This post is sponsored by Chase Mastery. All opinions are mine.
To me, one of the most fascinating financial topics right now is how household finances are evolving because of our generation. Even from just a few decades ago, the average American family's handling of their finances has changed drastically.
I consider myself very lucky – both my wife and I have very close friends in the LGBTQ community that have been married recently (we were both in our friends' wedding parties)! That shift in our culture has created new personal finance dynamics, but that's just the beginning.
Kids now make millennials look like freaking technology scrubs. My wife's job is literally to help teachers figure out how to use technology in the classroom. In her district, EVERY KID HAS THEIR OWN TABLET! How will they manage household finances when they grow up?
And probably the most obvious – women's role as breadwinners continues to evolve.
How our parents handled their finances
My parents have a hybrid of what used to be the male breadwinner, female housewife roles that was common for baby boomers. My dad is an engineer and has made good money throughout his career. My mom was a school secretary for a long time.
I'm not sure if it was a spoken agreement or not, but my mom always handled the bills and my dad had what seemed like final say on the biggest financial decisions.
My wife's parents were probably more “traditional” as it relates to how baby boomers managed household finances. Her dad worked full-time, and her mom essentially stayed home to raise my wife, and then worked part time when Coral started school. There was a clear breadwinner in their family, and her mother handled the bills.
How my wife and I handle our finances
My wife and I don't have defined roles for how we handle our money. She pays some bills, I pay some, and we both work and make money. Every big decision we make with our money comes with an open conversation. We've been together for a long time compared to our age (high school sweethearts), but I can't remember a time that we ever sat down and hashed out our roles.
When we graduated from college, we were both making the same amount of money as teachers. It made sense to have a 50/50 share in how the finances were managed. Even as my business is generating more income than her salary, nothing has changed. The money is our money, not just mine or just hers.
The interesting thing is that most of our friends operate their finances the same way. There is no specified household “Chief Financial Officer”…we just share the responsibilities.
What the numbers say about millennial household CFO's
Chase recently published their “Generational Money Talks” study, which took an in-depth look at how Millennial households are managing their money compared to Baby Boomers and Gen Xers.
The topics in the survey included topics like conflicts between couples across the different generations, women taking a bigger role in household finances and becoming household CFO's, and how confident Millennials are in making financial decisions than Boomers.
Here are a few of the stats that really stood out to me:
- 75% of Millennials and 72% of Gen Xers have money-related conflicts with their spouses, compared to 62% of Boomers
- 78% of Millennial women agree they’re able to make good financial decisions that are new to them, compared to 71% of Gen X and 67% of Boomer women
- 71% of Millennial women agree they’re able to recognize a good financial investment, compared to 59% of Gen X and 55% of Boomer women
I think in general, we are seeing a pretty massive shift in the way that money is being handled. In my opinion, the internet and access to information is one of the main factors. Millennials have WAY more tools at their disposal to educate themselves about financial topics than previous generations.
The other cool reason is that there are a ton of great female personal finance influencers! Some of my favorite money blogs belong to women, and they are killing it in speaking circuits and through their brands. I truly believe that this has a trickle-down effect on Millennials.
Take a second to read through the Chase Generational Money Talks survey and see what you think! There's also a ton of interesting content that ranges all the way from retirement planning to saving up for holiday spending.
Question for you:
How do you handle finances in the household? Is it even? (If you're single, I want to hear about the way your parents managed money!)
Great and interesting article!
My wife and I combined finances shortly before are wedding and do everything together. Both of our incomes go into the same checking/savings accounts so there is no “my” money and “her money”. The last Sunday of every month we have an in-depth finance meeting to review the previous month’s budget and set the budget for the coming month. We also review are progress on both our short term and long term financial goals and adjust where necessary. We have short meetings on the other Sunday’s of the month as a check in to make sure our budget is coming off the rails, etc.
This has been such a great approach for us as we are almost always on the same page and rarely have disconnects. Even more important this approach brings us closer together as we feel we are building the life we want as a team and achieving our goals together.
Love your blog!
Brad
Oh wow Brad that’s really cool. Very organized approach – I have to admit that we don’t even do that haha! Communication is definitely key, I think a lot of couples don’t talk about their money until something is going poorly!
My families relationship with money has evolved along with our marriage. When we first got married, I was the breadwinner, and we shared financial decisions. Over the past 6 years, my wife has become the breadwinner, and I am responsible for managing our finances. It really doesn’t matter to us who makes more, as all the money ends up in the same place.
When we shared bill pay responsibilities we ended up missing some bills and double paying others – it was a mess. I now handle everything, and we simply discuss our accounts and goals regularly (informally). Any large purchases are discussed, but otherwise if I have a need, or if she does, we just purchase it using our credit card. My wallet is where cash goes to die!
That’s interest – just goes to show that everyone does things differently. Pretty cool that both of you basically switched roles!
Interesting read. My dad was/is a mechanic and my mom stayed home when we were young. As we got older, she went back to work as an office clerk. I guess they were traditional in that sense. My wife’s family was totally different. Her mom was a superstar computer architect and her father stayed at home with the kids. I believe he managed the money in terms of budgeting and investing, so I think he was able to generate income as well while staying at home with the kids (the dream!).
As it stands now, both my wife and I work, make similar incomes, and have no kids. We are delaying having children until we tackle our student loan debt, which we hope to have done in the next couple of years. Millennials have it FAR different than our Boomer parents — but I don’t think that it is as worse as people make it out to be. We are young, so we have PLENTY of time to adapt to a changing financial climate so we can build a future for ourselves.
I agree – plenty of time. My wife and I are still delaying having kids because we want to have some fun first! I’ve learned doing this that everyone is different, but it’s cool to see how people are handling things.
Mr. Picky Pincher and I manage our money in the same way as y’all. Mr. Picky Pincher admittedly manages more of the money, but that’s because he’s better with numbers. However, I’m the breadwinner of the household, so our roles are definitely not traditional. I do think he feels like he should out-earn me (he’s old-fashioned), but my thinking is “The more money, the merrier!”
My parents were also non-traditional. My mom was an accountant so she handled every aspect of my parent’s finances. My dad was rarely informed, and it was difficult to handle the finances once she passed away.
I remember an interesting issue I learned during an Interpersonal Relationships class I had in college. It said that couples are typically more harmonious when there are clear boundaries between who does what. Based on Chase’s data, this might be the case. Sometimes defined roles keep things equitable and smooth.
Yeah I just think the organizational aspect of having designated roles might be helpful. For us, it’s literally 50/50. My wife is super frugal so I trust her judgement on things. We generally run most purchases by each other just to make sure everything is cool too.
My husband and I have always managed our finances and made financial decisions together. I do a bit more of the nitty gritty stuff like figuring out the budget because my brain likes numbers more than his does. We came from different backgrounds – my mom always managed the finances while my dad worked, and my husband’s parents had the uber traditional the-man-handles-all-the-money thing going on. We both had different expectations going into our marriage (almost ten years ago) and had to figure out our own financial dynamic. I think it’s important to remember that not everyone does everything the same way, and just because one of us grew up with something doesn’t mean that’s the only way to do it.
Yes you’re right! I definitely had to learn the “everyone does things differently” lesson as the site has grown. I used to be a lot more opinionated that I am now haha.
My boyfriend and I are moving in together in July. As a result of that we have begun talking about finances and starting to take the steps to combine them! We have been together for a very long time relative to our ages as well (also high school sweethearts), and it feels really good to begin as a team. He currently makes more money than me and has barley any student loans and so we are working on getting me added to his credit line to help bump up my credit score.
It is really refreshing that we hash everything out and are on the same page. I believe that I will be the one who handles most of the short term finances because I have a personal interest in it, but he will handle long term because he also has a personal interest in savings and investing.
That’s great – I can definitely tell you from experience that it’s cool to work on it as a team. Takes some of the pressure off of both of you. You also get so used to it that you don’t even think about it anymore after a year or two in!
Great article! Money and paying bills can always be such a difficult topic for a marriage, so I tried to make it simple. When my husband and I first got married, I opened a joint savings and checking account. Then based on our total bills and planned savings, we each contributed based on how much we each made. I think we each add about 70% of our bring home income into that account for house bills, cars, savings, food, etc. It works great! I then pay all of the bills and there aren’t any issues. Then if a large purpose comes up, we discuss it openly and decide what’s best for us.
We also each keep what is left over for our ‘play money’ in our individual accounts and spend it as we please. This way if I want new shoes or he wants a new Xbox game, we never fight about it!
Sounds like our situations are pretty similar! The only real difference for us is that we don’t have separate play money accounts. Her parents did that, mine didn’t. I guess we just decided to keep it all together haha.
Brittany and I are also high school sweet hearts so money is very similar in our case. Since college, we had a budget together that we tried to stick to.
I take care of paying all the bills online. At the beginning of each month, we go over our budget from the previous month on Mint.com. We also plan out the upcoming month expenses. It’s a good method to stay on top of our budget.
My father was also an engineer with Kodak and made great money. My mom has been a guidance counselor for over 25 years. They were both always on the same page with money. My dad work “balance the checkbook” (seriously who does that anymore?! lol) and my mom would help budget and pay bills. I was very blessed to grow up in a family that was so “on top” of their finances.
We recently got my parents to switch to online budgeting through Mint.com and they love it! Saves my dads hours of his time each month.
Haha that’s awesome that you got them hooked on Mint!
I think that visibility of the LGBTQ community and a better understanding of gender equality are transforming our generation’s views on traditional gender roles. I also see it continuing to evolve in gen z too. I grew up in an “nontraditional” family with my mom being the “breadwinner” and my dad being the “bread baker.” They taught me that the person who can do the job best, not the gender, gets that job.
My fiance and I haven’t had to worry about traditional gender roles since we’re both dudes. We have our own finances that we each take care of separately and then we have our joint finances that we split 50/50, he pays half the family bills and I pay the other half. When it comes to using our money we have a conversations about what we’re doing, like paying for our wedding or that new couch we bought last year. When it comes to using our own money, like when he wants a new lap top and he has the money for it, we discuss it, but it’s not something we decide to get as a team. As we are becoming more of an us, we are figuring out what works best for us as a couple and then doing that, always keeping communication lines open.
A lot of great ideas above!
Yeah I think you’ll find that it evolves as your relationship does. My wife and I generally talk about big purchases, but I can’t imagine really telling her no or vice versa. I think there is a lot of trust there that we aren’t going to blow the money on something that’s totally unnecessary.
My S.O. and I have talked about different ideas, but this was before we were both introduced to Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I definitely like the idea of a joint account for bills and play accounts for us, especially since I do come with more debt than he does. Currently, the point is moot because we’re in a long distance relationship, trying to get our personal debt under control. But I grew up in a more non traditional setting, where mom paid the bills and though Dad technically made more money, they both have management degrees so both were good with money. I feel like once we’re living together again, I’ll take over the bill paying seeing as I Love numbers and he only tolerates them lol.
I’m also proud to report that I’m finally getting a handle on this investment thing and I’m actually MAKING money in the stock market right now!! (High fives all around!!) One of my stocks is on its way to earning me about 50% ROI. Not too shabby for someone who just started learning about the stock market in August!!
But…….I digress. Things are definitely changing for the better I think. I’ve noticed people aren’t nearly as squimish about discussing money in public as they once were and having discussions about the stock market and bills is now a fairly regular thing at the bar. This was a great article and it was very interesting reading about the different strategies people have for paying bills with a partner. I would love to read more about the social changes happening around personal finance
Glad you liked the article Christa! I’ll be sure to make some content around this subject in the future 🙂
My husband and I are in our early 30’s and got married in our early 20’s. I usually was always the one doing bills and holding onto that financial stress. About 3 years ago when we were expecting our first kid we finally sat down and went over our dreams and what we needed to do to get there. My husband has become more active in our finances and we are very open now talking about our finances. It’s amazing that opening up our relationship to the finances has bled over into other areas of our relationship. If you can talk about money with your spouse it makes all conversations easier. Now I would say we’re closer to 50/50 and it’s been absolutely great! (We also make about equal money and it’s never been a my money vs. his money thankfully!)
That’s great! I think you’re right about being open and communicating more – my wife and I have a great relationship and I think how well we work together on the financial side of things plays a big part.
My wife and I got married back in October 2016. So far our marriage has been good but to my wife’s shagrin we haven’t combined finances. It’s not that I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad idea or don’t want to. For me it’s that we view finances very differently. My wife grew up in a household were finances were always “cozy” and there was never an excess of dollars to be had. I grew up where I had never had to worry about a damn thing when it came to finances. As such it’s made our respective viewpoints very different when it comes to taking risks with investments, general spending practices, etc. As such, my fear is that if we combine finances it will end up leading to a lot of fights/disagreements as our areas of focus/interests aren’t necessarily on the same page
Love. Your. Blog.
My husband and I got married last August and figuring out how to manage our money was an interesting topic. Both sets of parents had managed theirs very differently and we settled on a “we are a team” mentality. We both work, make money and contribute to the same accounts, pay the bills, build our savings and have a monthly budget. We keep everything together and talk about our goals and large purchases as needed. We have a joint credit card which we pay off every month and have been reaping the benefits and awards. Over the past year and a half we’ve made $2750 from credit card rewards and haven’t paid a dime in interest. It’s fun being able to have credit card companies pay you rather than paying them interest.
I’m a big fan of using credit cards the way that you are. I know a lot of my readers don’t agree, but I do feel that if you know you’re responsible enough to use them without messing up, you can get some sweet free vacations out of it 🙂
My husband and I may do things a bit differently than some, but it definitely works. My husband’s eyes glaze over anytime I talk about the budget, so naturally, I am the CFO in our house. Good thing is, I LOVE IT! Even before my teenage years I loved budgeting and goal setting. He tells me the things he would like to accomplish and I budget accordingly. As far as bills and planning for our future goes, it’s all me. He likes it this way too. I say, whatever works, do THAT.
That’s awesome! Totally agree – you do you.
Elizabeth – I’m mostly in the same role. Except it sounds like you at least plan together, and your budget goals are being accomplished.
MMM – What do you suggest when your spouse’s eyes glaze over (he physically shrinks, which is hard when you’re 6’2″) but there isn’t enough to complete your financial goals? I have what I consider to be simple goals (a house where everything works, has a dishwasher, laundry inside it) but our business doesn’t generate enough income to draw a salary.
I consider it our income, and resentfully, his debt. But I’m determined to pay it all off. He won’t use a budget app, he won’t talk to me about figures for goals. I think I’ve tried different tactics to discuss, tried not to be accusatory. He completely shuts down when I even say “hey, in 2 months, that will be our last X payment.” Literally cannot handle discussing finances at all.
I make more money than my wife by 10% ish so we are pretty close income wise. We have a more traditional role when it comes to money. Its interesting though because it happened more do to our jobs than by intent. She is a CPA, so paying bills and balancing the check book is fun to her (I’d rather be hit in the head with a hammer repeatedly). I am a Financial advisor so I do the investing because I know it like the back of my hand. We both look at money earned as our money so we share major financial decisions. The only odd responsibility in our marriage is I do the taxes even though she is a CPA.
Haha I’ve actually heard of similar situations in couples with a CPA. I’m sure the last thing she wants to deal with are her own taxes after dealing with everyone else!
I joke that he does our macroeconomics (insurance, investments, retirement, etc.) and I do our microeconomics (day to day budgeting and bill paying).
We were 27 & 37 when we got married (1st marriage for both) and we combined our finances from day 1. Since 2006 I’ve been a stay at home mom and don’t bring in an income.
When we were first married, and both working, he paid the bills just because they were mostly in his name and he was used to it (He owned a house, I lived in an apartment so I moved into his place) Once I quit work I took it over because I had more “free time” (all the parents can stop laughing now. Neither of us have free time any more 😀 ). Since I was at home during the day I could do the bill paying and budgeting while he was at work.
As far as him doing most of the macro stuff–that’s personality and not gender defining that for us. My husband is flat out better at those things, and understands them better, than I do.
Been married 8 months +, still working on figuring out how to handle the finances. We both make decent money so it’s not that things are tight. However, my wife brought in a fair amount of student loans + car payment whereas I was debt free other than a mortgage. Additionally, we grew up in very different household dynamics. Money was always tight for her parents (though both worked) and I’ve never once in my life have had to worry about having enough. Additionally, I have a masters in Accounting and a CPA so I like to think I know what I’m doing even if my wife disagrees. The latest sticking point is a dog. My wife desperately wants a dog, whereas I’m saying, pay off your damn loans and then reward yourself with a dog. I wouldn’t be opposed to owning a dog, but when owning a dog seems to be a bigger priority than being debt free, it doesn’t add up to me, especially since the amount we are putting to the loans is greater than our house payment. Which is nuts.
I told my wife that I wouldn’t be opposed to combining finances but we have got to be on the same page or all it will do is lead to arguments.
We have always combined our finances since day 1. We go back to 7th grade, so we have a lot of history too. We had our daughter in college, and both worked. After college, we had our son, and I became a SAHM. I’ve always handled our finances, but I make it a point to keep my husband informed on where we are financially, and any financial decisions we need to make. We have never had a disagreement about money. Being a full-time college student with a kid definitely made us frugal. I think the best advice for couples is to set clear financial goals together, and discuss them often. Because we identified our goals and discuss them often, we are always on the same page. Save more, invest, retire early, and travel more.
My SO and I currently split finances 50/50. We keep an excel sheet on what each person spends for bills/food then at the end of the month we close the month out, and whoever has paid more get the difference to make it 50/50. This has worked for as pre-shared account.
Our plan for when we get married is to put both of our salaries, doctor and engineer, into one shared account that we’ll pay our house bills/food from. Besides that we’ll each have our own personal accounts that our “fun money” will be sent to each month to use. Anything we spend from the shared account will need to be agreed on beforehand. However, our personal accounts are ours alone! So if he wants to buy a new dirt bike and has enough money there he can, same with me on whatever I want to save up for.
I am the CFO in the family. I handle everything…it just worked out that way when we first got married. My wife thinks I am very good at it, and enjoys not having to stress about it. My wife has a credit card, and uses it whenever she needs or wants something. If she ever went crazy, I would speak up. We only have so much extra funds, when its gone, its gone. Our financials are all electronic, so she has all the username and passwords on a boiler plate that I update on a regular basis. If she wants to access any of the information, she has the ability to do so. I bring up money situations and my ideas and plans for our money every 10 days or so, to keep her in the loop, and bounce a few ideas off of her. I work very hard at keeping our money organized, because I want my wife to feel taken care of, and proud of me for being a good steward of our resources.