Who handles the finances?

[mightymoo]

Poll forthcoming...wait for it...wait for it...

If you have a partner, who handles the finances, bill paying, etc - you or DP?

By this I don't mean decision making or spending, but the actual work of balancing books, paying bills, moving money around, making sure everything is paid and where it should be.

[momto l&a]

DH takes care of all finances. He does however discuss the $$ with my.

He wants me to take them over

[scrapadoozer]

I do it all. I find it to be challenging and fun. The whole thing makes him just feel ill.

[Jennisee]

Originally Posted by mightymoo

By this I don't mean decision making or spending, but the actual work of balancing books, paying bills, moving money around, making sure everything is paid and where it should be.

Since you're just talking about the nitty gritty of the bookkeeping, DH does it. I did it manually for years--paper billpaying, calculator checkbook balancing--but my DH is an Excel fanatic and put everything on the computer and started doing online billpaying.

We discuss it all, though, and I often get online and review the information.

[CarrieMF]

I do it all, including the majority of the spending & decision making.

I don't balance checkbooks or anything like that, I write 1 cheque & month for the mortgage. I do online payments for everything & can check both banks at any time.

[Sonnenwende]

We live in two different households at the moment, so we both seperately take care of finances. Before the seperation, we both had divided the bills between us and paid them seperately out of seperate accounts. We had a joint account for show only, never really did anything with it.

I am assuming we will have a fairly similar system put back in place in September when he makes it to the US. Worked for us without much of a problem.

We discuss all major purchases over 75 dollars/euro and have a biweekly sit down to review all the bills and review the entire financial picture, even now being seperated.

[gargirl]

I am responsible for our finances.

I keep track of it, pay bills and let him know when he needs to "behave" and clear any purchaes through me.

I plan the meals and the shopping and decide what purchases need to happen and which can wait. We discuss these things a lot, but in the end he trusts that I am better at this. His finances were a disaster till I sorted them out.

[CandyApple]

Originally Posted by scrapadoozer

I do it all. I find it to be challenging and fun. The whole thing makes him just feel ill.

That's us exactly! Plus, I do the majority of the basic shopping, so its just easier for me to budget. Heck, I usually end up signing the bank card slip when he takes me out to dinner! Of course we make all big purchase decisions together, I just do the leg work.

[Cranberry]

DH does it all. He's very good at it.

[scheelimama]

I do it all. We do discuss larger purchases together. But overall, dh can't handle seeing all of his hard earned money being used up. It just makes him irritable when he looks at the bank account/deals with bills. I don't mind doing it and he doesn't mind letting me do it. We are both happier in the end.

[vanilla]

THis poll is biased! LOL... I'm guessing most of the mamas in this forum (frugality & finances) have an above average interest in the finances....just a thought FWIW, I do everything, and I enjoy it. Dh has no time to think about it, and if he did, he would rather not do it anyways.

[mightymoo]

Originally Posted by vanilla

THis poll is biased! LOL... I'm guessing most of the mamas in this forum (frugality & finances) have an above average interest in the finances....just a thought FWIW, I do everything, and I enjoy it. Dh has no time to think about it, and if he did, he would rather not do it anyways.

Well yeah, I wasn't thinking I was getting data on the population at large, just curious about our little F&F community.

It's funny, becuase I do it all now, DH used ot do it (because given how bad at it I was in college, very irresponsible, it just made sense), but when we moved across country and DH had to take a job a lot further from home to make it work I looked for anything I could take off his plate to make it easier - and all the financial stuff was most of what he had to do at home.

The funny thing is - I was so bad at finances in college (at being responsible with them) - I would avoid opening bills ,etc. But now I'm really good at things and I really do enjoy it!

[nadia105]

I do all the finances here. It has just always been that way, it works for us. Dh used to have almost no idea of how things were, but he knows more now and can check things anytime he wants. Well, maybe not everything. I don't think he has any idea how to get into the ING accounts . I should show him that.....

[Alkenny]

I do all of the check balancing and bill paying. We don't make purchases over $20 without consulting each other, though.

[Nymph]

I had to take over the finances because DH would nearly have a coronary every time he paid the bills when we first got married!

I really enjoy it though. I like to put pencil to paper and scratch things out. Now we are debt free and able to put a new (eco and rainwater catchment friendly) roof on the house without taking out a loan for it.

He thinks I am Queen of Personal Finance. Little does he know that he's fixing to go back on a strict budget (TTC our first little one and then adoption in 12-48 months)!

Hahahaha!

[Red Sonja]

I do it. It's just easier for me to consistently be the one doing it, especially since he is in the military and is at sea several times a year.

[Lovenest]

I admit.. I do not do anything!
My hubby is very finance savvy and has a bachelors in economics and enjoys it so I just let him do all that.
I do the laundry and he does the bills.:

[Jmo780]

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[lisalulu]

Moi! I've done them pretty much since we started living togther. When we first got together dh had awful credit. Even when his income dramatically increased he couldn't seem to keep it straight when things were due. So I started doing them mostly because I was more organized and remembered when things needed to be paid. Now, dh is better but I think its also nice that I can take care of it since I sah-its not another chore for him to do.

[applejuice]

When Dh was alive, we did them together, because if something happened to one of us, the other needed to carry on. So that one is me; I am carrying on.

I now let my oldest two sons know what is going on with the finances so that they can carry on if I drop out of the picture. I used to teach them to balance the check book every month when I homeschooled them.