Men and Money!!!

[demi]

Yes i agree with that. Its never good to lie to each other about anything. Even though my husband is tight with our money, we always talk about what we're going to buy. Nither of us goes out and spends money on unessential things. I never buy somthing and hide it from him and vice versa. And if it was me left to pay everything without my husband, i would be tight with it too, because we dont have money to splash arround in the first place. But because Im not Macedonian, its easier for him to deal with paying the bills ect, which is why he has the money. But it is both our money, and it is all spent on family stuff and the occational night out ( or in which costs less ) with friends.

[Pumpkin&Piglet]

I understand what you're saying about not trusting someone and I considered taking some time away from husband when I discovered his deceit. So I can see the view of not being with someone you can't trust

My husband made a mistake though, and is now much better. While I'm still building that trust back where money is concerned he is much better now and we discuss everything and both take responsibility of what's coming in and out.

It had a huge affect and I don't want to belittle the problem but it was a temporary problem that was and is still in the process of being fixed.

So I agree with Zech, my husbands problem is now one of not being organised and not remember bills that will come out. Even when he was being irresponsible and causing us financial problems he was still a loving and respectful husband and wonderful father. He just wasn't able to cope with it all. I am certainly glad I was supportive rather than blaming and I would not have done anything else.

[Ellendra]

Do they teach any form of budgeting at school these days?

Zoe

When I was in school, budgets and personal finance were taught in Home Economics classes, along with cooking and how to care for common household items. But, the semester after I took mine, the school announced that they were cutting all non-college-prep courses, everything from cooking to woodworking to shop class got cut. I remember one of my friends at that school who was a year younger than me was astonished to learn that I not only had my own checking account at 17, but I knew how to take care of it!

I and a lot of other students complained to the school when they made that announcement, but nobody listened.

[happyhippy]

Some interesting replies,and as expected,different ways of managing money between couples.I'm not sure why,but when I was 11,I decided to start saving regularly.My Dad used to give me 50c pocket money per week(long time ago lol) and one day I opened my own bank account,without anyone knowing!From then on I saved half my pocket money every week!It set me in good stead for the rest of my life actually,because I have never got into any money difficulties.I've certainly never been rich either and in my younger earlier married days was actually quite poor!I guess I just like to keep my life simple.I don't do credit or have any debts so am very lucky that way.My OH unfortunately has not been as well organised as me with money and we have had fallouts over the years due to this.He's not deceitful,just not organised!lol Thankfully my kids are the same as me.To me its obviously far less stressful being organised than not,so thats another positive I think!

[citizentwiglet]

My partner and I have our own accounts, and no joint accounts whatsoever. When we were both working, we split the bills 50/50. Now I stay at home with the children, he pays the bills and whatever is left over is his to spend how he wishes'. I get the Child Tax Credit and the Child Benefit into my account. We go halfers on the grocery shopping, though - we take turns week on week; and I pay my own mobile phone bill - it's 'my' luxury, and therefore doesn't count as a household bill. Neither of us have loans or credit cards, and I wouldn't want it any other way - although not having debt means we are unknown to credit agencies, and therefore couldn't get a mortgage because they had no history on us.

[grahamhobbs]

Don't think there is any difference between men and women as such in regards to money. I am no good with money, in the sense of looking after it, getting the best interest, etc - I'm just not interested, somehow I feel you should earn your money through work not by investing it.
Fortunately me and my OH are very similar, as she says she is very cheap for a woman, no make-up, fancy clothes, etc and I rarely buy anything for myself. We both work part-time and because we have a modest life style, money is never really an issue. Although we have still have separate accounts, we are an item so what's mine is hers and vice-versa.

[yvette]

I wonder if it has something to do with what you see your parents do - rather than whether you are male or female? I grew up watching my mum and dad sort their weekly income into jars for bills, savings etc. I therefore learned that if you want something, you save up for it. My husband grew up with his dad working abroad because there were no jobs in his area - missing his son, he would spoil him on visits home with extravagant gifts. This gave my husband the idea that money was unlimited and frequent presents normal. The process of earning and budgeting was unknown to him. Several nasty debts later, we' re sorted, but it wasn't easy.

[chickenchargrill]

We do have credit cards, very recently after both messing up with money in our younger years. My hubby was actually given a huge, ridiculous credit limit which he phoned up about and got reduced. If we're ever in a huge amount of poo because several bills come at once, we can't borrow more than we can pay back within a month.

We don't have a joint account. We agreed we'd just mess that up, so most of the money goes into hubby's, but I use his card. My account is used for rainy day funds and the few bills that come out of mine, like my mobile. Having said that, I deal with most of the finances, pay the bills, buy the food etc all using his card and account. He's not rubbish with money, but is forgetful and knows how to get out of paying bills until the last minute rather than getting them out the way.

My ex, was worse than I imagined and I didn't really know how bad until we split up.

But even though my hubby isn't brilliant with money, the most important thing is if one of us does mess up, we can discuss the best way of dealing with that bill or debt. I think the main reason people aren't so good with money nowadays is because it's so easy to get that student overdraft, the student loans and credit cards. Most people are starting their lives with a shed load of debt. Why should they care about saving instead of just borrowing more?

[Pumpkin&Piglet]

We do have credit cards, very recently after both messing up with money in our younger years. My hubby was actually given a huge, ridiculous credit limit which he phoned up about and got reduced. If we're ever in a huge amount of poo because several bills come at once, we can't borrow more than we can pay back within a month.

We don't have a joint account. We agreed we'd just mess that up, so most of the money goes into hubby's, but I use his card. My account is used for rainy day funds and the few bills that come out of mine, like my mobile. Having said that, I deal with most of the finances, pay the bills, buy the food etc all using his card and account. He's not rubbish with money, but is forgetful and knows how to get out of paying bills until the last minute rather than getting them out the way.

My ex, was worse than I imagined and I didn't really know how bad until we split up.

But even though my hubby isn't brilliant with money, the most important thing is if one of us does mess up, we can discuss the best way of dealing with that bill or debt. I think the main reason people aren't so good with money nowadays is because it's so easy to get that student overdraft, the student loans and credit cards. Most people are starting their lives with a shed load of debt. Why should they care about saving instead of just borrowing more?

This is similar to us. We never saw the point of joint accounts before. It's only recently because of the trouble we had that we thought it might be best. My husband is good at not paying straight away and it doesn't seem to bother him that it's there. He forgets and doesn't thunk about it. Whether we've had separate ro joint accounts we've always shared it all, wherever it came from, if it belongs to one of us then it belongs to the other. I know other people do it differently and that works well for them but I don't feel I ever coud have done that and been happy.

One of the reasons for our credit cards was for a mortgage - although we're no where near to getting on at the moment before we had the cards we hadn't been heard of and so stood even less chance. They weren't the problem, it was the bank extending our overdraft of their own accord several times. We at no time applied for credit or a loan or anything similar that has resulted in the trouble.

From my small circle of friends I'd say men were shit with money but being a man may have nothing to do with it - it is a small circle!

I will say though that my father in law had a gambling problem. Whether or not this is where my husband gets it from or not I wouldn't know.

As for budgeting being taught at school and being taught about money I remember coming across nothing like that in any of my lessons at all. I was however from about 14 years in the most atrocious upper school!

[happyhippy]

I think for me it was watching the way my parents dealt/managed money and they were both good at it.My OH has told me he never knew how his parents managed their money which might explain why we both think differently about it.A couple I know of manage their money differently.He's been married before,and insisted on splitting everything 50/50 which in theory sounds good,except he earns £60,000 per year against her £21,000!!!! Not sure I'd agree to that!

[boboff]

That sounds like me!

Not the pay, not anymore, but I still think the 50/50 idea is 100% the right way.

If you went out with a friend for dinner and went "dutch" you would split the bill 50/50 adjusted for any major discrepancy in the cost of what you consumed, in a relationship which is NOT based on ones superiority over the other you have to split things this way in my opinion.

Interestingly both you friend and myself are very happily married now, after getting it wrong first time!

[that_sarah_girl]

I'm probably being a bit touchy here, but the fact I can't trust my husband with money does not mean he's a bad man!

I completely agree!

My OH has bipolar disorder. These days his mediation is working reasonably well he is generally very good at budgeting due to being skint most of his life, but when he does have that bit extra he tends to spend it straight away without thinking too much of the consequences.

We have seperate bank accounts and I wouldn't even consider getting a joint one. When we are both working full-time one of us will pay the rent and the other all the rest of the bills (seems to work out about equal) and we go 50/50 on food.

[dustydave]

I don't like spending any money at all!

In fact just writing this is making me worry about the wear 'n tear on my keyboard, so am going to stop wri

[boboff]

Lo

[yvette]

Not sure about the splitting 50/50 thing - I had a long career break when we had our son, and then worked part-time for a long time while he was growing up, so my earning potential was compromised. Also, even when we both worked full-time, I did more housework, cooking and gardening!