What is your attitude to discussing your finances generally?

Interesting post. One of the problems my husband and I have had is his reluctance to discuss finances. He doesn`t like to tell me what he earns, doesn`t want to discuss saving, long term strategy - anything. Now you might think this is because he is bad with money, a secret gambler or a spendthrift. You might think we are heavily in debt or just making ends meet. Neither! I take care of the money, on the whole, (because he won`t deal with it and is happy for me to) and keep a spreadsheet to show where we are. I like to tell him the state of our finances and where to find all the information. It is like dragging him to a torture chamber. He gets tense, avoids eye contact, becomes aggressive. If I want to open a new account, change the destination of money for a better deal, you`d think I had asked for a divorce. Rows: " I don`t want all this complication" " You`re always going on"etc, I only talk about money once a month, when I just check to see if we are up or down.

He would be so easy to rob blind! I pointed out to him that if I went under a bus tomorrow, he would be able to find everything and know where we were - IF he had been listening...
Is this unusual?

I don't go into much personal detail when talking about money, but will happily discuss broader interest rates, mortgages, regular savings accounts, utility deals, etc. Some of my friends know I own rental property (mainly because they've been to them at some stage), but don't know anything about how much I have in savings. I feel like I'm in an unusual situation, as most of my friends come from wealthy families and are likely to inherit substantial sums, yet they themselves are barely scraping by month to month, spending a fortune on takeaways, etc, while I grew up in poverty on a council estate (we never went hungry, but couldn't afford holidays and our cars were always old bangers) and have made decisions about my lifestyle to help secure my financial future as I don't have any inheritance to fall back on.


I don't flaunt my money and generally only buy things I actually need (though I often stop buying small things I need around my birthday and Christmas so they can be used for gift ideas, as I don't want people buying me useless tat just because they feel they have to get me something). I got tired of pretending to be skint at the run-up to payday though, so I do get the odd comment along the lines of "we don't get paid until Friday, how are you not skint?" I decided that pretending I have no money just further normalises overspending; instead, I'd rather try to persuade colleagues to consider saving a little or easing up on the £19 coffees from across the street when there are perfectly good coffee making facilities in the kitchen.

Like many others on here, I've chosen to take an interest in managing my finances through spreadsheets, etc, and am constantly looking for ways to improve my already considerable spreadsheet (I also have a secure document that close family could access to see all my assets if I ever suddenly stopped living).

fudgecat wrote:

Interesting post. One of the problems my husband and I have had is his reluctance to discuss finances. He doesn`t like to tell me what he earns, doesn`t want to discuss saving, long term strategy - anything. Now you might think this is because he is bad with money, a secret gambler or a spendthrift. You might think we are heavily in debt or just making ends meet. Neither! I take care of the money, on the whole, (because he won`t deal with it and is happy for me to) and keep a spreadsheet to show where we are. I like to tell him the state of our finances and where to find all the information. It is like dragging him to a torture chamber. He gets tense, avoids eye contact, becomes aggressive. If I want to open a new account, change the destination of money for a better deal, you`d think I had asked for a divorce. Rows: " I don`t want all this complication" " You`re always going on"etc, I only talk about money once a month, when I just check to see if we are up or down.

He would be so easy to rob blind! I pointed out to him that if I went under a bus tomorrow, he would be able to find everything and know where we were - IF he had been listening...
Is this unusual?

I don't know how unusual that is - but I would certainly posit that it's usual for one partner to be more interested in finances than the other. My wife, for example, really doesn't have any interest whatsoever. I sort out our joint finances, bills and the like and she's happy for me to do it. I try to engage her but she loses interest very quickly - she couldn't tell you who supplies our electricity or broadband for example. I do worry, because if anything were to happen to me I don't think she'd know where to start, but multiple attempts to involve her fall on deaf ears.

I am at least trying to bring her round to the idea of drawing up a budget so we know where we are but she doesn't see the point because we spend less than we earn (and she has no interest, which FWIW is probably the more proximate reason). So our solution is that all the household stuff goes through the joint account which I look after and tell her how much she needs to put in each month. Then we can each spend from our own accounts so we don't accidentally withdraw something without the other knowing.

We both know what each other earn though and I try to make sure that neither of us pays more than an equitable share - but it's a lot of trust she puts into me to do it fairly! Obviously we wouldn't have married each other if we didn't trust each other but I still don't understand why she wouldn't want to understand where the money we both work hard for is going!

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.