If the Policy Genius “Couples & Money” survey is any indication, one of the things COVID didn’t change was love and money. Specifically, it didn’t change how paired-up households manage their dough.
About 40 percent manage their finances together and 22 percent “keep and manage” money separately, which is consistent with PG’s previous two surveys.
A few other interesting tidbits:
About two-thirds (66 percent) say money doesn’t have any influence on their relationship.
Almost one in three (30 percent) have paid off a partner’s debts. In that group, 44 percent have plunked down more than $10,000 to settle their loved ones’ obligations.
Lots of partners aren’t sharing money specifics. That includes topics like salary (41 percent), retirement savings (49 percent), credit scores (54 percent), debt (42 percent), investments (48 percent) and monthly spending totals (53 percent). And one out of five respondents say they don’t know any of those things about their partners.
Speaking of not-knowing: Almost two-thirds (64 percent) of those surveyed said that lying or hiding money could mean the end of a relationship. Yet one in five of them have an undisclosed will or some kind of secret account (credit card, banking, retirement, life insurance).
One way to get around all the secrecy is simple: Talk about money.
Which of course isn’t that simple at all, since finances tend to be such a taboo subject in this culture. One tip the article offers is to visit a money professional. This could get the conversations flowing, even to the point of helping you define goals you were afraid to bring up – or that you never knew you had.
Certainly I’ve interviewed CFPs and others who say that one member of a couple will be surprised or upset during appointments:
“I never knew that bothered you! Why didn’t you say something?”
“Wait…You mean we both wish we could retire early and travel more? How can we make that happen?”
“We were having such a great life that I didn’t want to say ‘no, we can’t afford it.’ I didn’t want to have that fight about money. That’s why we’re in so much debt.”
As I noted in a 2014 (!) article, “You know what’s hot? A money date,” talking about finances isn’t simply a question of assets and/or debts. It’s essential to discuss goals, attitudes and behaviors about money – and a lot of this stuff doesn’t come out until after you’re hitched.
“Talking about finances isn’t drudgery,” I wrote back in 2014. “It’s about respect. It’s about shared goals and shared commitment to those goals.”
Love and money can coexist. Honest.
The latest in e-fraud
Isabella Simonetti, an intern at the HerMoney website, almost fell for a common fraud: the gift-card scam. She got a text over the weekend from her boss, Jean Chatzky, asking her to buy some GCs and send along their numbers so they could be given away at a presentation.
Of course, it wasn’t Chatzky. It was some faceless crook. The latest trend in e-fraud is scamming interns. In an article on HerMoney, she interviewed security experts Carrie Kerskie and Frank “Catch Me If You Can” Abagnale to explain why this fraud is so widespread.
Two words: Social media. People put their phone numbers up on sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. They also mention their shiny new internships and how excited they are to be working for the Umbrella Corporation.
“Data mining companies” aggregate this info and sell it. Guess who at least some of their customers are?
I found this article via the HerMoney newsletter, a tightly written e-publication that updates me on current financial events. You can subscribe here.
Credit card numbers
Just over four in 10 (40.7 percent) of U.S. credit card accountholders are “revolvers,” i.e., they carry balances. A little over one-third (33.7 percent) of card users pay their accounts in full every time.
And the other 25.6 percent of credit card accounts? They’re dormant.
I learned this last week in an interview with analyst Ted Rossman of CreditCards.com, for my article “COVID hack: Use rewards points.” The information Rossman cited came from the American Bankers Association’s Credit Card Market Monitor.
However, there’s another way of parsing those numbers.
“If you take dormant cards out of the equation,” Rossman said, “it’s 55 percent with debt from month to month and 45 percent who pay in full.”
Although that doesn’t surprise me, it does concern me. Anyone else feel that way?
First! That will never happen again.
If I did not have some hidden money, I would have nothing at all. Smartest thing I ever did was have separate accounts from spouse, who continues to have credit card debt in collections (with nothing to show for it as he spends on daily fast food and soda) into his late sixties.
E-fraud thoughts: If these pretend Electric Company, Gas Company, but especially Medicare people don’t stop calling, emailing, postal mailing me – I’m going to do more than treat them to colorful language. And I don’t list phone numbers on social media accounts or any other accounts. Family and friends are the only ones with my cell phone number.
I rotate using two credit cards, both of which are points card. I pay them every Friday to avoid interest charges, fees, and forgetfulness.
We have joint accounts for everything but retirement. ( I will have a pension.)
I have been known to hide purchases from my hub, not due to money issues, but he think enough is enough. After you have two coats, why do you need three (or may 12?) I really like my 100 cashmere coat from Goodwill. It cost more to dry clean that the purchase price.
I also have been known to get credit cards he didn’t know about initially. But when I flew him to Hawaii first class for our 30th anniversary he didn’t complain. Like Nancy I pay off everything regularly so there isn’t a fee.
It has slightly tarnished my credit score, however. I still have very good credit, but not near perfect like him.
I think it really helps that our families were raised alike. No debt. Home cooked meals. DIY home improvement when possible. Get at least a decade out of each car.
Fun fact: “Near-perfect” and a score in the lower 800s are pretty much the same thing in terms of the interest rates you can get. So the folks who are always trying to goose their scores up to 850 aren’t making a difference in the loans they can get. It’s just bragging rights.
I have some of both types of accounts – joint and individual. I like having my own money because I prefer to save for things that I want. It saves arguments, and he knows better than to try to get me to buy something HE thinks we really need with that money. It’s actually rubbed off on him and he’s started a few savings accounts to save up for things he wants. The needs come out of our joint accounts.
I think the “yours, mine and ours” approach is working for a lot of couples.
One thing I like about my online bank is that I can not only start sub-accounts, but actually name them. If I were saving for something specific, I could name an account “washing machine fund” or “next vacation.”
My bank offers the same on my online account. Thus the Checking Account, Savings Account, Christmas & Birthday Account and Emergency Account. I’ve noticed that although we have good health insurance, there are still some sizable co-pays. Ditto that for our dental insurance which covers about 40% of dental work, aside from cleaning which are free. So I’m considering starting a medical/dental one too. One more…after I receive my Covid vaccine(s), I am starting a vacation account. Yes, I need to get out of here! Lol…
It makes it easier to transfer money online with just a glance.
My mom’s coat/jacket fetish has become a family joke. My dad just laughs and tells her one has to go out now. The pandemic has put a major crimp in her shopping though.
No way in hell I would be with a partner, especially a spouse, who did not share financial info (like salary, retirement, insurance) with me. I have seen too many cases of a spouse dying and the widow(er) is stunned by what they did not end up with because they were ignorant of the true state of the couple’s financial affairs. And if I found out my husband was lying to me about what he bought/spent, I would wonder what else he was hiding from me. I am a big believer in radical honesty in relationships, money included.
Abso-frickin-lutely YES to the above statement.
It surprises me that people fall for the urgently-need-gift-cards scam, especially young people. When someone could buy nearly any gift card online in minutes, why would an intern need to go out and get physical ones? The only physical GCs I’ve gotten in years are $5 ones at the office holiday exchange. Anything bigger comes in email or a print out + email. Is my experience unusual?
True! And she did start to think, “Wait a minute…” before long. Maybe the scammers are banking on interns being anxious to please and therefore less likely to question.
I have been married for 37 years and one thing we have NEVER argued about or even had a raised voice discussion over is money. One reason is we had both been married before and wanted a sensible, practical spouse before we entangled ourselves again. Neither one of us made much, ever, and I mostly worked part time, after marriage, so I could take care of the home and keep an eye on the kids. So……we pretty much watched every dollar.
Two things mostly contributed to this financial harmony. One is that we had the same goals in life, own a home and have some backup savings in the bank and no debt except for the biggies. When we reached the empty nest stage we both wanted to spend our money on travel.
The other issue is that we both have always had a personal “allowance” which we could spend any way we wanted with no criticism from each other, although often laughter. In the beginning it was around $10 per week, now it is much more. He usually saved up for tools, a practical choice, I often threw mine away on new clothes. Yes, insane, but it is my personal addiction.
Anyway, we have been insanely happy financially.
May others be as happy — and harmonious — as you two lovebirds.
I can say my parents saw eye-to-eye on 95% of expenditures. Both were raised on farms during the depression and were frugal. They lived in the same house for 55 years and put up with small rooms and old electrical/plumbing infrastructure. Ten years ago my mom spent her money to renovate the kitchen. She got real cabinets, a dishwasher and fridge with ice maker. I can honestly say the whole family benefitted. My father never told her it was money well spent, but he still gets a kick out of the icemaker.
My late DH and I always put our money together. We talked about any major expenses or purchases before doing anything about them, and gave ourselves each an equal amount of pocket money to do with as we chose. We were both basically frugal too so that helped.
I think “fun money” is a good plan. Neither person gets to question, judge or second-guess what the other does with their money. Big expenses, though…I’ve often heard the rule of “anything larger than $100 needs to be talked about.”
I’m a CPA and love talking about finances. I can see my wife’s eyes glaze over when I talk about it, so she lets me handle all of it. We do discuss big purchases to make sure we are on the same page. All of our money is combined into one checking account – I’ve never like the two checking account arrangements for married couples, but that’s just my opinion. Obviously, you’ve got to go with what works and every marriage is different.
Fifty-percent f marriages end in divorce – and the majority of divorces are due to some type of money problems – so by talking finances with your spouse, theoretically you decrease your chances of getting divorced. Just do it!