Being open, transparent and honest about money with spouse

[youdontkillmoney]

At 41 years of age I decided to be more open, honest, and transparent about money with my spouse.

Having shared financial goals, and to get "buy in" from the other person is important and sharing financial information is needed to ensure everyone is on the same page as to challenges, i.e. expenses, shortfalls, magnitude of expenses, bills, etc.

I haven't always been honest and transparent, mostly because I used to buy things here and there without informing, among other vices. Having a shared financial goal or goals, has helped me to want to do this, and be honest. I think it's healthier.

It took me this long to mature (note to self: if I ever get rich and give someone an inheritance, do it in stages with the greatest amounts at age 40 or older since most people tend to get mature and their priorities straight by this time).

Starting with yesterday and weekly going forward, I print out for my spouse a few spreadhseets to share with her:

1. Life insurance policies and amounts for both of us

2. List of ALL accounts from checking, savings, retirement, etc. and balances in each account

3. List of all expenses and expenses as a percent of income (15% = expenses divided by income which means expenses take up 15% of our income so the lower the better) and profit margin (85% = income minus expenses then divided by income so 85% means we keep 85% of income and not spend but save and the higher the better)

4. A history of FICO scores, for her and me as I update them regularly to see the trend

[tacpoly]

I'm curious:  does your wife have her own income?  How did your wife feel about not fully knowing about the household income?  You wrote that you check her FICO scores, do you know all about her finances while she didn't know all about yours or were both of you pretty opaque about money? 

[youdontkillmoney]

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@tacpoly wrote:

I'm curious:  does your wife have her own income?  How did your wife feel about not fully knowing about the household income?  You wrote that you check her FICO scores, do you know all about her finances while she didn't know all about yours or were both of you pretty opaque about money? 

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^^^^^

Yes, my wife has her own income, she in fact makes more than me, about $160,000 (Nurse Practitioner), whereas I'm only at $120,000 (Manager-Finance).

My wife always trusted me with paying the bills, which I did, no lates, missed bills, etc. There was never any reason to not to trust me, we basically use our Amex Plat (she is auth user under my account) and spend as we needed to, i.e. at the grocery market we just get what we wanted, no need to budget, there was always money to pay everything off when the statement came; I pay all the household bills from our joint income. When we paid off her student loans, it was from both our accounts, so no division of accounts or money.

I would check mine and her scores, I'm at a point where I know her SS# by heart, etc. We both know each other's scores as I would show her mine too. Her's are in fact higher than mine. Up until last week when I started to print the various spreadhseets out to keep her updated, I was more opaque or secretive. It wasn;t until then did I decide to fully disclose and show the printouts because I wanted us to stay on track for our financial goals. I think it helps to keep transparent to reach our financial goals.

As for how she felt about now knowing fully the finances in the housegold, every so often she would ask, so how much do we have saved now, etc. So that is why I decided to print all balances out on weekly basis to show her. Also, I wanted her to see the extent of our expenses by listing them out (only 15 cents out of every dollar we make go to expenses...not too bad), so she will think twice before going crazy on spending. Her weakness are bags, expensive bags such as Chanel, Celine...Louis Vuitton is not considered expensive to her, she is passed that level.

[tacpoly]

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@youdontkillmoney wrote:

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 Her weakness are bags, expensive bags such as Chanel, Celine...Louis Vuitton is not considered expensive to her, she is passed that level.

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LV canvas bags may not be expensive (although one can argue spending thousands on coated canvas is way expensive), but the leather (not Epi) and exotics are.  By the way, she order custom bags using LV's Haute Maroquinerie service...so LV can easily reach and surpass Chanel and Celine (whose pricepoint I thought wasn't as high as LV leather, but I haven't looked at Celine in a while).  

Here's a tip to make sure you guys can afford to retire :  don't let her get into Hermes.