Talking about money

[Penproof]

Hi,

How often do you and your OH have a proper sit down in-depth conversation about your finances? I need to Improve our communication on this

Constantly. We have a spreadsheet that records every penny and where it goes. I keep track and if there's any unexpected expenses we discuss how to pay for them.

Edit: we obviously don't sit down and have an in-depth discussion constantly... but because we track and talk about money all the time we both know exactly where we are with expenses.

At least 2x a year when we see our financial advisor.

Otherwise, more on an ad-hoc basis. We had a couple more in-depth ones this year as my mum went into a care home and her insurance took 4 months to pay so we had to dip into our savings to pay for some costs. Or we talked about DD's driving lessons, uni costs plans vs mortgage overpayments.

DH relys on me to know how much money we have for holidays but we talk about budgets if we go further than our normal plans.

Maybe twice a year when I redo our budget to take into account pay rises and stuff? I handle our finances but if he wants to know anything, he just needs to ask (but realistically he doesn't care).

If we have a spendy month and we need to top up our joint account, I'll let him know how much extra he needs to put in and he does it.

Works for us. He knows everything is ticking over and I get to plan things financially to get the best deals without him interfering. Before anyone states mental load, he does a lot more cleaning than I do so it balances out!

We did a big review when we bought our house about 18 months ago, and discussed again recently as I'm starting maternity leave soon. Day to day, we don't discuss. But appreciate we're fortunate to not need to watch every penny.

Often. I’m self employed so things change regularly and we’ve got a few things we’re saving for. It’s part of regularly chat so not stressful or complicated.

Previously every year we would have a proper sit down and go over everything we spent and where we spent it. Dh extrapolates the data from our credit card statement as we use that for everything we can. It is paid off automatically every month and is a rewards card. Points mean prizes so to speak.

We would then talk about anything we felt we should cut back on and any spends planned for the following year. We have been together nearly 30 years so we know we are on the same page re finances, what we feel is worth spending on, that we can wait for things so save up first.

However, at other points in the year discussions are had if we have to draw down from specific savings for house reno stuff or right now Ds2 going off to uni and supporting him financially.

We are fortunate not to have to watch every penny but that was because we only have one income coming in so cut our cloth a long time ago.

Rarely. But we have separate finances and met in our 30s/40s with both of us already in good careers, owning property and having savings, investments and pension plans etc. We have different approaches to them and not much interest in changing or merging. But I suppose the key point is that we’re each open about our financial positions and happy to discuss them if the other asked, and neither of us would have married the other without some element of trust that they weren’t an idiot around money.

When you say you need to communicate better, what are the key problems? Do one or both of you find talking generally difficult? Do you have different attitudes to saving / spending? Is one of you afraid to challenge the other’s spending? Are one or both of you just not very financially literate / don’t properly understand the impact of things like compound interest and APRs or how pensions work etc? An appointment with a financial adviser is a great place to start with any or all of those: it’s essentially an educated space and also a safe space, where you aren’t going to end up arguing or having to try to get the other to understand your point of view.