Minding My Own Business

For those of you who are terminally single or don’t involve your spouse in financial decision-making you can’t skip this post. This discussion will apply to you as well….you’ll just find yourself playing more than one position.

In my family our financial success is a full up team sport. My wife and I each have a position we play with our own individual responsibilities. The children haven’t been given a position on the team yet. For now they are sitting on the sidelines. I’m hopeful that they will learn a thing or two from the united effort their parents make on the playing field.

In the most basic sense, we have two positions:

The money earner - aka me

The money spender - aka my wife

While that may sound a bit humorous and a jab at my wife, it’s not intended to be. Let’s face it, when you go to work for the better part of the day and spend the weekends doing “Honey-Do’s” it’s a bit difficult to be the one spending the bulk of the household money. On the other hand, my wife is a proud stay at home mother who takes wonderful care of our children, keeps a spectacular home, volunteers at school, finds time to do those things that make the house run (shop for food, keeps clothes on the kids (and me), does the laundry) and still manages to make a restaurant quality dinner for us to enjoy precisely at 6:00pm each evening. Bottom-line in our household, I earn it and she puts it to work for our family.

Don’t get me wrong. I do spend money. However, it usually creates a situation where I have have to move money over from the money market account to cover us.

Let’s take a closer look at these positions and the responsibilities each has in my family.

The money earner. Seems pretty simple. Get up and go to work every day. Yes that is part of it, but in my family, this position has the responsibilty of also being the money manager. Not only do I go to work for my family, but I try and perform the “big picture” management of our money. Where do we store our money? Do we have enough to make ends meet each month? Where do we invest our money? Answering these questions entails choosing the banks and credit card companies we do business with, managing our investment portfolio and monitoring our business’ (family’s) bottom line.

The money spender. I sometimes wish this was my role. Spending money is a very important part of your team’s financial success. Assuming your paycheck is relatively stable (meaning increasing your income is not always an option), it’s more likely that your financial success will be dependant on how you choose to mange the outflows of your precious resources. My wife does a great job of minimizing our expenses at every turn. Don’t think for a minute, however, that we go without. Well there is the swimming pool that she and the kids want, but I don’t think that’s relevant to this discussion. Today’s discount and large volume warehouse stores offer great quality products, most retailers have end of the season sales (this means you plan ahead for next year) and you’d be amazed what you can find at the thrift store. Yes, I said thrift store. She has purchased brand new clothes (with tags still on) for our children, I’ve purchased a pair of $15 water skis (Summer here I come), and we even saw a painting for $9,000 all at our local thrift stores. Our friends wonder where all the cash comes from. I am amazed and very pleased with how well she spends our money.

Communication is the key. I learned early in my military career that communication is the key to success. It can also be your key to failure, if you don’t practice it. Suffice it to say, we communicate. A lot. It’s not always fun and can sometimes be embarrassing (”you bought what!!”), but talking about your family’s financial business is absolutely essential to creating a team approach to your success.

How do you manage you money? What position do you play?

-Jeff

Learn to manage money and mind your own business.

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