Managing the Family Finances

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When I think about our family and how we manage our finances, well it’s all messed up. I married a man with a degree in economics whose job is in finance. He lives and breathes the stock market, credit default swaps, and practically everything about the economy. Yet, the household budget? It’s like I’m speaking Martian to the man because the time periods and due dates for when bills are due seem like some foreign language to him. I might as well tell him I was sent from a faraway planet to blow up planet Earth because he’s either cowering in a corner or falling asleep. On the sofa.

Boy how times change. You’d assume that with his background that this would be more of a shared responsibility. But alas, it isn’t. To him it’s not “strategic enough” or as he says, “it lacks big pictureness.” I pretty much have total control over that aspect of our lives and balancing the money coming in with the money going out can be a challenge, especially when your primary breadwinner’s first thought isn’t “Do we have enough for something like that?” but “What do you mean we don’t have enough for that?” Sure, we have automated ways to transfer money here for this, automatic payments set up for that and routine contributions for 401(K)s. But I think that’s part of the issue. Like the scouts from NBC that wanted to give Kenny Bania a TV show because they liked stuff “you don’t have to think about,” my husband has things he doesn’t like to think about. Indeed, he would’ve watched Kenny Bania’s show. I’m convinced.

So how will we manage this going forward? Will he continue to defer the responsibility to me? Will he want to take a more active role? I don’t know, but whatever he decides I have one rule: I’d better not see Kramer come crashing through my living room with Newman chasing him, hallucinating about Kramer as a turkey.