? I never actually met a trophy wife.

Trophy wives are alive and well in Sarasota ,Fl . Trophy men also !

 

[MrsHaloFIRE]

I do the books. HaloFIRE audits them. We have a monthly checkup at balancing time. We have occasional summit meeting for large decisions.

 

[MrsHaloFIRE]

Also, I appealed a tax valuation for a NC prop using comps. I was partially successful. Definitely worthwhile