Who manages the money in your house?

[joshandjamie]

Exactly what it says on the tin really. Who is the person in charge of household finances - i.e. how much is coming in, paying of bills, managing a budget (if you do this at all). Is it you, your partner or is it something that is done jointly?

In our house it's DH because I absolutely cannot stand thinking about money but we have our own bank accounts and sort of divvy up the bills. But largely, he is in charge of finances. I mentioned this to a friend and she was horrified - felt it was old fashioned and completely anti-feminist. My view is that I can't be arsed so am grateful he does it.

So who is the money manager in your house?

Me - dh is financially clueless. I make all the big financial decision (type and length of mortgage etc), I pay all the bills. Dh has no idea how much money we have each month and how much we need to spend.

Hubby earns it I spend it!!

joint effort

I do all of ours, DH knows how much we have every week to spend on going out, food, petrol etc though. When we move back to UK and buy our family home we will have a joint bills account and separate accounts for our wages to go in with a % split on how we pay in (although I expect it will be 50/50 really). Then whatever we are left with in our accounts will be what we can spend monthly - although I do class savings as a bill.

Me

Me! II do juggling of tiny amounts and lots of accounts. I love it!as long as there is money

I keep track of his wages too as he works variable hours

me

I do most of it, including all bill paying and working out how much we can afford for large items/holidays/DIY/savings account. The mortgage goes out of his account and we send money from one of our accounts to the other when needed.

We meant to set up a joint account when we moved in together, but it was too much hassle and not a problem to keep them separate - we use the same bank so transfers are instant.

MrNC is severely dyslexic so reading small print and filing papers is all my job. He does talking to people on the phone and charming them, and repairing computers and other stuff.

The bank - its all set up with accounts and SO, DD and then a small amount of pocket money and food shopping money goes into one account for me to spend each week. Once it is set up there really isn't much to do apart from........Spend whats left

Me. I find money very interesting (I have just spent a large chunk of today reading a textbook about bonds for fun). DH is hopeless, and I have to say, very lucky in that respect that he married me.

me

I do attempt to discuss with dh occasionally, but his eyes glaze over and he starts yawning!

Me, which is fine

In a lot of my friends households, money management is one of the many bits and bobs which is actually done more often by women. It falls in with organising holidays and childrens birthday parties and looking for a new house and other such random stuff which is often done by part-time working mums more often than full-time working dads.
Maybe 30 years ago it could have been considered old fashioned and anti feminist for the man to organise the family finances. Now, I figure as long as all of the work that needs doing (paid work, childcare, household stuff) is approximately evenly distributed then that's fine.

me, i can relate to bumpybecky...

Me.

DH is historically crap with money, but I am training him not to be and making him pay attention because I worry that if I died he would get into all kinds of financial bother and add to his and the DS's misery.
I know that sounds a little extreme, but he really was clueless. He earns plenty, just has no idea where it all goes, how much things cost or how to budget. He is learning

me.... unfortunately.....

we have joint accounts, internet banking, I manage everything (it kind of defaulted to me because of my job), he goes on the internet banking every now and again and goes through the spend to check I'm not wasting money on my grown up kids... I don't transfer money in cash to another account not linked to spend money on them without him knowing!!!

whatever works for you though, he did look after if for the first year till he got bored with it...

We play to our strengths in our house. DH is an accountant with an MBA. He enjoys going through all the credit card / bank statements and receipts and making them into spreadsheets and pie charts (seriously).

I am a designer, who, when we married, hadn't opened a bank statement in five years. I had somehow managed to buy and run a flat on my own, so clearly wasn't completely inept, but was, and still am, bored and freaked out in equal measure by all things fiscal.

So he manages the money. Frequently ticks me off for spending too much on 'non essential' items. I pretty much ignore him and consider the tiny bit of aggro I get the price I pay for having my own accountant for free...

Some may say this is old fashioned and anti-feminist. I think not as we have equal access to the credit card, which IMHO is more important than who balances the books.

And I think we're probably in better shape financially than we would be if I was in charge...

db
xx

Yeah, every so often I wave my pension statement and life insurance policy under DH's nose and say THIS IS THE PIECE OF PAPER YOU NEED IF I DIE, and he says "oh, but I don't want you do die" in a little forlorn voice and I think yeah, matey, because then you'd have to do the money . And the supermarket shop. Poor bugger.

We both manage our own money as neither of us if a child or mentally incapable. Seriously though, people divorce, die etc. you are likely to need to look after your money one day - why not now?

It's me. Dh is useless at managing anything. I was in hospital for a week and he messed up the current account went overdrawn for the first time in years! He then went running to the parents in a panic as we had no money. Duh! We have a savings account with instant access with a 4 figure sum in it that I use to juggle with.

You never guess what he does for a job..... in the financial sector!

My Partner does it and I transfer my share each month and we have a declaration of trust done by a solicitor to protect both are interests.

I do 90% of the big decisions (mortgage/car etc) although I always talk at DP and he pretends to listen discuss it with DP first. DP is pretty useless at managing his own money - as he is genuine shopaholic, and fibs about how much he has spent. Perversely, though, he is very good at getting cheap deals for things like utilities and discounts, probably because he spent so many years being broke, so he does all that kind of stuff now. I always make sure the mortgage comes out of my account though so I can be certain it gets paid on time.

Me. Bumpybecky and maiT same here. Most irritating.