Money: who does what...

Who in the family deals with money matters? Is it you? I am a great believer in husbands taking the responsibility for finances but let’s face it – sometimes it’s the wife who is better with numbers and finances! You have to work out how to cover it together, I am not of the view that the man necessarily has to do it but I do think that the man should take ultimate responsibility and ownership, otherwise there can be too much abdication of responsibility to his wife. Don’t be disengaged! Deb and I have made it a long-term practice to work closely together on our finances.


In our marriage, I take responsibility for the ‘Big Picture’ planning but Deb makes the day-to-day decisions. If you are married you should talk through together how you will arrange these things. Deb and I have a joint account for household and family expenses – there should be openness and dialogue between couples around the subject of money and how it is spent. And apart from our joint account we also have personal accounts for which we take individual responsibility.

Next - do you have a good filing system for your documents? This is important in handling money. It doesn’t need to be complicated – a concertina-type box file from W H Smith will do – but you need to have something. I am a Big Picture person, Deb is a details person, so we work well together in a lot of things - she has organised all the filing and keeps it up to date. And it’s a good idea to keep relevant bills and banking documents from past years for up to about 7 years for tax purposes.

This series of blogs is based on the annual Stewardship seminar from King's