money management, help me prepare for meeting w/dh

[sincitymama]

Hey, I looked at the last several pages and couldn't find any threads applicable, so help me out with this.

How do you and your partner handle finances? Who is in control of what? How much do you communicate about things or is it a 'button'?

Dh and I have been talking this over a bit today but since he has loads of work to do and ds needs more attention than I could give while having a serious talk like that, we have decided to both mull things over and made an appointment with each other for tomorrow evening to have the discussion.

So in the meantime I'm wondering how other people handle this. At our house dh is hte sole $ provider, I have primary parenting responsibility and run the house. Unfortunatly for easy budgeting dh works for himself so there are no steady paychecks to count on like when he worked inthe corporate world.

So what do you do? I have some ideas of what I'd like to see happen but want some fresh ideas/philosophies.


(btw, this is not a big fight with us or anything, thankfully. just a lot of things in our lives have changed and we find we need a new way to deal with this)

[Rasa]

I used to pretty much do all the financial stuff in our household. DH was actually pretty clueless (I got him to take a personal finance class with me in college as a starter). I was rather obsessive about keeping track of every penny, having the checkbook balanced, kept receipts and organized them with the appropraite bills etc. I always did the taxes (DH had never done his own) too.

When I got pregnant, and REALLY sick throughout the entire pregnancy, that came to a crashing halt. Thank goodness for online banking/bill paying. DH basically inhereted all the financial management responsibilities overnight and I haven't really taken them back since (DD is almost 14 months old). It was a bit rocky at first, but he has really gotten into checking our bank and CC statements online (perhaps too frequently! I think it's like a sporting event for him). We also got a tax person, although i probably spend as much time organizing everything for them as I would to do it myself...but it's nice to have someone else look things over.

I'd love to have the time/energy to keep a closer eye on things...and some things I've had to let go of...all the receipts seem to get tossed into a big bag, despite all my efforts to streamline the organization of the important ones...and we're maybe a little too trusting that our auto pay bills match up with the statements. DH drives me crazy by not balancing the checkbook, but at least he records the checks now (if only the ATM too...: )

It's more like we have a 'feel' for our day to day finances now as opposed to my previous knowledge over where every cent went. The downsides so far have been minimal. Used to be that if I needed to make a return, even if it was really old, I could find the receipt in a flash...now at times I can't find the receipt at all. But the upside is less time spent on the nitty gritty and the knowledge that we have a pretty good handle on day to day our finances

HTH

[turtlemama77]

I think without a steady paycheck, it might be trickier, but basically in our family, dh handles most of the bills. I keep the grocery bill and household expenses (like cleaning supplies, etc) under control. We take a look at our finances once every couple of months together so we both know what's coming in and what's going out. We each have an "allowance" each week that we can just spend on whatever.

I'm not sure if that helps you, but that's how we handle things.

[skueppers]

I handle all of the bill paying, checkbook balancing, decisions about saving/investing, etc. Once a year, my husband does the taxes -- it helps him feel like he has some involvement in our financial life (other than bringing home a paycheck).

As for decision making about purchases, we each get an "allowance" that we use to buy things we're not accountable to the other person for. So stuff like books, DVD's, hobby equipment/supplies, and travel expenses for solo trips come out of our allowances. We've been using this system since we were married, and I think it has really contributed to a lack of fighting/resentment about spending issues.

For everything else, we talk about any non-routine expense. So I don't discuss my plans for grocery shopping with him, but we would talk about pretty much any other kind of purchases.

[sincitymama]

Thanks for the responses so far. And so fast! It all helps. We're just trying to kind of figure out a general *way* of handling money. We'll both be involved, but to what degree and in what areas is still kind of up in the air.

One idea I had is a weekly meeting wirth each other. Anyone do something like that? It might get to where we don't need it so often, but right now things are really tight, we ar eplaying catch up and starting from scratch in this house so with things so unsettled, I thought more frequent would be good.

Anyone else without a 'steady' check? Hopefully soon we'll manage things so we can budget more easily, but int he meantime it's really tricky!

I'd love to hear from more people too

[annakiss]

Moved to Frugality & Finances

[amyamanda]

How do you and your partner handle finances? Who is in control of what? How much do you communicate about things or is it a 'button'?

DH makes the money. He is also in charge of the bills. Until recently I didn't want to even think about bills, or even balancing my checkbook, and DH indulged me for many years. It was too stressful for me to think about until recently. Things have gotten much tighter for us lately and I have developed an interest in being active in these things.

We share two joint accounts - one has his name first, one has my name first, and that is how we tell who controls which one. His paycheck is direct-deposited into his account, and then I tell him how much money I need for that pay period and then transfer it from his to mine. If I need more money in the month, and he can cover it, I'll ask and he'll agree that I can transfer an additional amount. It's not that he controls his money more than I do, but that we communicate so we both know how much is in each account and why.

I process the mail, so I keep him informed about what bills come in and when. Certain bills I've taken back under my control, particularly ones that need to be paid the same amount each month by the exact same date or dire consequences result (like getting bumped off our health insurance). DH's approach to bills is more freeform - when he thinks the pile is big enough, usually after he gets paid, he goes through it, prioritizes, and pays what we can afford to pay.

Somehow it all works out. We do communicate quite openly about it all. We live paycheck-to-paycheck so we really have to be in agreement about our spending priorities.

[shayinme]

Only have a second but wanted to say that my dh has been self employed for 4 years so I have a good idea of what its like to not have a steady check granted dh has regular clients but still they don't pay like a job does.

Dh is the primary money maker and I work pt and we share the child care responsibilities pretty equally. I have learned to budget our expenses 2-3 mos ahead and actually I am already looking at winter projections. I also allow us a fair amount of money for extra stuff since with advance planning it gets tricky. I also handle our bills but go over everything with dh so he stays in the loop.

Gotta run. HTH

Shay

[sincitymama]

Shayinme-thanks for the response. Dh and I are talking tonight, but if oyu could find a few minutes *any*time and give me some pointers on how you got ot a point where you plan so far ahead and all, how you manage that, I would really appreciate it. Right now it's just, the money comes in and immediately goes out to whichever bill is most pressing at the moment(right now, working up July rent). Playing catch-up is tough and I'm not sure how to get us AHEAD at all.

And thanks everybody. I like seeing how different families manage and split the financial responsibilities.

[Kleine Hexe]

I keep track of the accounts. We'll both input the bill payments but it's mostly me. We discuss how the money is spent and decide that together.