Gender divide on financial literacy.

[ImaCheesehead]

I am the wife and do everything related to finances and planning. My DH fakes an interest if I try to talk to him but his heart is not in it. He would be able to find our spreadsheet of assets and expenses if something happened to me suddenly. I keep everything simple on purpose.

[friar1610]

I'm the strategic financial person - primarily handle the investing and strategy attendant to investing. I try to keep my wife in the loop but she's frankly not too interested.

She's the tactical financial person - pays the bills, manages cash flow, transfers excess SS money to savings. She's on top of roughly how much money should be in the checking account at any given point in the month. Frankly, I'm not too interested as long as bills get paid and checks don't bounce.

We coordinate on things like charitable donations, financial gifts to our daughters/granddaughters at Christmas, birthdays, etc.

Works very well as long as we're both still alive and reasonably coherent.

[scrabbler1]

My mom handled the finances in my household when I was growing up, and she continued doing that until she passed away in 1995 at age 59. In her last 4 years, battling cancer, she did her best to set things up for my dad. He is not as well organized, but he manages to pay the bills even though he forgets about one now and then (mainly the very infrequent but important ones).


He got an FA in 1996 who managed his portfolio and provides useful, general financial advice.


In 2017, he got injured and was in the hospital and rehab for 3 weeks, so I automated some of his monthly bills to keep uninterrupted services and avoid late fees.

[gerntz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by friar1610 I'm the strategic financial person - primarily handle the investing and strategy attendant to investing. I try to keep my wife in the loop but she's frankly not too interested. She's the tactical financial person - pays the bills, manages cash flow, transfers excess SS money to savings. She's on top of roughly how much money should be in the checking account at any given point in the month. Frankly, I'm not too interested as long as bills get paid and checks don't bounce. We coordinate on things like charitable donations, financial gifts to our daughters/granddaughters at Christmas, birthdays, etc. Works very well as long as we're both still alive and reasonably coherent.

I could have written that, but let you do it.

[iloveyoga]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kimcdougc Been married 40 years now (or on July 11th). DH has never shown an interest in our finances. He has access to all accounts but just doesn't want to do it I guess. I tell him whenever something significant is changing or if I am making a change. They have never turned out the lights and he retired early. I must be doing an ok job.

Very similar to our situation. I do have everything written down and set up as simply as possible, but he is not very interested.....

[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]

Quote:

Originally Posted by footenote 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]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bclover 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]

Quote:

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

Yes.

[GreenER]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JustCurious 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.