When a partner doesn't get it

anonmoose

That would make me chuckle oldbeanz! It gets my goat that often things in joint names that I manage end up being addressed to my husband or Mr & Mrs (husbands first name) then our surname!

I remember organising double glazing quotes and one chap (very old school) went through what I wanted and then said at the end give all this information to your husband and when he has decided ask him to get in touch! He didn't get my business on that basis

My business insurance once really annoyed me also. I had asked for my husband to be added as a unpaid volunteer as you can do so he could be covered if I ever needed him in an emergency. I explained he has never helped me before and probably never will  but its a useful backup.

Then the insurance certificate arrives in his name in the above Mr & Mrs his first name format. I gave them an absolute roasting as I had paid that insurance for over 10 yrs and my husband is suddenly in charge!

TELLIT01

There's certainly a common thread here of one partner being concerned about finances for the future and the other of the belief that it will all magically be OK.  My wife constantly talks about all the places we will go when we retire, despite me telling her time and again that our income will be less than current, although not hugely so.  We only have one foreign holiday a year now with the very occasional trip away in the UK for a few days.  I'm not clear where she thinks the money will come from.  We do have a large garden but I haven't yet found a money tree out there.

strawb_shortcake

anonmoose said:

That would make me chuckle oldbeanz! It gets my goat that often things in joint names that I manage end up being addressed to my husband or Mr & Mrs (husbands first name) then our surname!

I remember organising double glazing quotes and one chap (very old school) went through what I wanted and then said at the end give all this information to your husband and when he has decided ask him to get in touch! He didn't get my business on that basis

My business insurance once really annoyed me also. I had asked for my husband to be added as a unpaid volunteer as you can do so he could be covered if I ever needed him in an emergency. I explained he has never helped me before and probably never will  but its a useful backup.

Then the insurance certificate arrives in his name in the above Mr & Mrs his first name format. I gave them an absolute roasting as I had paid that insurance for over 10 yrs and my husband is suddenly in charge!

This is a bug bear of mine too, my mortgage company know the mortgage is based solely on my income and that my Husband has no fixed income and unemployed. But who's the primary addressee, who's all email correspondence directed too? Not me!

Bluebell1000

The answer to that is to both be Dr and Dr, that way you can both claim to be first on the list 😀 

Pat38493

TELLIT01 said:

There's certainly a common thread here of one partner being concerned about finances for the future and the other of the belief that it will all magically be OK.  My wife constantly talks about all the places we will go when we retire, despite me telling her time and again that our income will be less than current, although not hugely so.  We only have one foreign holiday a year now with the very occasional trip away in the UK for a few days.  I'm not clear where she thinks the money will come from.  We do have a large garden but I haven't yet found a money tree out there.

Well it can be even more a challenge - I have been trying to explain to my wife that since she is retiring earlier than me on a relatively large DB pension, and getting a large lump sum, if we were looking at our financials from a joint perspective, and with me still working and being a higher rate taxpayer and in the zone where I start to lose personal allowance, it makes much more sense for us to put the absolute maximum into my pension schemes and use her lump sum to top up any needs we have over the next few years.

As you can imagine if we are both used to running our finances separately, this could sound like I'm trying to "nick" her money

I was trying to explain that her lump sum is tax free whereas anything I don't pay into my pension is 40% or even worse case 63.5% taxable.

These concepts are quite hard to get across if someone is not that interested in the intricacies of UK tax rules.

enthusiasticsaver

I am in a similar situation to many others on this thread in that my husband essentially leaves arranging the finances  up to me and has done for many years.  40 years married this year and we have found a way of managing our different attitude to finances to cause as little stress as possible. On the positive side he never needed nagging to sort out his pension.  From the start of him joining his company I asked him if he wanted to be travelling constantly and working long erratic hours (nature of his job) when he was 60 and at the time he was mid 20s but he had to make a choice which pension scheme to go for and quote a desired retirement age so he opted for the highest contribution in the booster scheme aimed at early retirement.  I think for those who have partners who don't want to plan far ahead just ask them to think if they still want to be working in their 60s and 70s and at least you have done as much as you can.  Obviously it has worked in the OPs case at least. First rule of finance is look after yourself and dependants first.  For partners you can only do so much and realise that they may not always be your partner as things can change.