Talking to my wife about finances

[iloveyoga]

I'm so sorry for your loss.

I've been trying to bring DH and DS up to spead in this regard and I am frustrated by their lack of interest. Forgive me, but could we rename this thread with the word "spouse" instead of "wife"? Many of us females here are the breadwinners and the financial gurus in our households.

Read the posts by Teacher Terry. And others. It is really annoying that the roles of gender are so ingrained for some, but not for many. I was the breadwinner since our marriage vows in 1984 (planned in advance), and have been the leader in our family in terms of finances and in many other ways.

To put it bluntly, DH remains clueless about finances, except for bill-paying, despite sitting in on every meeting with financial advisors since 1993. He understands, but is not engaged in that aspect of our lives.

+1 I was going to ask if I was the only female reading this.

 

[CardsFan]

Asking the non-involved spouse to pay attention to what is being done, is sort of like asking the spouse that doesn't clean the toilets to closely examine how clean the toilets are in every crevice and side of them. Not very appealing.

Nominated for Best Quote of the Month.

 

[whatnot]

TeeRuh I am so sorry for your loss.

I do all bill payment (automated), budget and investments.
I go over our financial picture with DH several times a year.

I go over things I’ve learned both here and on BH with him and it’s helped with our retirement preparation. So he is aware of everything and we make joint decisions but he relies on my research.

I think he could do it on his own if needed, but I’m not sure.

 

[Dtail]

Not too many examples where both partners are fully involved in the finances.

 

[Gumby]

Forgive me, but could we rename this thread with the word "spouse" instead of "wife"? Many of us females here are the breadwinners and the financial gurus in our households.

Seems a fair and accurate thread title to me, since the OP was describing a particular humorous personal moment between himself and his wife. I doubt that he intended to suggest that only a husband could be the financial manager in a couple, and I don't think anyone here has ever expressed that thought. As you have eloquently expressed, they would be wrong if they did.

 

[MrsHaloFIRE]

We are both butt deep in our finances. We trade off and alternate auditing each other. Its not hard bc we designed it to be a self licking ice cream cone. But we both know wassup.

Not too many examples where both partners are fully involved in the finances.

 

[Free2030]

Another wife and breadwinner here. DH is clueless and not interested either. I emailed him a file with all our finances if I die, including how to pay all bills, which I also take care of. Luckily it should be simple, as I have sufficient life insurance to pay off the mortgage, and he will get a portion of my pension and SS. For all other investments, I advised that they should be rolled over to VG and he should use a PAS. It's not the best use of money but probably the best option for someone completely disinterested.

 

[rk911]

Another wife and breadwinner here. DH is clueless and not interested either. I emailed him a file with all our finances if I die, including how to pay all bills, which I also take care of. Luckily it should be simple, as I have sufficient life insurance to pay off the mortgage, and he will get a portion of my pension and SS. For all other investments, I advised that they should be rolled over to VG and he should use a PAS. It's not the best use of money but probably the best option for someone completely disinterested.

help...PAS?

 

[Free2030]

help...PAS?

Personal Advisory Service. They help you review your VG portfolio periodically (maybe once a year?). It costs 0.3% of your portfolio. It's an easy way to get advice without worrying about financial advisors' motives.

 

[rk911]

Personal Advisory Service. They help you review your VG portfolio periodically (maybe once a year?). It costs 0.3% of your portfolio. It's an easy way to get advice without worrying about financial advisors' motives.

thanks

 

[Calico]

I like the premise, unfortunately you can't really tell what is included in the financial section. If you don't mind, if you have it or get it, shoot me a PM or post here how detailed this is. Thanks!

I haven't purchased it yet, but when I get around to it, I'll try to remember to provide more info about how detailed it is.

 

[Calico]

I generated a file and saved it to the desktop for DW. When she saw that I had named it "Rick's Dead" she made me rename it. (For Connie with Love) She usually but not always appreciated my humor! Unfortunately I recently lost her so I need to work up a plan B for DD.

t.r.

I am so very sorry for your loss.

I have to tell you that your choice of title for the file made me laugh out loud!

Several years before my dad died (he passed in 2007) he prepared a very detailed file (all paper copies - he did not own a computer) for my stepmother with any and all information she needed to carry on with the financial dealings after he was gone. He literally labeled the file folder "Death" and stuck it in the front of his desk drawer.

He told me this at the time, and I burst out laughing, because it was so "him." He told my sisters and they almost lost their minds and told him to rename it. My stepmother thought it was a very sensible and thoughtful thing for him to do, and the file name didn't bother her.

When my dad died my stepmother found the file exactly where he said it would be - still labeled "Death."

 

[Time2re]

Thank you for the suggestion, EastWest Gal about using the term ‘spouse’ in the title.
When I started reading the thread, it bothered me, mainly because I am concerned that so many women really don’t care about their finances. But then realized we are hearing only one side of the story and remain hopeful. Read a news article many years about older women worried about being homeless if their spouse died, and made myself a promise that wouldn’t happen to me.

My DH could care less about our financial picture. I handle it all, and ask him to sit down a couple of times a year to review it. He complies, might understand some of it, just not too interested. I keep trying.

 

[Koolau]

My story seems similar to many here. DW does almost all the day-to-day spending and check book. I do all the planning/execution of the investments. Her only concern is (usually) "Do we have enough?"

BUT every once in a while... A few years back DW suddenly told me she read an article (one of those "the world is coming to an end, financially.") She wanted to transfer her IRA from pssst. Wellesley to a "cash" fund. It's hers so I helped her do it. A couple of years later, I showed her what it would have been had she left it alone. Pssst! She put it all back into Wellesley. I appreciate when she takes an interest in the "stash" but it doesn't always end well. I too need to put together a loose leaf or other "guide" for that inevitable day when (most likely) she will remain and be responsible for the investing. I'm hopeful that she'll have enough that any "tweaking" won't hurt her too much.

We really do have our own silos and it works 95+% of the time. YMMV

 

[big-papa]

I handle all investments and bill paying. DW has shown zero interest in either. Well, unless a bill got lost and we get a reminder that she sees.

I review our current situation with her once a year and when any major milestone is achieved. I do our taxes, but then the two of us go through the whole thing together before hitting the submit button. Many silly errors found by us doing that.

Still, long ago I created an IPS (Investment Policy Statement), which I keep up to date, that explains what I do and why, how to withdraw from our savings when the time comes, etc. It's highly detailed and contains a lot of technical info, location of all accounts, spreadsheets, etc. She has read it and claims to understand it. On the spreadsheet front, while I'm an engineer, she is a programmer and is miles beyond me in capability. If she ever digs into my spreadsheets, she'll likely shake her head at my skills.

But I'm also not kidding myself. There is a ton of detail in the IPS. So I also have an "easy button" section with some advice for what to do if I predecease her or become incapacitated in some way and she doesn't want to continue with my approach. It includes a few DIY "good enough" suggestions and suggestions for outside help if she wants that approach as well as what to avoid at all cost.

DD is currently in college as a business major. Plan is to also go through all of this with her at some point as a "Plan B"

 

[swaneesr]

We have a team effort in my household. DW and I are discussing this thread this morning.

Me, (54M) takes care of big finance strategy. DW (52F) handles transactions. Our system developed perhaps due to my work travel. DW is involved and we set our goals together.

So much good content in this thread. Now I need to research creating the DEATH folder! I think naming is funny. DW thinks a kind thing to do for the survivor. BTW - we have seen many cases not to assume who has more time left in this world. We have lost family members unexpectedly. Don’t make assumptions.

“Spouse” would have been better term in OP.

Swanee

 

[BuysToys]

I manage the finances in our home and DH prefers it that way. He can spend what he likes and just tell me about it then I take care of it. I do have a spreadsheet with all the accounts, monthly and quarterly bills, and investment account numbers and passwords. All but two bills get paid automatically every month. I've also noted that on the sheet. He has a copy of it and I update it whenever something changes. My niece, our executor of our estate, also has a copy.


I enjoy it and DH doesn't. That makes it easy for me because I can just do what I enjoy and he can too.

 

[Markola]

Personal Advisory Service. They help you review your VG portfolio periodically (maybe once a year?). It costs 0.3% of your portfolio. It's an easy way to get advice without worrying about financial advisors' motives.

I can verify that this is an excellent solution for us. DW and I couldn’t really even talk about our finances without my saver and her spender sides causing every attempted conversation to break down. We’ve been with Vanguard Personal Advisory Services now for 3 years and I wouldn’t ever go back to DIY.

We have a call with our assigned advisor, a CFP, once/year or anytime we need something with financial implications. I encourage DW to come to the 30 minute phone call with her questions and spending wants and I do the same. Our advisor takes all the inputs and shows us how we can accomplish our mutual and our separate goals. It’s awesome. It has gotten us on the same page and has largely removed the relationship irritant of unsatisfying money conversations between the two of us. All DW and I have to do is follow the spending plan that we three agreed to.

We’re invested fully in Vanguard index funds, which our advisor rebalances. Set it and forget it. Thirty basis points, as someone noted above, which is cheap for the relationship benefits and no doubt pays for itself in “investing mistake prevention insurance.” Vanguard is in control of the portfolio, so that I can’t fiddle with it after I read something alarming in the newspaper.

As the saver/investor, I no longer wrestle with many of the big questions of this forum, like when to take SS, what is our SWR, can we retire? etc. Vanguard has its own powerful software to consider all that stuff. Anytime I think I know better, I face the daunting task of arguing my point with a highly trained and experienced Vanguard CFP, so I’ve learned to “trust the numbers”. For example, in our case, our SWR is 7% or so for 13 years until full SS starts to kick in. Had we assumed only the usual 4% SWR (or less) commonly championed around here, we would not be retired in our mid 50s with a 90%+ projected success rate.

If something happens to me, she knows whom to call for help and to keep the monthly transfers coming into our checking account, without having to learn about investing.

 

[CindyBlue]

I generated a file and saved it to the desktop for DW. When she saw that I had named it "Rick's Dead" she made me rename it. (For Connie with Love) She usually but not always appreciated my humor! Unfortunately I recently lost her so I need to work up a plan B for DD.


t.r.

Aww, I'm so sorry...

 

[CindyBlue]

+1 I was going to ask if I was the only female reading this.

Nope, there are a lot of us (smile!)

I started planning for our 2019 retirement in 2016 - running our projected numbers into every retirement calculator I could find, asking for advice here on the FIRE Forum, etc. I practiced living on my projected retirement income with a bank account that I set up two years out from retirement with exactly the amount of money I'd have to live on based on everything I could find out about our expenses (tracked for a year) and our projected income. I needed to know the exact numbers we will have to live on, to make absolutely sure in my mind that we were good to go.

My hubby knows that we each have a pension that we can't do anything about, and our SS, and our Vanguard accounts, and that since it is what it is, we just have to make that budget work. And that's all he cares about it (smile!)

I think I could have saved myself a lot of worry if I'd followed his line of thinking, but I feel better having planned it all out, even if there's not much i can do about anything (smile!)

 

[Stormy Kromer]

I think its ironic how this thread about spouses and money is right next to the thread about traveling to Mars....


My DW is good at handling the house checkbook, but when I talk about our investments I may as well be talking about spaceships.


We do have our investments on autopilot and I have written instructions for her on what to do when I'm gone and she's fine with that. She is disciplined and I know she'd be OK on her own.

 

[ugeauxgirl]

I handle the investing type stuff because I did it for a living, but he managed quite well before we got married. We both ran businesses, so to avoid conflict we divide responsibilities into my department, and not my department. [emoji23]. I have no doubt that if I go first, he'll manage the finances beautifully. I'm a little worried he won't be able to find anything in the house without me though. Not just the wills. Anything.

 

[CindyBlue]

I handle the investing type stuff because I did it for a living, but he managed quite well before we got married. We both ran businesses, so to avoid conflict we divide responsibilities into my department, and not my department. [emoji23]. I have no doubt that if I go first, he'll manage the finances beautifully. I'm a little worried he won't be able to find anything in the house without me though. Not just the wills. Anything.

I think the same thing will happen to my sweetie...he can find anything in the kitchen because he is the cook, but anything else? Light bulbs? BandAids? Shoelaces? Nope (grin!)

 

[HaveEnough]

Bless her heart.

 

[AtlasShrugged]

So I was talking to my wife this afternoon about step up basis and what that means if I die or her mom dies. We must have been talking for 2 or 3 minutes when I look over at her and she is pulling her nostrils apart with her index fingers. Then she says to me "you know, if I pull my nostrils apart, I can smell the cheese I just ate!" She's not very interested in our finances.

Your post made my wife and me laugh to the point we were in tears. Thanks for a good laugh.