Research suggests women are better managers of domestic finances than men, while men are greater risk-takers. But is it true? ROSITA BOLANDasks some Irish couples how they split their financial responsibilities
A RECENT survey by Caledonian Life asked how couples using their services made financial decisions, and whether one member of the partnership was more proactive that the other in this area.
Their findings suggested that women worried more about money, were more likely to shop around and were more likely to prioritise health insurance then men. They also found that in partnerships men took more financial risks.
So are these findings borne out?
Jane Travers has been married for 11 years to Stephen Cummins, with whom she runs an IT consultancy business in Kildare. They are the only employees. They have a nine-year-old daughter
“Because we have a limited company we divide the salaries, so we each earn the same income,” says Travers. “We have two joint accounts, and each of us takes responsibility for one of them. One is for the mortgage, bills, car loan, health insurance, life insurance – all the regular monthly payments. Then the day-to-day expenses – such as clothes and grocery shopping – come out of the other account.
“I’m very much the insurance person. I’m a big fiend for it, and I shop around for best deals – for car insurance, for instance.
“I think every partnership has a ‘voluntary helplessness clause’ where one person declares ‘I’m never never going to do this again’. That’s me with bills. I don’t even know what we pay in gas every two months, or in electricity. We used to sit down and do the bills together, but we ended up killing each other, so now my husband does them all.
“I do the grocery shopping. There’s isn’t a fixed budget, but I have a rough idea of what it should cost me each week. The grocery shopping is another case of voluntary helplessness, but this time it’s my husband who never does it.
“For our own personal spending, we’d probably spend the same on each other over the course of a year. I’d tend to have more frequent, but small, outgoings on things such as scarves or books, whereas Stephen buys more expensive things such as ukeleles (he has 24) and mandolins, guitars – but it all works out about the same in the end. We both know neither of us is going to go off the rails on our personal spending. If either of us is going to buy something over €100, we’d discuss it.
“In the last while our spending patterns have definitely got more cautious. I’d look for better deals online on anything we wanted to buy, and would be much more likely to go to the sales. We still spend the same on our daughter, though – we haven’t cut that back. We’d be less likely to treat ourselves these days.”
Richard Cantwell, cartographer and IT professional, has been married for 10 years to Róisín Boyce, who runs a fashion alteration service. They have two children, aged seven and three
“Two-and-a-half years ago I lost my job. I had been employed by the same company for 15 years,” says Cantwell. “My wife is self-employed, so we went from having one steady income and one unsteady one to both of us having unsteady incomes.
“When we met we had separate bank accounts, and we’ve maintained them. How we do it is we portion out the bills. I pay the mortgage and childcare, my wife covers the utility bills other than the phone.
“I got a full-time job in December, but when times were tight over the past couple of years, we were using a lot of savings. We each had separate savings policies and used our SSIAs when things were beginning to look tight.
“In the down times we had to look quite closely at a lot of bills, and we made a decision that we were gong to stop paying for health insurance for a year. So we weren’t covered for a year, but we will be again now I’m working.
“We wouldn’t really have a budget for the groceries, but we’d have a store-cupboard list. We do a fair amount of cooking, and with small children you need to be cooking at home. I would have been the one who tended to do the main grocery shop. We’re moving away from the main brands, and looking off-brand for the same products.
“We have both been a lot more proactive about comparing prices lately. In the last year or so we’d have been sitting down and looking at the outgoings: petrol in the car, shopping for car insurance. It’s generally me who ends up doing that kind of thing. My wife doesn’t drive, so the car has become my responsibility.
“Money doesn’t cause friction between us now. We haven’t let money become an issue of rows, but when there is an undertow of worry when there is less money about, we’d be more short-tempered. In the past I would have spent more on going out and socialising, and she would have spent more on clothes. Over the past year we’ve cut back on both. Last year, instead of going abroad on holiday we stayed here in Ireland.
“This year we’re agreed if there is extra money coming into the house, it’ll go towards replenishing savings. If one of us wanted to buy something over €100 or €150, we’d run that past the other first.
“We both have a credit card, which is paid off each month from our own personal accounts. The expenditure on both those credit cards would have come down in the last year. We are more shopping with Laser these days.”
Darragh Doyle, communications manager of Boards.ie has been living with web developer Stephanie Francis since August last year. They don’t have children
“We each have separate bank accounts,” says Doyle. “We had discussed a joint bank account when we started living together, but never got around to it. Everything gets splits down the middle – rent, online grocery shopping, utility bills.
“The only thing we pay separately for are our mobile-phone bills.
“We’d see money as part of it being ours together, and part of it our own. We have an unspoken budget for rent and bills. We each take responsibility for paying the bills. There are certain ones in my names and certain ones in hers, and they’re paid by direct debit. But we split the cost of them all.
“Moving in together to the city centre was something we thought about carefully, and it was a conscious financial decision. We knew it was going to save us money. We lived in different parts of the city before and we were paying a fortune on taxis. We were also spending a lot of money eating out, rather than going home and cooking. We’d be out in town late and then get a taxi back to one of our places. Bus fares would be about €100 a month. We don’t have a car, and now we walk everywhere.
“We wouldn’t split the bill if we went out for dinner. It’s more whoever gets out the Laser card fastest. We’d do it so that one of us would get it this time and the other one the next time. I tend to pay for things like theatre tickets and not expect to be paid back.
“I don’t have health insurance. I think Stephanie does, but I’m not sure. It’s on my list to look in to.
“I don’t have a credit card, either. If I need to buy something with a credit card, I’ll use Stephanie’s and pay her right away. I think it’s a temptation I don’t really need. I had one about 10 years ago, and got sick of being overdrawn all the time.
“Stephanie is very fastidious about clearing her credit-card debt. I’d call us savvy shoppers. If either of us needed something we’d go online and see where was the best bargain to be had. We very rarely splurge. The only time I splurge is when I want to surprise Stephanie. But believe me, sometimes I get it very wrong.
“Money is one of the things I get most stressed about in my life, so managing finances is a big thing for me. In the partnership, Stephanie would be the more practical one.
“For instance, I want to go to London next month, and she says we can’t afford it, and that it’s not an expense we need. She would make the decisions that way, and I’m very comfortable with that.”
