In your home, who does the finances?
I stay home with our children while my husband works, but I manage all of the finances. He has never been good with money, and has deposited his paycheck into my bank account ever since we moved in together.
In your home, who does the finances?
I stay home with our children while my husband works, but I manage all of the finances. He has never been good with money, and has deposited his paycheck into my bank account ever since we moved in together.
My wife simply takes no interest in our finances; leaves that strictly up to me. We've always had a joint checking account, but I don't think she's ever written a check except during one 10 week period that I was out of town on business and left her a list of bills she could expect during that time. And the first three and a half years we were married, we were assistant managers of a nice 104 unit apartment complex and she was accustomed to writing receipts for tenants and making up bank deposits. She frequently asked me to check her numbers and I never found a problem, so I know she can if I could just get her interested in our finances.
I do the finances at our house. I am an accountant so it's like second nature to me. There are times when he sticks his nose into it and then messes up the system! He looks at the bank account online every so often, but I handle everything else.
My husband and I do them together. I keep the excel spread sheet, but we sit down together and go over the budget and talk about how money will be spent. It works well for us.
I think that's the best way. I wonder how much trouble my wife would have taking over if something happened to me. I do use some spread sheets for a number of things, but basically, our financial matters are on Quicken, which I've been using so long I don't even remember when I first started.:laughing: But I do think both partners should be familiar with their financial situation.
I do the bill paying and keep records of all our expenditures in an Excel spreadsheet, but I keep my husband updated on where we stand and we discuss major purchases together.
I do the finances and track them via an Excel Spreadsheet. My husband could do it if he had to, he just chooses not to.
I am also a stay at home mom and I am the responsible for paying the bills. We sit together every few months and make a list of the things that need to be paid and decide what percentage of our available money should go to each in order to lower the bills as soon as possible.
If your wife take the finances then you have the big advantage that you need not to worry about excessive shopping of your wife. She can handle all the financial affairs with perfection.
I'm taking a Financial Course by Dave Ramsey. It's really helpful! So, to answer the question, I monitor my finances, but then again, I'm not married so all I have to worry about is myself!
@Monnie and @fresh, I also use an Excel spreadsheet. I've come to really enjoy Excel.
@Bird, I'm sorry to hear your wife isn't quite on board with you. Let me attempt to give you a tip. Women (generally speaking) love to be helpers and they love to be adored/appreciated. So if you can somehow delegate a financial task to her and shower her with compliments afterwards (in a non-obvious way), she may just be encouraged to continue helping you. Tell her she's attractive for helping you, you LOVE that about her, etc. It could work.
And Bird, how do you like Quicken? Do you use it on a Mac or PC and have what version do you have? I hear the latest version is a pain. What do you think?