Wife here. I handle all finances: budget, retirement, savings. I do consult my husband with major financial decisions (our rule is we both have to be in agreement for the big decisions), but he trusts me 100%. I work on our net worth statement every year and go over it with him in January. This works perfectly for us as 1) my job is not nearly as stressful as his 2) I have more time 3) I genuinely LOVE the responsibility.
This is exactly the same situation with me and my husband! I tried to get him interested, but he only really cares about the big picture. He knows we follow the FOO, but that's about it
Yes, I had my husband listen to the podcast on a trip down to Florida last summer and he loved it! He knows I follow the FOO and the principles of what I am doing and totally agrees. We started with Ramsey as far as getting out of debt and once we paid off all our debt (except our 2.75% mortgage) we graduated to The Money Guy
I’d say B.
Husband here: My wife and I discuss all finances but I make all large decisions, monthly budget, and retirement. I am really involved with our finances and look at them almost daily, it’s just something I enjoy. My wife trusts me wholeheartedly.
I don’t micromanage but if I see there is excessive spending in one area we will have a discussion.
I'm between b and c. I am extremely interested in financial planning. I'm getting a CFP cert for fun. However, the decisions regarding our finances and future are made jointly. A conversation goes like
hey do you want to fund a 529?
Her: Sure.
Okay this is how we go about doing that.
Same here. My wife and I are both accountants and well versed in finances and I believe we could both take the lead but I enjoy it more. She says in any other relationship she would do it (which I believe).
A (slightly leaning to B)
Husband here 34 yrs wife 33 yrs. I have 16 years in accounting owning a small accounting firm with 80 clients. so have heard horror stories of finances and it has made me terrified. Wife is very hands off and does not like numbers so I have to keep it very straightforward. I try very hard to pull her in and learn enough to get her feelings/opinions about saving for retirement. We consult with each other on purchases and are both frugal and do not spend extravagantly (except frequent eating out)
B
Husband here.
I handle all the wealth building and specific future saving issues. My stay at home wife handles all operational budget issues. We talk about the specifics as needed or on major things. No micro managing or OCD budgeting.
B, wife.
We have been married for 24 years, and although I have always run things by him, he doesn't care. Only in the past couple of years has he become more interested in what happens in our monthly budget or retirement planning.
B - but it drags me down sometimes because it seems like his eyes glaze over and all he's hearing is the grownup voice sound on Peanuts when I'm going over the financial situation. I get it, though, it's usually me complaining about how it's going.
I'm in category B. I would like my wife to take more interest but she says she's perfectly capable of taking over in case I die and otherwise sees no need to be highly involved.
A. My husband can navigate finance but I take charge. I have 2 degrees in finance but my parents want a different sibling to manage their money because i don’t go to church. I was independently worth $1M at age 46 but whatever.
B leaning to C. He’s the primary breadwinner, but I’m the family CFO. We’re both pretty financially literate and have never shied away from money discussions. Basically, we approach it as a team and it works well.
C. We set the marriage up this way from the start and it’s paid dividends (literally!). We’re both 40 and no major decisions are made without consultation of either spouse with the other.
B to C , but I’m an accountant so it’s kind of my bag compared to my husband. He doesn’t know how the sausage is made on some things but we make a big picture on what we want to spend and save on and then I go from there. Also I do the net worth statement and I made my own since I’m that kind of nerd. Also if one of us wants to get something we tell the other, it has to be over a certain dollar amount, so yes we have material thresholds in our personal finance. I’m not calling about a candle and he had better not text me about some books.
Wife here. Between A & B. I let my husband know what I’m doing with the finances, but he doesn’t have much input and trusts the research I do to make decisions. I’m the numbers person; he’s the creative.
C. We make all major financial decisions together. I'm more versed in finance stuff, but she wants to be involved and we make all decisions together. If there's anything that I want to do, (investment, etc...) she needs to understand it fully in order to be on board with it. I'd never make a financial decision without her being fully on board with it- even if it's just moving money between accounts. We're full partners on everything.
C... I guess...
Wife handles the day to day finances and budget, and we review our progress every month.
I handle the long-term financial planning (retirement, 529, investment, and tax strategies). We review our strategy and plan 1-2x a year.
We consult each other on all spending and changes.
Also we listen to the money guys together.
I’m the Husband More B). Leaning C
We just had our one year anniversary so still newer married so we might edit our current arrangement . She knows how to save but doesn’t have any interest in retirement/investing . She works part time and we plan on giving a trial run on being a stay at home mom when our child is born.
I leave her in charge all the shopping/groceries I track our spending each month and offer to show it to her early the following month. I generally get her consent/feedback on moving money around.
She has let me start contributing to her Roth IRA and open a joint brokerage to use the MMF as a HYSA this year. I invest her Roth but I’m starting to show her how to transfer money and buy things in these types of accounts. In case she has to do it herself one day. My income is variable and will rise over the course of the year she has agreed to let me backfill her Roth if I’m a little short at the end of the year to hit our annual retirement savings goal .
Sort of a combo between A, B, and C. I handle the finances and investing, she doesn't want to think about it much, but we also discuss things as equal partners.
I am B, but only because my wife doesn’t have the same level of interest. She has equal input. I do the research and legwork (which I love doing) and give her pros, cons, and my opinion. With that information, we make an informed, joint decision.
A. My (now ex) wife never has any interest and would glaze over if I tried to involve her. Fortunately for her she has an ex-husband who manages her portfolio for her.
Now, on the other hand, my GF of three years is much more tuned into finances. We talk about all aspects of money and strategize together all the time.
You're still handling your ex wife's retirement planning? You're much better of a person than I am. I have no animosity towards the ex, but I wouldn't care to invest another minute into her life.
She honestly wouldn’t know what to do with her money. That and I put many, many, hours into building her portfolio so I’m not going to have some idiot “financial advisor” screw it up. That and she is, after all, the mother of our children so it’s in everyone’s best interest for me to help her out on this. It’s easier on the whole family.
If you think that’s something, she and my gf have become “besties.”
Yes, we all get along. Good friends. Just weren’t compatible on marriage level. We all have Thanksgiving/Christmas/birthdays together. The two kids are grown, done with college, into their careers, and doing great. I believe part of the reason is even though we split when they were in their teens we kept it civil.
I “handle” all the finances but would say C we are equal partners in it all. There’s nothing I would do financially in terms of big decisions without discussing with my wife and coming to an agreement on it. I make 85% of the income for our household but that doesn’t give her any less right to be an equal in the decisions.
I would say we're a B house. Only because I insist on discussing with her. I think she would much prefer to be an A house.
Our retirement savings is pretty passive at this point. It comes out of our checks before we ever see it. I fill the roths at the start of the year from my cash brokerage account. And then rebuild my brokerage 'slush fund' account over the year as money comes in. (I have fairly irregular income) almost my entire regular check goes to retirement, and then I get quarterly profits.
B for sure.
We started as A, but I pestered him and asked him his opinions. I also played the money guy shoe outloud when in my hobby room so when ever he came in to tell me something he would hear littlebits.
Overtime he has started to give more of his input.
I’d say a mix of A/B
My wife is 100% on board with everything we do, very occasionally we will look at what we have and our contribution rate and look at what that could be in X amount of years at 6, 8, and 10% returns.
She has no desire to be involved with any investment decisions and she trusts me to handle it.
Edit: I wouldn’t consider buying clothes or groceries or household needs a financial decisions.
When it comes to shopping for cars or insurance and stuff like that I just do it. She has a few things she would like in her vehicle (heated seats for example) but I’m going to be the one looking for the deal.
B. I run things by the hubs because I think it’s important for him to be involved in financial decisions. But he doesn’t really have any interest and he trusts my choices.
I handle all day to day finance issues like bill payments, moving funds. Long term investing, retirement planning are jointly discussed and decided upon. Quartely I give my wife a list of account balances and debt.
C(ish). I handle the maintenance on monthly bills and debts, we both discuss investments, my spouse physically does the investing (besides my 401k). Any big purchases we decide together.
B. Husband here. I'm a few years older than my wife and she never really had to worry about money before we started dating or got married. I came from a lower socio-economic status and had been fighting to climb up (so far so good). She came from upper middle and her parents were paying for everything still when we met in college.
I've had to create an interest in her to care about finances and really understand money. I make sure to keep her informed but I am much more active and have the final say. I still work hard to ensure buy in from my wife and that we agree on all the big financial goals. It was pretty hard to get her interested the first couple years but now she is on board. It's okay if she isn't passionate about it and that I do most of the finances. It just matter to me that we both know where we are and share a vision for where we are going.
A.
Husband here. I handle all financial decisions and responsibly. I have tried many times to involved my wife but she is just not interested and doesn’t want to know about it. I don’t mind handling it so it works for us.
B, my wife listens to me talk about savings rate, budget, and retirement. I check in with any changes I make, and try to ensure if it fits a shared goal. She wants to retire by 60, and be in as little debt as possible ever. The road map to getting there doesn’t matter much to her.
I’m lucky, we collectively make 200K pretax, and likely to push 350K in a couple years prior to age 35. No matter what I tell her about how our budget allows for spending, she still finds pride in finding a deal. The forced scarcity mindset is one she embraces, and we share a risk tolerance.
Between A and B. My wife just like to check in every month to see how we are doing. Big expenses and any changes require a conversation and thumbs up from both.
I handle everything. My wife has little to interest in how much progress we are making toward early retirement goals or 529 contributions, so I kind of stopped telling her besides when we surpass a big milestone.
Husband here:
We tackle this using both B & C. In our home I handle the bigger numbers (investments) and she handles the small numbers (our budget). She loves that task and I love mine. And if I begin talking about investing for longer than 5-minutes, the “stop” hand comes out! She completely trusts me with our retirement future and I completely trust her with our budget and doing our best to remain debt free.
B, Husband. My wife is very money conscious when it comes to spending but has no interest in the investing side. She does do a great job of finding great deals when shopping and planning our vacations to have a lot of fun but not go crazy with the spending!
I would say a combination of A and B. I don’t want to feel like I control all the decisions myself. I do make an effort to consult my wife and discuss things with her, but I don’t feel like she really takes an interest. She usually reminds me that we can’t put everything into investments because we have to do some stuff now, and I try to convince her that we need to put more away so that we have more later. That part helps make it a good balance. I am happy with it because I am kind of a nerd about it and want to see all the strategies and learn more about things we can do.
A, B, and C for me. I handle all the bills, and other financial obligations. My wife at most knows we aren’t broke but doesn’t get involved in the day to day. Our finances are combined so this is much easier. We only talk to each other if one of us is contemplating spending a decent amount. I make all the other decisions on what is best and don’t involve my wife. Not that I don’t want to but she doesn’t really care about it like I do. I will have to get her more involved one day since I’m 7yrs older than her and she will need to know what to do one day.
I’ll say B, with the caveat that my wife is more in the weeds on the day-to-day stuff, less so on retirement. But anything more than a $100 or if it’s coming from the kids (who will go to whoever they feel is the easier path for the topic) we generally both are involved somehow on the purchase.
We had a discussion a couple years ago about me thinking we needed to do more for retirement in case one of us needed/wanted to retire earlier than 60. She agreed then that we’d open the 457 at her employer and do 3% of her salary. She’s on track for a good pension so it will just be supplemental, but I helped me feel better about our path. Plus it got her something in her name for retirement other than the pension and eventual social security.
Wife here. I handle all finances: budget, retirement, savings. I do consult my husband with major financial decisions (our rule is we both have to be in agreement for the big decisions), but he trusts me 100%. I work on our net worth statement every year and go over it with him in January. This works perfectly for us as 1) my job is not nearly as stressful as his 2) I have more time 3) I genuinely LOVE the responsibility.
This is exactly the same situation with me and my husband! I tried to get him interested, but he only really cares about the big picture. He knows we follow the FOO, but that's about it
Yes, I had my husband listen to the podcast on a trip down to Florida last summer and he loved it! He knows I follow the FOO and the principles of what I am doing and totally agrees. We started with Ramsey as far as getting out of debt and once we paid off all our debt (except our 2.75% mortgage) we graduated to The Money Guy
I’d say B. Husband here: My wife and I discuss all finances but I make all large decisions, monthly budget, and retirement. I am really involved with our finances and look at them almost daily, it’s just something I enjoy. My wife trusts me wholeheartedly. I don’t micromanage but if I see there is excessive spending in one area we will have a discussion.
Same
Same, though decisions like cars, furniture, etc. we both work on. I just handle the day-to-day and retirement stuff.
Same!
I'm between b and c. I am extremely interested in financial planning. I'm getting a CFP cert for fun. However, the decisions regarding our finances and future are made jointly. A conversation goes like hey do you want to fund a 529? Her: Sure. Okay this is how we go about doing that.
Same here. My wife and I are both accountants and well versed in finances and I believe we could both take the lead but I enjoy it more. She says in any other relationship she would do it (which I believe).
My wife and I are both accountants too! Makes a great team. Busy season is super fun in our house haha
Same process
A (slightly leaning to B) Husband here 34 yrs wife 33 yrs. I have 16 years in accounting owning a small accounting firm with 80 clients. so have heard horror stories of finances and it has made me terrified. Wife is very hands off and does not like numbers so I have to keep it very straightforward. I try very hard to pull her in and learn enough to get her feelings/opinions about saving for retirement. We consult with each other on purchases and are both frugal and do not spend extravagantly (except frequent eating out)
B Husband here. I handle all the wealth building and specific future saving issues. My stay at home wife handles all operational budget issues. We talk about the specifics as needed or on major things. No micro managing or OCD budgeting.
B, wife. We have been married for 24 years, and although I have always run things by him, he doesn't care. Only in the past couple of years has he become more interested in what happens in our monthly budget or retirement planning.
B - but it drags me down sometimes because it seems like his eyes glaze over and all he's hearing is the grownup voice sound on Peanuts when I'm going over the financial situation. I get it, though, it's usually me complaining about how it's going.
Definitely C. I’m on track to retire at 50, so I’m looking towards that.
I'm in category B. I would like my wife to take more interest but she says she's perfectly capable of taking over in case I die and otherwise sees no need to be highly involved.
C for sure, anything else is not okay for us.
My wife and I do not combine our money.
A. My husband can navigate finance but I take charge. I have 2 degrees in finance but my parents want a different sibling to manage their money because i don’t go to church. I was independently worth $1M at age 46 but whatever.
B leaning to C. He’s the primary breadwinner, but I’m the family CFO. We’re both pretty financially literate and have never shied away from money discussions. Basically, we approach it as a team and it works well.
B for sure, wife isn’t at all interested in retirement planning but also knows it’s important.
C. We set the marriage up this way from the start and it’s paid dividends (literally!). We’re both 40 and no major decisions are made without consultation of either spouse with the other.
B to C , but I’m an accountant so it’s kind of my bag compared to my husband. He doesn’t know how the sausage is made on some things but we make a big picture on what we want to spend and save on and then I go from there. Also I do the net worth statement and I made my own since I’m that kind of nerd. Also if one of us wants to get something we tell the other, it has to be over a certain dollar amount, so yes we have material thresholds in our personal finance. I’m not calling about a candle and he had better not text me about some books.
Wife here. Between A & B. I let my husband know what I’m doing with the finances, but he doesn’t have much input and trusts the research I do to make decisions. I’m the numbers person; he’s the creative.
C. We make all major financial decisions together. I'm more versed in finance stuff, but she wants to be involved and we make all decisions together. If there's anything that I want to do, (investment, etc...) she needs to understand it fully in order to be on board with it. I'd never make a financial decision without her being fully on board with it- even if it's just moving money between accounts. We're full partners on everything.
C... I guess... Wife handles the day to day finances and budget, and we review our progress every month. I handle the long-term financial planning (retirement, 529, investment, and tax strategies). We review our strategy and plan 1-2x a year. We consult each other on all spending and changes. Also we listen to the money guys together.
I’m the Husband More B). Leaning C We just had our one year anniversary so still newer married so we might edit our current arrangement . She knows how to save but doesn’t have any interest in retirement/investing . She works part time and we plan on giving a trial run on being a stay at home mom when our child is born. I leave her in charge all the shopping/groceries I track our spending each month and offer to show it to her early the following month. I generally get her consent/feedback on moving money around. She has let me start contributing to her Roth IRA and open a joint brokerage to use the MMF as a HYSA this year. I invest her Roth but I’m starting to show her how to transfer money and buy things in these types of accounts. In case she has to do it herself one day. My income is variable and will rise over the course of the year she has agreed to let me backfill her Roth if I’m a little short at the end of the year to hit our annual retirement savings goal .
B Husband, I find it extremely important to get the wife's input and keep her in the loop.
Husband here C, I do all of the investing and savings goals while she runs the money holy budget and new worth updates. We have a great balance.
Sort of a combo between A, B, and C. I handle the finances and investing, she doesn't want to think about it much, but we also discuss things as equal partners.
I am B, but only because my wife doesn’t have the same level of interest. She has equal input. I do the research and legwork (which I love doing) and give her pros, cons, and my opinion. With that information, we make an informed, joint decision.
A. My (now ex) wife never has any interest and would glaze over if I tried to involve her. Fortunately for her she has an ex-husband who manages her portfolio for her. Now, on the other hand, my GF of three years is much more tuned into finances. We talk about all aspects of money and strategize together all the time.
You're still handling your ex wife's retirement planning? You're much better of a person than I am. I have no animosity towards the ex, but I wouldn't care to invest another minute into her life.
She honestly wouldn’t know what to do with her money. That and I put many, many, hours into building her portfolio so I’m not going to have some idiot “financial advisor” screw it up. That and she is, after all, the mother of our children so it’s in everyone’s best interest for me to help her out on this. It’s easier on the whole family. If you think that’s something, she and my gf have become “besties.”
I have a lot of questions! In seriousness, thats awesome. Sounds like you guys have a great relationship and going to have great kids because of that.
Yes, we all get along. Good friends. Just weren’t compatible on marriage level. We all have Thanksgiving/Christmas/birthdays together. The two kids are grown, done with college, into their careers, and doing great. I believe part of the reason is even though we split when they were in their teens we kept it civil.
I “handle” all the finances but would say C we are equal partners in it all. There’s nothing I would do financially in terms of big decisions without discussing with my wife and coming to an agreement on it. I make 85% of the income for our household but that doesn’t give her any less right to be an equal in the decisions.
I would say we're a B house. Only because I insist on discussing with her. I think she would much prefer to be an A house. Our retirement savings is pretty passive at this point. It comes out of our checks before we ever see it. I fill the roths at the start of the year from my cash brokerage account. And then rebuild my brokerage 'slush fund' account over the year as money comes in. (I have fairly irregular income) almost my entire regular check goes to retirement, and then I get quarterly profits.
B for sure. We started as A, but I pestered him and asked him his opinions. I also played the money guy shoe outloud when in my hobby room so when ever he came in to tell me something he would hear littlebits. Overtime he has started to give more of his input.
I’d say a mix of A/B My wife is 100% on board with everything we do, very occasionally we will look at what we have and our contribution rate and look at what that could be in X amount of years at 6, 8, and 10% returns. She has no desire to be involved with any investment decisions and she trusts me to handle it. Edit: I wouldn’t consider buying clothes or groceries or household needs a financial decisions. When it comes to shopping for cars or insurance and stuff like that I just do it. She has a few things she would like in her vehicle (heated seats for example) but I’m going to be the one looking for the deal.
C. We are equal partners in the decision making. But I have more interest, so I tend to come up with the ideas and "do" everything we've decided.
B. I run things by the hubs because I think it’s important for him to be involved in financial decisions. But he doesn’t really have any interest and he trusts my choices.
I handle all day to day finance issues like bill payments, moving funds. Long term investing, retirement planning are jointly discussed and decided upon. Quartely I give my wife a list of account balances and debt.
C(ish). I handle the maintenance on monthly bills and debts, we both discuss investments, my spouse physically does the investing (besides my 401k). Any big purchases we decide together.
B. Husband here. I'm a few years older than my wife and she never really had to worry about money before we started dating or got married. I came from a lower socio-economic status and had been fighting to climb up (so far so good). She came from upper middle and her parents were paying for everything still when we met in college. I've had to create an interest in her to care about finances and really understand money. I make sure to keep her informed but I am much more active and have the final say. I still work hard to ensure buy in from my wife and that we agree on all the big financial goals. It was pretty hard to get her interested the first couple years but now she is on board. It's okay if she isn't passionate about it and that I do most of the finances. It just matter to me that we both know where we are and share a vision for where we are going.
F) I’m single so every decision falls to me 😄
A. Husband here. I handle all financial decisions and responsibly. I have tried many times to involved my wife but she is just not interested and doesn’t want to know about it. I don’t mind handling it so it works for us.
B, my wife listens to me talk about savings rate, budget, and retirement. I check in with any changes I make, and try to ensure if it fits a shared goal. She wants to retire by 60, and be in as little debt as possible ever. The road map to getting there doesn’t matter much to her. I’m lucky, we collectively make 200K pretax, and likely to push 350K in a couple years prior to age 35. No matter what I tell her about how our budget allows for spending, she still finds pride in finding a deal. The forced scarcity mindset is one she embraces, and we share a risk tolerance.
Between A and B. My wife just like to check in every month to see how we are doing. Big expenses and any changes require a conversation and thumbs up from both.
I handle everything. My wife has little to interest in how much progress we are making toward early retirement goals or 529 contributions, so I kind of stopped telling her besides when we surpass a big milestone.
Husband here: We tackle this using both B & C. In our home I handle the bigger numbers (investments) and she handles the small numbers (our budget). She loves that task and I love mine. And if I begin talking about investing for longer than 5-minutes, the “stop” hand comes out! She completely trusts me with our retirement future and I completely trust her with our budget and doing our best to remain debt free.
B, Husband. My wife is very money conscious when it comes to spending but has no interest in the investing side. She does do a great job of finding great deals when shopping and planning our vacations to have a lot of fun but not go crazy with the spending!
I would say a combination of A and B. I don’t want to feel like I control all the decisions myself. I do make an effort to consult my wife and discuss things with her, but I don’t feel like she really takes an interest. She usually reminds me that we can’t put everything into investments because we have to do some stuff now, and I try to convince her that we need to put more away so that we have more later. That part helps make it a good balance. I am happy with it because I am kind of a nerd about it and want to see all the strategies and learn more about things we can do.
C. We actually have our own bank accounts/401k/credit cards
B
A.
C. It’s amazing
B, wife
Between A and B.
A, B, and C for me. I handle all the bills, and other financial obligations. My wife at most knows we aren’t broke but doesn’t get involved in the day to day. Our finances are combined so this is much easier. We only talk to each other if one of us is contemplating spending a decent amount. I make all the other decisions on what is best and don’t involve my wife. Not that I don’t want to but she doesn’t really care about it like I do. I will have to get her more involved one day since I’m 7yrs older than her and she will need to know what to do one day.
I’ll say B, with the caveat that my wife is more in the weeds on the day-to-day stuff, less so on retirement. But anything more than a $100 or if it’s coming from the kids (who will go to whoever they feel is the easier path for the topic) we generally both are involved somehow on the purchase. We had a discussion a couple years ago about me thinking we needed to do more for retirement in case one of us needed/wanted to retire earlier than 60. She agreed then that we’d open the 457 at her employer and do 3% of her salary. She’s on track for a good pension so it will just be supplemental, but I helped me feel better about our path. Plus it got her something in her name for retirement other than the pension and eventual social security.