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“Hi, I’m Chris”. That’s how it all began in early 2002. My friend Dave and I were hanging out of a hole in the wall of my duplex, installing a new window. Chris was the good looking neighbor girl. She thought Dave and I were a couple, he was actually my best bud, living with me and providing his carpenter skills in lieu of rent during some hard times.
By the end of the year I and Chris were a couple, and sometime in 2003 we commenced cohabitation. Thinking back, it must have taken quite a leap of faith for Chris to bring me on board. I was 3 years divorced and between careers. My gross earnings in 03 was only equal to about 75% of my spousal support order. I was living off my savings. Chris had been single for nearly 20 years and was doing just fine without a man. The reason she fell in love eludes me.
Regardless of my scant income I always covered my half of bills, but the available savings dwindled, and I was just spinning my wheels trying to build my financial services career. I had to fall back on my commercial driver license in order to get the ends to meet. I landed a part time job driving an 18 wheeler full of mail from Toledo to Jersey City to the east, and west to Iowa.
That job enabled me to develop the other project I’d been working on, Dan’s Tax Prep. I continued driving for about 8 years until the tax practice reached critical mass, allowing me to transition from driving a semi to being semi-retired.
During those early years we kept our finances totally separate. In 2004 we sold our homes and bought a small condo together. Then in 2012 we came across distressed condo in the hands of a bank, with a small lake in the back yard, the 5th hole of the Brandywine Country Club beyond that.
Together for about 10 years, we knew that our spending and saving habits were uncannily similar and decided it was finally time to open a joint checking account. Soon after that we consolidated and combined our separate credit cards as well. Financial infidelity will never become an issue.
Now I’m the money manager, not because Chris isn’t capable, she has a degree in accounting and did just fine before I came along. I think it’s just because it’s always been my thing. So it is not a case of willful ignorance or disengagement on Chris’s part. We periodically review finances and Chris knows what we have and where to find it all.
I know from my tax business that it’s common for one spouse to take care of things. If that spouse dies first, or if there’s a divorce, someone is often hopelessly lost.
Partners like Chris will be okay after we kick the bucket, but how would we get a willfully ignorant or disengaged person into the loop?
Reading through comments, many have simplied finances through retirement—that seems to be what Jonathan has done in a hurry post-diagnosis, closing/merging accounts and retitling. Also educating beneficiaries, though he has not had many details on this aspect.
Dan, regarding your last sentence—I have thought long and hard about why the responsibility for financial and other situations, rest disproportionately with one person.
Sometimes it boils down to falling into a pattern where one partner consistently takes the lead and there is never a discussion about the roles each one is taking on and how responsibilities are divided.
It becomes more difficult to have the discussion as time passes and the emotional work of trying to establish a more equitable relationship can be overwhelming. But sooner or later the subject has to be tackled and it’s easier to discuss matters early and often in the partnership.
That a great point Marjorie. That lead person bears some responsibility to bring their partner into on board.
OK, a couple of important things. Have a Trust or Will. This will assign a line of executors, so that can be worked out ahead of time. I have a Mac and it helps me with passwords, but I also have a huge spreadsheet with every User and Password, for myself and my wife. Right, I do not believe in password programs, because it seems all major systems have failures, once in a while. If someone dies, do NOT discard their phone, you will need it for some authorizations and other info.
As for the bill pays, I have a complete listing, to guide someone when we die, either a spouse or daughter, or the like. I have automated every bill we get, and have Quicken to keep track of all bank accounts and charge cards. The more difficult one is your Finance companies like Vanguard and Fidelity and the like. What I did is made a spreadsheet of Summary of ALL Assets, with names and addresses and phones. This is NO easy chore, but your family will appreciate all the work you have done for them. My take is most people do not have a clue, and that is why they should get