Who is the financial fanatic in your relationship?

bmo88 · January 2016

Just curious. I am sure this will be skewed because we are all on this board and have an interest in finances, but I am curious to know who is more excited/involved in finances in your relationship.

DH and I will talk about finances openly and plan together, but finances in general are far from an "exciting" topic for him. He focuses on paying bills, knocking out debt, contributing to retirement and saving up for things. Beyond that, he doesn't really get much joy from talking or learning about finances.

On the other hand, I love finances. I love learning more about them, ways to improve, pitfalls to avoid, reviewing our budgets and planning for our futures. I get so excited, I am also comfortable talking with others openly about personal finances if they want to.

So, how is your relationship dynamic when it comes to finances?

als1982 · January 2016

We are pretty much equal. We talk about our financial plans, goals and individual investments pretty frequently. We also really enjoy doing our budget and paying our bills together over coffee on Saturday or Sunday morning every week. I will say though that if he had his way, we'd have more mad money. He's also pretty over driving a beater car, while I honestly relish it. When we did the compatibility testing associated with our premarital counseling we matched at 98% when it came to financial mindset.

ETA: He is far less risk adverse when it comes to investing. If it were just me, I'd stick to mutual funds but he likes individual stocks, so there's where it takes some compromise.

bmo88 · January 2016

@als1982: DH would definitely love more discretionary income in our budget and we have compromised on that to a level we can afford, but we are comfortable with together.

He also wants a newer car, even though his 2007 Mazda 3 is paid off and runs perfectly fine. I have a newer car, 2014 Mazda, but only because my 2000 Dodge Neon was totaled in an accident. I loved driving that car around, had no payments and it ran fine, even it looked like a clunker. I contemplated buying a similar vehicle, but neither of us are good with repairing cars and I think I just got really lucky that my neon had zero issues during the 13 years I owned it.

AprilZ81 · January 2016

Overall I have the edge, but we focus on different things. I'm much more focused on our day to day budget and making sure we (mostly) stick to our budget.

DH gets a little more invested when we talk long term goals. He is great about retirement savings (even before we met) and he encouraged me to open up a ROTH last year.

vlagrl29 · January 2016

I love that DH and I view money pretty much the same way. As time has gone on in our marriage I think I've become more of a saver than him. I pay our bills, balance our checkbooks, save money in certain accounts and save for our retirement. He would be really bad about paying bills so that's why I prefer to do it. He hates paperwork.

MommyLiberty5013 · January 2016

I am. But DH is engaged in it too. He is more of a saver than me. But, he rolls his eyes about all the investment stuff. He went though a "spiritual awakening" of sorts in 2014 and his priorities with money have changed quite a bit.

Xstatic3333 · January 2016

Me, 100%. H is very willing to work together and cooperate towards our goals, but doesn't find it fun. H does take the lead on organizing our tax stuff which I super appreciate.

Mustard76 · January 2016

H is involved in saving toward he next goal in a very practical way. But that's where it ends. He saves for retirement, but I review his accounts and allocate his funds. He just doesn't find interest in any of it. I pay the bills and manage our accounts, except for H's truck since the payment comes out of his allowance. I am fascinated by the world of finance and I'm pretty much an open book when discussing finances.

bmo88 · January 2016

Xstatic3333 said:

Me, 100%. H is very willing to work together and cooperate towards our goals, but doesn't find it fun. H does take the lead on organizing our tax stuff which I super appreciate.

For some reason, DH will always take the lead on taxes, organize everything and file. It's the one financial thing he actually likes doing. Which I am glad because I try to avoid looking at our taxes until the final number pops up with how much we get or owe (which is nerve wracking for me).

Xstatic3333 · January 2016

bmo88 said:

Xstatic3333 said:

Me, 100%. H is very willing to work together and cooperate towards our goals, but doesn't find it fun. H does take the lead on organizing our tax stuff which I super appreciate.

For some reason, DH will always take the lead on taxes, organize everything and file. It's the one financial thing he actually likes doing. Which I am glad because I try to avoid looking at our taxes until the final number pops up with how much we get or owe (which is nerve wracking for me).

Interesting! Maybe taxes appeal to a different part of the brain than investing.

lbonga1 · January 2016

FI has a really bad memory, so he leaves all the bill paying up to me. We combine our finances even though we aren't yet married because we've been in a relationship for 8 years and have two kids. We work as a team just like we would if we were married, so it just makes sense. But I'm mostly in control of it because of his forgetfulness, and he tends to lose track of how much he's spending if he isn't using cash. As long as I remind him how much he's spent, then he doesn't overspend. Lately he's been trying to be more involved with budgeting, and he's been trying to contribute to our "savings jar" with any side jobs that he does when he isn't sick. He doesn't yet have his own retirement savings (I know...we're working on it), but when he does I'll still probably manage it because he's afraid of investing for some reason (I think due to lack of knowledge). If it were up to him, he'd just stick it all in his 1% interest savings account, or *gasp* keep it in cash.

PurpleBookmark · January 2016

I think we are pretty equal. We are both very interested in ways to stretch our budget but we're both not very educated about the growing wealth/investing side of finances. As far as spending by and large we are on the same page with how we allocate the resources we do have.

hoffse · January 2016

It's funny that @als1982 mentioned the compatibility test in marriage counseling. H and I were over 90% compatible financially and not at all compatible on any other area. Actually, we were so mismatched on everything else that the priest suggested we probably shouldn't get married. Turns out, our other differences have never really been an issue at all. Money is still the hardest thing in our relationship, even though we fundamentally agree on the big picture. I can't imagine how hard it would be if we disagreed. I completely believe that statistic that says money is the #1 cause of divorce.

To answer the question, I take the lead on it. When it comes to finance, he is more big picture, and I'm more detail oriented. It's funny because it's literally the only thing I can think of where that's the case - in pretty much every other aspect of our life I'm big picture, and he's the detail person.

Anyway, I find it more fun than he does, and because I focus more on the details with finance we probably do better overall with me taking the lead. H fully acknowledges that, even though he's completely capable of doing it without me. He never had CC debt, and he had a retirement account in his early 20's before we got married. He just never really got into the weeds with it, and our finances have gotten more complex each year as we make more money.

I'm also the one that does the travel hacking with CC points and our taxes.

dragonstarjk · January 2016

Me, for sure! H always says the best thing that happened to him financially was marrying me, LOL. He really doesn't enjoy managing money, paying bills, taxes, any of it. He spends one day a month doing anything money-related--at the beginning of the month to schedule all of his bill payments for the month. It's one of the reasons we have separate bank accounts, because we would probably get really frustrated with our totally opposite styles of managing our accounts.

I, on the other hand, review our bills and budget almost daily. I really enjoy budgeting, moving money around, doing our taxes, etc. He has shared the passwords to most of his accounts and set up the reminders to come to my email address, so I can help him with what bills need paid. This totally works for us because I love having my hand in it all, and he likes that he only has to put in minimal effort.

I will say though, that I've noticed just in the past year or two he has been a lot more interested. He will bring up retirement or savings more often, whereas he used to only talk about it when I brought it up. Just yesterday, he told me he was thinking about selling his 'hobby' vehicle, because he really doesn't put any time or effort into it and he knows he could use the money to put towards his other interests. This was with zero prompting from me. I think he is starting to realize that for him, retirement is only 15-20 years away, and he would like to be better prepared.

CuriousKiddosMama · January 2016

I would have to say, like most of you, I am. I do the bills, budget (first draft anyways) and taxes every year. But I was also way more interested than he was before we got together. I started my 403b when I got my first job at 21. He didn't start contributing to his 401k until he was 30 or so (and he is regretting that now because we probably can't retire as early as he would like).
But just in general I e always tried being good with money because I didn't have a ton. I always have shopped sales and clearance, whereas dh made 3x more than me when I was working so shopping for sales wasn't something he spent the time in. He needed something, he bought it. He is still amazed sometimes at how inexpensively I can find him good quality work clothes.

BlueBirdMB · January 2016

We're pretty much the same when it comes to day to day things (although perhaps I worry more than he does). Neither one of us get excited about these things, and think about them only out of necessity. I've done more research about investments than H has and I tend to handle that part of our finances more, but it's not something that excites me. H does the actual bill paying and banking for our personal stuff. I think it developed that way because I was always busy doing my business finances, so he just took over our person stuff.

kmurphy2131 · January 2016

I am definitely in charge in our house. Today my husband said "if you say we can pay for something, I know that we absolutely can and I don't have to worry about it. but f you say we can't, I sometimes wonder if we really can't" I guess I run a tight ship haha

jessica490 · January 2016

While we are both pretty much equals in our financial stuff, I am more of the fanatic. I get excited about banking money, paying off those bills ASAP, and thinking of future projects and when they can get done and how they will get paid for. I'm such a geek Mind you, this wasn't our mind set many years ago so we've really come a looong way

Our main goal now is to get our hopefully forever home set up, fully furnished, then begin planning for future vacations and how to save a lot of money so we can retire early.

brij2006 · January 2016

We're both financial people. He loves reading and learning about the stock market, and I enjoy more of the personal finance side of things.

Yet I'm more of the math nerd. I like spreadsheets, budgets, and get joy out of watching our savings grow. He's the free spirit and would rather see it grow and then have a plan on what to spend it on.

cbee817 · January 2016

We both are involved, but I would say I am more of the planner. We're on the same page and we look to each other for feedback/next steps. I do take care of the day to day stuff more but it's mostly because I like to.

short+sassy · January 2016

Me x 1,000. My H doesn't have anything to do with our money and I suspect he is forever grateful to me for just dealing with everything. One thing that turned out very odd and very unfortunate, which I suspect psychologically has something to do with it, is he lost his job only one month after we got married. And that was over two years ago. An even bigger shame, he actually makes substantially more than I do when he works, but oh well.

At any rate, he would probably be more involved in our finances if he brought any money into the relationship but, since he doesn't and doesn't like dealing with money anyway, he just leaves it for me to do whatever I think is best.

In the past, he was a bit of a spendthrift with how he spent his money, but my frugal ways have rubbed off on him and we rarely disagree on what we should buy and spend money on. I do consult him for major purchases...especially when we were dealing with so much construction on our duplex.

One thing I've been happy to see is, when I first become interested in real estate investing...he was more reticent than me, but agreed it was a good idea to get into. But really wasn't that interested. But now, although it is still more my passion than his, he is a lot more into it and now enjoys discussing potential deals with me.

CuriousKiddosMama · January 2016

jessica490 said:
I get excited about banking money, paying off those bills ASAP, and thinking of future projects and when they can get done and how they will get paid for..

I don't know how to bold stuff on my phone so I just trimmed your quote. This is so me! I can stay really intense so long as I know why we are saving! Retirement is easy for me to contribute to, but saving for the house or whatever I have to know what projects we want to do next. Just having a house repairs fund is not enough incentive. But if we have a goal for that money (like the new closet) even if we have to dip into it for other things that pop up that are more important that's ok, so long as I know the big goal.

Who is the financial fanatic in your relationship?

Re: Who is the financial fanatic in your relationship?

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