Poll: (Based on a recent thread of interest) Who oversees the finances @ your house?

[Tarreymere]

I voted that my dh does most of it, but this is not what I would prefer. It's difficult because with a very low income, there is VERY little wiggle room and he has everything balanced (on the edge of a precipice?? LOL) just so. For me to get in the middle of it--or him if the tables were turned--might get messy.

 

HOWEVER, I'm still not satisfied because the knowledge and accessibility is NOT where it needs to be for me to feel secure if something were to happen to him. I'm working on it. (This is not because dh is an authoritarian patriarch, btw, it just sort of slipped into this routine, if that even makes sense.)

 

 

I was widowed in my younger years. I was the one in that marriage who managed our financial affairs, such as they were, so figuring out the finances wasn't a traumatic thing to have to deal with suddenly. I will have to say that if you don't have investments or retirement accounts, or other significant assets it is really pretty simple for the spouse who manages that kind of thing to put together a folder with some basic information, account numbers, contact numbers, and a brief overview of things 'just in case'.

I think that if I were a surviving spouse now with my current dh being the financial guy it would be really helpful to have something like that available, because no matter how often he explains to me things like our insurance I'm just not paying the same amount of attention to it that I did when I was the one in charge of it all. And if I don't work with the information every month I know I'll forget it, so a file would be very helpful if something happened.

[mom31257]

I pay all the bills and manage the accounts. I do have a math degree, though, and enjoy doing those things. Dh doesn't like it at all.