I'm worried. I take care of all of our money and everything related to it. Every dime. My husband doesn't even get an allowance and has to call me to see if he can buy breakfast when he's stuck out of town. (He's a truck driver.) He has no clue how to do a budget or balance a checkbook. He doesn't even know exactly where all our money "lives", though he does have some idea of the names of the institutions. Who do we owe? A vague idea. How much? No idea. Our net worth? Totally clueless. He doesn't even know how much his paychecks are until he gets the stub in the mail.
But that's the way he wants it!
It's worrisome because what if something should happen to me? Oh, he could pay the bills because that's all organized. He knows where the book is that has all the websites, login IDs and passwords written in it (I pay everything online). He could figure out how to log in to the sites but he would have a terrible time figuring out how to get to the "pay bill" screens.
I log in to our checking and savings accounts every day, tracking spending and looking for identity theft. He could log in to our primary bank, but I know he wouldn't be able to read that code that our checking account transactions are translated into, like "61910061323 BONNEY LAKE 308023 07/06619100613 $9.15". Because I keep every debit receipt until it clears the bank, I can quickly find the one for $9.15 and verify that it's OK. He wouldn't do that. Identity theft could be a real problem for him.
Hubby might be able to cobble together a budget because I keep a year's worth of weekly budgets in reserve in case there's a dispute over whether something got paid or not. He could look at those and figure it out. But would he stick to it? He doesn't track spending so I'm not sure he even knows how. I foresee lots of overdraft charges.
What worries me the most is that he has no idea how to manage money and refuses to learn. He needs to know how to prioritize and track spending and research investments. He needs to know how to plan for the future. He won't let me teach him, either. Says it's all too complicated. (This from a man with a genius IQ who can remember everything he ever learned about cars, trucks and motorcycles. Seriously!) I've simply quit trying to convince him that this is something he needs to know about.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can pull this ostrich's head out of the sand? Should I even try?
Ok Lisa - You asked - I would say - don't try - unless he wants to learn it or you really don't want to do it anymore. At this point in your life it sounds like you have worked out a system between the two of you that works for you. Sort of goes into the category of "if it ain't broke - don't fix it".
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