Who Handles the Finances?
At some point I know I need to slow down and introduce myself, but for now, I’m going to go with the flow. Friday at my house means payday. In every relationship I’ve ever been in I am the person who was responsible for juggling finances. I’ve never had a husband who was wealthy either. Most of the folks in our neighborhood consider ten dollars an hour to be an awesome amount of money. Of course, if you have two kids, car payments and house payments and the like, you know that one person working for that amount of money is not possible.
Well, I suppose it is possible, it simply wouldn’t be easy. My husband makes more than that but I’ve made no bones about the fact that we are in a terrible place financially. The daycare business (which we just closed) managed to suck the very life out of us. Couple that with me being secretive with my husband about the actual state of finances in our house and it makes for a really bad situation.
I’ve always done it though. I don’t want my husband to know that he goes to work and works hard, sometimes 48 to 55 hours a week and then we still can’t pay all of our bills on time. Some bills simply don’t get paid at all. I constantly rob Peter to pay Paul as the old saying goes.
About a month ago, I came completely clean. If you have caught yourself doing what I was doing, hiding the little things, the expenses that you think your spouse just doesn’t need to know about or be concerned with, I suggest you find a time, pull out all your documents and make the liberating speech. It will make you feel so much better. I was surprised at how well my husband took the whole ordeal. Really, he isn’t a very animated man but I really expected him to go a little nuts.
He is now technically in control of the finances. But that wasn’t exactly what he wanted either. He wanted for us to do it together. We’ve had this talk in bits and pieces over the past few years and he agrees to help me but then he doesn’t and I start hiding things again. This time, I turned it all over to him, checkbook and all.
But, the mother hen in me simply can’t help but watch him, remind him what is due and how it is going to affect us as well as what we can pay and need to pay. So far, we are doing better than we were when I was in control, but we’ve cut back drastically.
I look for more good things to happen in the coming months as I am busily trying my best to drum up some work online. So, I’ll keep you posted and I can’t promise that every Friday you won’t find me here…wondering which bill to skip this week.
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