Every now and then we receive boxes at our doorsteps, and my sons and I hurry outside to see what new item we’ve got. These were in one of the latest boxes we opened:
[Puma + Minions! Baller!]
I shared this on Twitter when we got ’em, and when I was asked if it was a gift to us, I said yup! A gift from MY WIFE who does all the shopping in our household! Haha… It’s like Christmas Day all the time for us boys up in here – we never know what’s gonna show up at our doorstep! (Although usually it’s boring stuff like diapers or cleaning supplies or cat litter)
Got me thinking about how we’ve divvied up the responsibilities in our house over time though, and thought it might be fun to list them out and see how you guys manage your money/household too?
Here are the things I’m in charge of:
- Saving
- Investing
- Managing our finances
- Keeping the house organized*
- Keeping my kids alive during the day
- Killing all spiders
And here are the things my wife is in charge of:
- Grocery shopping
- Kids shopping
- Household shopping
- Cooking
- Cleaning**
- Re-doing everything my boys and I do wrong
So basically, I save all our money and make sure everyone stays alive, and my wife spends all our money and makes sure everybody’s clothed and fed ;) Outside of pretty much everything else our family requires…
But I find we’re both lucky as our responsibilities match pretty well with what we’re good at and/or enjoy. And I know that’s not always the case in relationships.
I naturally began taking over all the stuff that I really enjoyed and my wife loathes (organizing the house, handling our finances, anything to do with spiders!), and my wife took the lead on all the stuff she found important and was DEFINITELY best at too (making sure our household runs smoothly!).
I’m sure she’d give up the grocery shopping if she could, but after recently testing out Peapod during maternity leave (the home delivering service) she’s pretty much in heaven now and never wants to step foot into a grocery store again, haha… (Although we are finding some cons so far with it, like not getting as fresh fruits/veggies as we’d like, as well as something always being out of stock. Still, a nice trade off from slugging it through the aisles every weekend, and not much more expensive, if you pick *off-hour* times for delivery!)
I put all those asterisks (*) up there in the cleaning bullets btw, because my wife likes to constantly correct me whenever I say I “cleaned” something. “No you didn’t, you ORGANIZED it!” she always comes back with. “Cleaning is when you actually get on your hands and knees and wipe everything down with cleaning solutions!” Haha…
You say potato, I say potahto ;)
At any rate, that’s how our finances/responsibilities are split! How about you? Do you compliment each other well too, or do you repeatedly want to strangle one another? Anyone have TWO people in their household who loves managing the $$$ and always fighting for the power?
I can’t imagine having to divvy up the good stuff, but then again it would also be nice if your partner actually remembered how much you had in savings, or even a clue as to what your net worth is! I swear, just once I’d like her to guess within $100,000 of the right answer, haha…
You do that, honey, and I will wipe down this entire house with as much cleaning solution as you’d like!!
PS: I love you lots.
******
Doodle up top by studio tdes / Tweaked by J$
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Much like yours, we have divided the financial chores between us – me and the wife. She is into finances and stock investment, so that makes it clear as to who oversees the investment parts.
I specialise in household expenses (bills and whatnot), insurance, and emergency funds. Also the task of imparting financial knowledge to my kids is a new entrant in my repertoire. However, I can’t say it is going nicely. They are still in 4th and 6th grade.
The division helps a lot, but the wife takes a chunk of it after we dealt a heavy setback in 2016 with some bad stock options.
My wife and I have always split up the responsibilities related to money. A few years ago when we had kids and my wife left her job she started paying the bills to free up some time for me, which I appreciate. She’s a lot more organized than me, so it works better that way. I manage our investments, but there’s not a whole lot of work involved with that.
A fellow index investor? :)
That’s the brilliant thing about being a single parent – I have sole control of the finances.
No one dragging us down –
I may not have my soulmate walking hand-in-hand with me as we gaze into each other’s eyes, but I have financial certainty and total say over where our money goes.
It’s a good trade-off.
Haha… Nice!
It’s a huge turn on being good with your finances too, which will only help woo Future Soul Mate as well if you go back on the prowl later ;)
HA! totally putting ‘financial rockstar’ in my e-har’money’ profile. Sounds like something your should write more about!
I DARE YOU!! :)
We decide on the big $$$ together. The household, outdoor and garden stuff we divided up, based on time and inclination. I’m the gardener, but he deals with the “back 40” type stuff.
The everyday bills are split, but I make changes to providers and services – chase the deals down.
I’m in charge of renovations, dealing with tradesmen, he just pays for the work:) – I only pay for the “luxury items” like purchasing a killer lamp for the kitchen instead of the blah builder special.
He buys the daily groceries, but I love to cook, so I shop every two months or so for specialty items and whatever strikes my fancy to try next.
That sounds like an excellent partnership!!
We’ve only been married 6 weeks and are still figuring this out but so far it seems to be:
Me:
Grocery shopping
Cooking
Cleaning
Keeping our budget spreadsheet up to date
Him:
Yard work
Paying bills
Home improvement
When we got married I moved into the house he’s had for 5 years so a lot of the bills, etc…come in his name and we write them off the checking account he already had, though I’m on it and he’s on the one I had. We have Quicken to keep track of expenses and checking balances, and a spreadsheet for our budget. We like to do things together (quality time is an important love language for both of us), so sometimes we go grocery shopping together or do yard work together.
Love it :)
And congrats!!!
I do all the budgeting/saving/investing stuff. But I always inform my wife of everything that is going on. I think it’s important that both members at least have all the necessary information.
As for the rest, I’m also the killing all the spiders and I have to run when she’s shouting that there is a big (not really ;) ) spider ;) I laughed when I saw you do the same :) Other than that, it’s pretty much 50/50.
Our wives would be in trouble if we were scared of them too :)
Ha! I like the responsibility of your wife un-doing all the things you and the boys do. That is the running joke in our house too!
Since I pay the bills at work, Mrs. r2e handles that at home. We split a lot of things like grocery shopping – she will go during the week when it is quiet. Cooking is split also – she primarily handles the week and I take care of Friday to Sunday.
As much as I promise her, I will admit that I can do laundry but we have a laundry fairy who magically does it before I have a chance.
Haha… those fairies are tricky.
I do the saving and she does the spending…. BA DUM DUM!
Seriously though, I am obsessed with finance and can tell you the approximate balances on any of about 15 accounts. I do all of the investing and bill paying. I try to engage my wife a few times per year to show her our Legacy Binder but she shows little interest. I keep chipping away at it.
Household chores are more on me since I am at home and she is still working.
Kids are more on me since I am at home.
Look at you, Super Dad!!
We have a pretty good split – down to I take care of hanging and folding our clothes and she handles the girls clothes (I am not qualified to match outfits and decide what fits)
Another one – I do more of the day to day cleaning, and my wife will get down and tackle the in-depth stuff, taking everything out of the pantry, organizing and wiping it down.
So it’s just me now so I do it all (easy answer). When I was married, we were living paycheck to paycheck and money wasn’t managed, per se, just spent until it was gone and we waited until the next paycheck. I was in charge of cooking, cleaning, dog-walking, doing my laundry, and shopping. He was in charge of fixing stuff around the house, mowing the acre we had, plowing snow in winter, doing his laundry, and sitting on the sofa in front of the TV while on his laptop. He was also in charge of NOT working on the fixer-upper house he just had to have. He excelled at that for years. *sigh*
One of my coworkers swears by the WalMart pickup program for groceries. She tried it on a whim and hasn’t gone back. I’m too much of a control freak to handle someone else picking out my produce and stuff for me. Quality food is important to me and I view it as health care, and I don’t really trust anyone else with that at the moment.
Something tells me you’re doing much better off without the non fixer-upper worker? ;)
Haven’t come across the WalMart program before – will have to pass it over to the wife, thx! The fruit and related items is def. the worst part of PeaPod so far… Literally just throw out the whole bunch of bananas we got this weekend as they were all beat up :(
I deal with most of the finances here. She brings in the paychecks, spends money on personal items, and I think that’s about it. I run pretty much everything by her, but she really needs to pay more attention to the household finance. Maybe she’ll have more time after she retires and become more interested in our investment.
She does more chores, though.
Very similar to yours but swap clean and organize. I clean and my wife organizes. My wife also keeps the kids alive during the day.
Me:
Working a paid job
Saving
investing
Paying Bills
“Budgeting”
Also Killing Spiders
Yard Work (It needs to be mentioned because its substantial, had no idea 3 acres was so much responsibility when we moved here 5.5 years ago)
Trash
Clean Bathrooms
Clean Kitchen after dinner
Fixing everything that breaks
opening jars
Constantly upgrading old house (i.e. finishing basement, adding modern light fixtures / recessed lighting, patching stuff my kids destroy, etc..)
Wife:
Working an unpaid job (SAHM)
Grocery shopping
Kids shopping
Household shopping
Cooking
Cleaning (other than bathrooms & kitchen)
I would be interested to see what my wife says of her responsibility in the household and how it stacks with my assessment but I’m not opening that can of worms… I’m sure we both feel like we do more than we actually do as some of the things are just not that important in the day to day. I feel you on the financial awareness too. I told my wife the other day that the retirement account I started funding for her 2 years ago is up to $40k now, she seems both impressed and simultaneously disinterested (if that’s even possible)
Haha…. that makes me feel a lot better actually, thanks :)
We’ll see if my wife chimes in here with her thoughts, but something tells me she doesn’t read the blog anymore… Which is why I always feel courageous jabbing at her, haha…
I wish I could be care free and not worry about money and planning and the future. At times I even wonder if this is all ruining my life… What it must be like, probably incredibly freeing, until something happens at least. Remember what it was like to be 16 and have a $400 paycheck and feel like you would never want for anything (except massive JNCOs), There is something to be said about needing the least.
I LOVED JNCOS!!!! Hard as hell to walk in them – especially in the rain!, but man were they comfy haha… You could fit an entire person in each pant leg :)
Hubby:
Fixes cars (when I nag long enough)
Fixes broken things in the house
Yard Work (we have an acre)
Puts dishes from the table in the dishwasher after dinner
Me:
everything else –
He won’t argue with this assessment either – last night he pointed out that he collected his cups around the house and put them in the dishwasher and filled the napkin holder. He told me he had to point it out since he does so little around the house.
Money wise, you talk about the wife not knowing/caring about the retirement account amounts and I get “I have a retirement account? Cool!” He’s 57, not 25 so I’ve been working on this for many years . . . .
Sometimes I wonder if it’s better to just be totally unaware of stuff, haha… You only worry when it’s time to worry, eh? :)
I’m curious how you manage his retirement account? My husband also has his head in the sand and I was told I legally can’t open an IRA to have him transfer his funds. So, he didn’t and I have no idea how much he has. So, I am just taking more out of my paycheck for both of us and figure his account will be a “bonus.”
Maybe you can have him send over login info to his account so you can stay on top of for him? He might know remember it but I’m sure you could convince him to research it or at least find out the login page and then reset passwords on his behalf :) You usually can’t move retirement money like 401ks when you’re still working for the company, but just knowing what’s in there would be super helpful.
My husband and I split all task but he is better with spreadsheets so he does the actual entering of numbers. I then review and decide if we been good, when and why.
I know his parents (my in laws) are totally different. The dad handles all money and mom will ask for some money from dad when she needs it to go shopping or want some trinkets. She doesn’t care or know what’s going on and she’s fine with that. I think is just a “born in the 50s” thing for women back then.
During our first couple of years together it was me. After two years, we realized that she’s better at handling finances. A few years later it was her and me. I handle all our utility bills such as phone, cable and electric and she handles the rest (mortgage, credit cards, etc.). So far so good and we’re staying with these set up.
I like that you guys keep on adapting over the years – very smart! (And glad you’re back in “the circle of trust” again, haha…)
Not to be a Debbie Downer, but I’d say that despite the same number of bullets on your and your wife’s lists, that’s not to say that your household responsibilities are at all equal. When you’re already on top of your finances, saving/investing is often “set and forget it” and doesn’t require a ton of time. And it’s not like you’re waging war with spiders on the daily :)
I’m also concerned by your statement here: “But I find we’re both lucky as our responsibilities match pretty well with what we’re good at and/or enjoy.” It’s obvious that many women have been societally conditioned to cook & clean, so it’s not a matter of luck but a matter of gender norms. Men have also been conditioned/encouraged to be “bad” at chores so women have no choice but to take over and “redo” everything. That doesn’t sound lucky at all, it sounds miserable.
Regardless of whether women work outside the home, the “Second Shift” is real and it puts us at a huge disadvantage. Not to mention, a lack of involvement in the finances often comes back to hurt wives in the case of divorce. In too many households, women are doing all the real work (the time-consuming, back-breaking, thankless work) and men are reaping all the benefits.
I highly recommend “Why Have Kids?” by Jessica Valenti and “All Joy and No Fun” by Jennifer Senior to learn about the feminist perspective of modern parenthood. I love your blog and I’m sure your relationship works for your family, but I believe that it’s important to remind men that the division of labor is not as egalitarian as it may seem.
There’s truth in this! My posts tend to be more lighthearted than serious of course (I obviously don’t spend gobs of time fending off spiders), but it’s true there are huge social norms here at play. And doing my best to take over a lot more of these things my wife genuinely doesn’t want to do too, such as (finally!) teaching myself how to cook this week and being better about cleaning/cleaning for real :) I also am the stay-at-home parent here, and to your point I get wayyyy more credit for it than I should. I can’t tell you how many times people will go out of their way to tell me how great of a dad I am for doing the same thing women do daily without much credit at all (or worse – as a reader once commented, looking down upon for staying at home!).
So yeah – I get it! Excellent comment, and things to be more conscious of for sure.
Such a classy, intelligent, and authentic response. :)
Thank you :) Always something we can work on, right?
Me:
Savings, Budgeting, Investing, Project Planning, Perishable and household consumables inventory management, handling the big or long-term expenses (ie – mortgage, saving up for home improvements/goals), cleaning most areas (kitchen – he’s a messy cook), gardening, meal prepping my lunches, etc. I have zero fear of spiders or most bugs. I wage war on zucchini bugs and slugs.
Him:
Cooking breakfast/dinner, carpentry, auto mechanic, network administrator, most home repairs, garbage (sometimes), health care and insurance specialist, litter box (not often enough), cleaning the gutters
Both:
Yardwork – I often mow and he edges/weed whacks. He cuts off tree limbs and chops them into small sections, I drag them all the way out to the street and stack them for pickup. I fertilize plants and we both trim shrubs. We both deal with leaf removal, seeding, fertilizing/liming yard (but he tends to get the soil samples to send for analysis).
Home Improvement – depends on the project. I can paint and trim wall edges by hand. He hates painting. I have no carpentry/plumbing/electrical skills. He has years of experience. I generally pay for the projects, though. :-)
Laundry – We each do our own. Every once in awhile we will do the other’s laundry if they are really swamped with work or a project and there isn’t anything else we can do to help.
I pay for most things and need bring in more money on account of him being so freaking skilled (he can do engine and break work). At the same time, it is harder to get him interested in the money side. He frequently tells people that “his accountant” handles that. I can’t complain since I actually am an accountant, but he’s my chef so we are even (I hate cooking).
Awww haha…. pretty good sharing of things! Fascinated that you both do your own laundry! Is it cuz the other person will mess each others’ up, or just a preference thing? Who would do the kids’ laundry if there were/are any? I forgot to include lawn stuff and home maintenance in my breakdown — I do the lawn, the wife does the scheduling of repair stuff w/ our landlord.
Thanks for playing along :)
It was a fun game! As far as laundry, we each do our own laundry because we have different needs/time frames. He worked in an auto parts store in a past life, and the first time I developed a hole in my nice pants because he had battery acid on his we started separating the laundry. Battery acid, car oil, and anti-freeze do not mix with my clothing materials well. Plus, he has a bad habit of leaving all sorts of weird things in his (many) pockets. I would end up with a batch full of business professional laundry interspersed with ground up pieces of receipt(s) melted in, sharpee markers, and even various nuts, bolts, and screws. That’s just one of the reasons, though. :-)
Hahahaah… point taken! I remember once leaving a rotten banana in my shorts back in college. That was NOT pretty, haha… We’re an interesting species, us boys.
I handle the majority of the money in our household, except for my husband’s discretionary spending. But we discuss finances on the reg. Very glad to see that you handle spider exterminations in your household! Now there’s two things you and my hubby have in common: coin collecting and spider slaying. ;)
The first being the most important, of course :)
My wife couldn’t care less about finance. We got a letter in the mail the other day saying she hadn’t cashed a paycheck… From 2015!! We weren’t married then so she didn’t have anyone digging through her money. Random paychecks would show up every now and then tucked away under random things. On the other hand, she is great about cooking meals that we can eat on for several days and takes care of a lot of the household things. Sounds like our duties are divided pretty closely to yours.
WOW! Is she still able to cash that paycheck?? Although I really shouldn’t talk – I didn’t catch a missing $2,000 tax refund last year that we were owed… Then one day it was randomly deposited in my account and almost reported it as an error!
Here are the things I’m in charge of:
Saving
Investing
Managing our finances, all household/personal biz*
Keeping the house organized
Grocery shopping during his work week
Cooking
Everyday kitchen cleaning
Mopping floors
And here are the things my husband is in charge of:
Vacuuming, dusting, cleaning bathroom
99% of bug duty; I like using the zapper for flies and cooking them with it
Keeping outside swept and cleaned
Personally delivering the rent check*
Reminding me we ought to go to the thrift store and helping me clothes shop as I don’t like
clothes shopping. He picks out stuff well for me
Weekend grocery needs with me, and large package pickup at post office
I think about every 3rd day it’s Christmas at our place :)
The things I’m in charge of:
– Savings
– Checking
– Monthly Budgeting
– Study
– Work Part-time
Things we Both Do:
-Retirement
-Shopping
-Dishes
-General cleaning
-Play with our fur baby
Things She Does:
-Work full-time
-Better Cleaning than me
-Way Better Cooking that me
I like how we split things. Luckily my wife is pretty darn independent like myself as well.
-Take our dog for walks
I handle everything financial and paperwork, including my husband’s business books. I’m more organized and it’s just easier for me. I also do all the organizing. On the other hand, my husband took over all the cooking (and most of the grocery shopping) many years ago. He actually *enjoys* meal planning. We split cleaning tasks (along with our teen son.) and we’ve traded off errands over the years depending on our respective commutes.
I’m in charge of saving and investing money in our house, and filing taxes. My husband is in charge of charity – we donate at least 10% of our after-tax income to charity.
My husband does most of the food shopping since we have extra large reusable grocery bags. He can fill them to the brim AND pick them up. He does the shopping super quickly. He’s pretty good about sticking to the list I prepare, but he’s not very good about sniffing out the sales in the grocery store. And he loves to bring home new and interesting items that aren’t on the list. It’s the price I’m willing to pay (most of the time) for having him do the shopping.
I’m in charge of food, laundry, buying clothes and shoes and almost everything else related to the kids and their education.
My husband is great with his hands and does a lot of the fixing and handyman stuff around the house.
I’m happy to say that we outsource most of the household cleaning to a lovely cleaning person who cleans for us 4 hours once a week.
And our kids have a rotation washing dishes and folding laundry.
Love that you guys donate 10% of your income – very admirable! If I recall you guys have a HUGE household full of kids too, right?
My husband does the cooking. I do the laundry and dishes. We set financial goals together at the beginning of the year. I make it happen throughout the year. Our sweet sweet cleaning lady cleans every other week.
We’re reasonably even and like just enough different stuff to have a good separation of duties so we’re not fighting over who gets to update the spreadsheet this time. :) I think you have the same distinction with cleaning and “cleaning” as we do. I don’t do the hands and knees scrubbing, he does. I do the tidying – I pick up things and put them in the right places and throw away or recycle things that we don’t need anymore. It’s definitely not CLEANING!
Me: Saving, investing, managing our money, keeping the calendar in order, all travel logistics, handling all the dog health and logistics and midday walks, tidying the house, capturing spiders and delivering them outside, weekday cooking, controlling all the shopping requests, gardening, IT.
Him: Car health, garage organization, cleaning (vacuuming, wiping down things, toilets, etc), submitting household or hobby shopping requests, taking the kids so I can nap a couple hours on the weekend, weekend cooking, driving, researching home improvement options, household shopping, daycare dropoff and pick-up*, all morning, late night, and weekend dog walks, making phone calls when I don’t want to (almost all the time).
* are somewhat shared duties but the person with the star does most of it.
He wins for the napping part on its own ;)
We both win with that one! But mostly me.
Loved this post J! And great that you guys do what you prefer. My husband is 100% responsible for killing bugs, something I have no qualms in delegating lol. I am the Accountant and budget freak, so do the budgeting but I give him updates just about every 30 minutes (might be a slight exaggeration :P). He is an amazing cook and I do okay so we share that depending on who feels less like cooking. I’ve had RSI for the past few weeks so been pretty limited in what I can do, and ignoring the dust bunnies which turns out is my job lol. I am the organisation freak as well so i thrive on that stuff and am happy to keep those for my therapeutic purposes haha. We aim for a 50/50 split but I am a little more of a neat freak so probably more 60/40.
I would love to receive updates of my money every 30 minutes! Haha…
Hope the RSI calms down a bit for you!
Me:
Saving / Investing
Budgeting / Insurance / Taxes
Kids School/Piano
Clothes Shopping/Management
Grocery/Household Shopping
Meal Planning/Cooking
Holiday/Birthday/Vacation Planning (<–please don't underestimate this)
Daycare Pickup
Shared:
Both work FT with side gigs and gross about the same
Cleaning / Dishes
Laundry
Church Volunteer work
Parenting
We manage our own vehicles (get serviced/wash, etc.)
Husband:
Kids Sports (volunteer coaches)
Yardwork / Garage work
Home Improvement
Making the bed (I never do)
Daycare Drop Off
I am grateful for all the ways my husband contributes but do feel the strain of having the majority of the "mental load" as far as planning/money/shopping. But not sure I could give up control of financial management. I also have created my job to be more "40-45 hours and done" while his job as teacher/coach requires considerable time outside of work hours for no extra pay. I do feel my limits on time and energy available to dedicate to work including work-related travel has hindered my upward mobility.
Oh man, I bet!! You’re definitely taking the brunt of it all – SUPER MOM over there! The extra working/travel is definitely a tricky one too – always a balance between family/personal time and work time. I used to hustle 80 hours a week, and prided myself in it, and now I’m at 30 hours a week and pride myself in it haha… Not winning any work awards these days, but I am from my kids :) Hope it gets better for you over there!
I handle everything financial (bills, savings, investing, insurance) while my husband brings home the bacon. For a brief moment, my husband managed our checkbook but I couldn’t handle not the minutiae. So, I fill him in on our budget and investments every few months. He knows where to find the passwords if he really wants to know specifics (but he never does). My husband has to look at numbers and budgets everyday at work, so he never wants to at home.
We’re okay with our financial labor division. When we decided to live on one salary after my oldest was born, I made a big effort to learn how to run our household more efficiently. I wasn’t going to add any money to our budget, but I could learn how to spend less. Smart grocery shopping and meal planning really bring down food costs.
Oh, and Amazon deliveries are the highlight of my children’s lives too!
Way to go, mom!
After 25 years of marriage, we do the following:
Me:
work full-time
cook 5x/wk
clean
keep track of loans/insurances/ home repairs and arrange or argue as necessary
Run our small business by interacting with clients, collecting payments, etc.
Him:
work full-time plus
pay house bills & small business expenses
pick up one kid 2x/wk from train station
wash/dry laundry
cook 1x/wk
yard work
Shared:
We both manage our own vehicles and medical costs
Grocery shopping
volunteer work
We both have strengths and weaknesses in all areas but try to work together on home projects, vacation plans and meal planning.
I like it :)
And also that many of y’all put down *shared* tasks! I should have added a section for that too, woops.
I’m CFO in my family where I handle all the bill payments, update our monthly income statement and check on all of our accounts. My wife watches out for interest rates in banks and see how much they are offering so we could maybe open an account with them.
The both of us enjoy these roles when it comes to dealing with our money and I actually look forward to doing them on a monthly basis.
Oooh a good question. My hubs and I handle different parts of the finances. I usually ended up doing finer detail items like budgets, and also the investments. He ends up looking at overall costs. We both have to compromise over what we put our money towards though! I tend to be a bigger saver than he is, whereas he would rather spend a bit more. We’re pretty frugal anyhow though!
Your wife doesn’t know your net worth?! I am surprised since random strangers like us know it thanks to your monthly updates. Then again, my husband doesn’t know either…Thanks to you, I calculated our net worth for the first time last week, and I was surprised that it was a positive number!! I excitedly asked the husband if he wanted to know…but he flat out said no! So as you can guess, I handle our finances (I am an accountant). I am also in charge of keeping our 3 dogs and 2 cats alive, cleaning, keeping track of our net worth, and saving. The husband is in charge of bringing home the $ (he makes more than I do), fixing the many things that break in our house (owning sucks), and cooking.
Good thing our spouses have us! Haha… (And that we enjoy this stuff :))
I’m in charge of bills, investing, saving, banking, setting budgets and food shopping. My wife is in charge of booking holidays, washing, and shopping for household items. It’s funny, we never discussed it, we just found that we fell into these roles.
That’s a beautiful thing!
I’m in charge of all the long term investing/saving, what stocks to buy, which mutual funds in IRA/401K. I also get to do all the big housework, floors, vacuum, change the bed sheets, and wash the cars every now and then. (Wife had a major car accident a few years ago, so can’t do the heavy-lifting stuff anymore.
She is in charge of the smaller household chores and manages our day to day finances. We have been doing this for most of our 38 years together and it seems to work out just fine.
I also had trouble with her not knowing where we were in net worth, so I put a spread sheet on the desktop of her computer so she can open it whenever she would like to see the numbers. Seems to work mostly, I just have to remember to update it every few months.
Excellent idea!!!!!
Better yet, why not print it out and paste it on the mirror once a month for a not-so-subtle reminder, hmm….
I like the spin you take on your blog.
This time around I have a good situation. My wife and I both have the same financial vision. When we spend money, it’s more on experiences and not stuff. Both of us don’t buy crap just for the sake of shopping and we have 7-year-old cars. We’re not into the shiny object syndrome. Although I have to say, it took me a while to figure out how to smart with money.
Thanks for playing along here, glad you’re enjoying the blog :)
It’s great that you both handle the aspects that you’re good at. You hear a lot of horror stories usually about how one partner mismanaged the money.
Hubby:
Works full time and on call 24/7
Home Repairs
Yard Work
Handles all issues w/wifi or electronics (including setting them up)
Major Spring Cleaning
Cleans out Garage
Me:
Work full time
Invest/Savings/Budget – I keep hubby posted on what I’m spending bonuses on and how much we have in investments (if it goes down, he doesn’t want to know)
Cleaning/Dishes & everything else (I hired someone to clean the bathrooms and floors weekly to keep my sanity)
Some Laundry
Grocery Shopping
Household Shopping including clothes
Plan all travel (everything!)
Cooking (dinners/meal plan & pack all lunches)
Kids:
Yard Work
Laundry
Trash
Clean their rooms
Help w/dinners
Unload dishwasher
That last list gives me a lot of hope for my own kids when they’re old enough to take on some responsibility :)
And too funny about your husband not wanting to know when $$$ is down, haha…
At least one of you will always be in the know!