H just does not understand money stuff....

strickland8052 · December 2014

So I mentioned in another post that we have to re-roof our house. Well, H has been meeting with the contractors during the day to get different quotes, because his job is flexible and mine is not. I've gotten frustrated because his quotes have been all over the board from $500 to $5,000 for the exact same task. Well this weekend, I found out why the quotes are so variable. A roofer came at a time when both of us were available, and he told us that the job would cost $2.50 per square foot. H comes away from that and starts saying that the quote was for $250 for the entire job!!!! When I pointed out that $250 to reroof an entire house is absolutely impossible, he changed the story to "Oh, it is $250 to patch up the bad spots." No! The roofer never even said a single thing about "patching" anything.

I'm so frustrated, because I know my H is not a dumb person but for some reason he cannot comprehend things like this. When I ask him "doesn't $250 to re-roof an entire house seem too good to be true?", he says "Well I don't know, I'm not a roofer". He does the exact same thing with everything else. Here are some examples:

If he goes to the doctor, he does not ask questions and has no clue what the doctor said. When I press him about it, he says "Well I'm not a doctor"

When he talks to his financial planner, he gets that stuff all wrong. One minute, he will say that we need to be saving $1,000 more a month for retirement and the next minute he says we are saving more than enough. When I tell him that those two things contradict each other, he says "Well I don't know...I'm not a financial advisor"

I've had to explain to him 10 times that we will not "lose" our down payment on the house if we chose to sell it before we pay off our mortgage. He cannot grasp the concept of equity in a home, although I have walked him through it over and over again.

I've had to tell him 10 times what an "out of pocket maximum" is with the health insurance. He thinks that it is the most that a health insurance company will pay. He says things like "Well I'm choosing this plan, because it has a higher OOP maximum" like he thinks that is a good thing!

I don't understand why he can't get stuff like this. I have to make ALL the decisions in the house because of it, and I think both of us resent that. Any advice?

Erikan73 · December 2014

Wow, well for the roofing I would call the one contractor back & ask him to resubmit his quote for the complete job, not a per square foot costs. I know for my husbands doctor they send home review sheets about what they talked about & when his next appointment is and we can go see his chart information & any test results online. Setting him up with a doctor who you can go online to view the visit information will be helpful for you. Also find a doctor who will go online & submit any prescriptions he needs for him.

It may be a good idea for you to go meet with the financial advisor with him when possible or if you can't physically be there, phone conference you in. Or ask the advisor if they can email you a review of the meeting with details discussed.

The health insurance issue, see if you can have someone else explain it to him to see if maybe having it explained a different way will click for him.

I would also recommend seeing if your local community college, bank or even his financial advisor offer any classes on budgeting and financial information. If you both go you can discuss what you learned in class and hopefully he'll learn a few things. Part of me wonders if he just truely doesn't understand it or if he doesn't want to and is ok with not knowing because you take care of everything.

Oh, also going forward when you need to get quotes, come up (together) with a sheet of questions to ask each contractor and make a sheet for each contractor. Tell him to make sure to be fill out each section for every contract and then when all the quotes are done you can compare the quotes & the answers to your questions together. I get that it's hard to remember all the details of quotes. This may make it easier for him. This may be a good idea for the doctor and the financial advisor too.

hoffse · December 2014

My only advice is to find a way to split other duties so that you can take over most of the financial decisions without resentment on either end.

My H does understand stuff when I explain it to him, but he's not great at thinking ahead in terms of the consequences of certain financial choices. I mean, he gets the basics, but he's not as strategic about it as I am. That's not something he's naturally good at, and he will be the first to admit that I'm better at it than he is. So I'm the one who does all the money stuff in our household.

On the other hand, H is a much better cook and housekeeper than I am. He's more patient than I am and is willing to spend more time getting tasks done. So those are his jobs.

I'll be honest: sometimes I get frustrated that my "job" has higher stakes than H's jobs do. Especially around this time of year I start to worry that maybe I messed up our tax withholdings, etc. and that would be way more costly than if he doesn't prep dinners for a couple weeks. But I try to remind myself that H's jobs matter a LOT for our health, comfort, emotional well-being, etc. Money isn't everything...

Would something similar work for you two?

strickland8052 · December 2014

Thanks! We actually did make a list of questions, and he wrote down the answers.. but his answers make no sense, because he did not understand it in the first place. Maybe if I ask the roofer to read the answers so they can correct him?

I like your idea bout me going to the financial advisor with him. I really think I should do that.

Good idea about financial/budgeting classes, but I know he wouldn't go. He would say "I've got a financial advisor to handle that stuff, so I don't need to know this."

I think he is under this mind set that if you are not a specialist in a certain field (a doctor, roofer, financial adviser, mechanic), then you do not know anything about that field and you shouldn't question those who do or even try to understand what they are saying. I have more of the idea that you should question and try to understand every little thing they are doing and saying, so that you can make sure you don't get ripped off. He pokes fun of me for doing this and says things like "OK, Doctor.. when did you get your medical degree?" or "I forgot you were a mechanic too." When I do point out that we got ripped off (with his philosophy, this happens a lot), he gets mad and says I dont' know what I'm talking about because I'm not an expert in that field.

strickland8052 · December 2014

@Hoffse - I think that would be great, if we could just accept that it is my "job". The problem is that he fights me on it. He basically says "You are not a financial advisor, so you don't know what you are talking about." His health insurance benefits are through his work and mine are through mine, so when I try to tell him that X plan is best for our situation, he says "Well I've already decided on Y plan and that is what I'm going to do." (And I know his rationale for that plan is based on misguided information.) For the most part, I just let him mess up his business while I take care of mine, but sometimes it does have an impact. For example, last year when I changed jobs, I begged him to put me on his health insurance and told him he could do it since me changing jobs was a "qualifying event". He refused and said I was wrong and that it wasn't a qualifying event, so I ended up spending $300 on COBRA when I could have just been moved to his for $50.

noffgurl · December 2014

I think you are married to my husband lol.

Xstatic3333 · December 2014

Oh man, the roofing thing kind of reminds me of when H asked me questions after I got our boiler estimates. It was all so foreign to me I didn't ask any of the right questions at all!

The rest, however, sounds pretty frustrating. It sounds like your H could be in danger of getting lead astray by unscrupulous financial advisors or whole life insurance salesmen. I would definitely go with him if at all possible. For work retirement accounts, I'd make sure he's not paying really high fees or anything.

As for him not trusting your opinion? I'd probably have a little bit of a "Come to Jesus" talk about that. I'd say something like, "Look-just because I don't have a degree in finance doesn't mean I'm not allowed to research and advocate for myself. I don't appreciate it when you discount my oppinion on financial matters because it's not my field." I bet he just prefers not to deal with these things himself, and doesn't realize how frustraing he's being. My H doesn't really love dealing with it either. I think he thinks I'm bonkers for finding budgeting fun! He uses a target date fund for his retirement and lets me do the bulk of the work making up our budget (I always get his approval and input, though), and it works fine, but if he just wrote off my oppinion I'd be majorly irritated.

brij2006 · December 2014

I would seriously be buying him a copy of "homeownership for dummies" or "financials for dummies" for Christmas. That would be so frustrating!

At this point I would be telling him to get written estimates from each person who comes out. That way everything is described in writing and you can look over it with him.

Do you have joint accounts? By what you're describing it sounds like you do not. I would almost join them and make these joint decisions so he isn't getting screwed over.

I would also talk to him about being an advocate for yourself. Yes, there are professionals for things. But you need to have your goals set in place first and those professionals should guide you into what you should be doing in order to meet those. Rather than having the professionals set goals for you and you just do what they say. Maybe what you truly want out of something (like retirement), isn't enough. Knowledge truly is power, but you don't have to be a professional in something in order to be able to ask questions and tell them to help you understand.

strickland8052 · December 2014

Thanks guys! This is really helping. 1. Because I needed to vent and 2. Because it is helping me to better pinpoint the problems.

I think I'll have a talk with him about it.

But first, one more vent - Just remembered the time that I came home to find that he had paid someone $650 to fix our washing machine. He didn't even stop to think "Whoa! We could just buy a new one for this price." After that, we had the "do not make major decisions without me talk".

OK one more...

And he only takes his car to the dealership to have it fixed/routine maintenance.. REFUSES to take it anywhere cheaper, because "Toyota dealers are specially trained to work on Toyotas". We've had that argument about 100,000 times.

OK. I'm done.

strickland8052 · December 2014

@AprilH81 - Maybe he does have some kind of learning disability or brain injury. He is a veteran and had an incident with an IED in Afghanistan. I think I'm going to look into this more. Thanks for the suggestion!

Xstatic3333 · December 2014

AprilH81 said:

strickland8052 said:

@AprilH81 - Maybe he does have some kind of learning disability or brain injury. He is a veteran and had an incident with an IED in Afghanistan. I think I'm going to look into this more. Thanks for the suggestion!

I'm in no way an expert, but your story reminds me of a Knottie's husband who has fetal alcohol syndrome and can't handle money wisely at all.

I hope this isn't the case, but at least if it turns out to be related to an injury it could help with the frustration levels you experience.

Stuck in the Box

Wow, T&P for your H, strickland! And for you as you figure this stuff out.

H just does not understand money stuff....

Re: H just does not understand money stuff....

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