15 Questions to Ask Your Husband to Better Understand Your Finances
Many women are perfectly content to leave investment management and family finances to their husbands.
The issue: This can leave you extremely vulnerable if your husband becomes incapacitated or passes away.
That’s why you may want to ask your husband some key questions to help ensure you can take over managing your money if something happens to them.
1. Do You Have Accounts I Don’t Know About?
Many families’ finances are more complicated than they seem. Husbands may set up investment, retirement, bank, and other accounts at multiple firms. Sometimes they want to try out the features available from a provider, such as unique research or reporting, or a novel investing strategy. They may even forget that some of these accounts exist.
Women who don’t know where their money is could be extremely vulnerable should something happen to their spouses. At a time when you may need cash the most, to make it through a personal and family emergency, you may not know where to find it.
Work with your partner to maintain a list of all your financial accounts. Ensure you keep it up to date, so you’re never left vulnerable.
2. What is Our Debt Situation?
It’s critical to know where your money is, but it’s equally important to know what debts you have, including credit cards, mortgages, loans, bills, and more. Many women with substantial assets are caught by surprise when they become widows and discover they owe a significant amount of money.
You may prefer to not address the truth of your debt situation, but it’s better to know now when you can do something about it rather than wait until it is too late.
3. Do We Owe Money to Friends or Family?
Many men don’t consider personal loans as debt and won’t include them in broader conversations about borrowing. Too many new widows are caught by surprise to discover that they may owe their brother-in-law or cousin a significant amount of money. Make sure your family’s debt discussion is complete and that you know the whole picture.
4. What is Our Credit Score?
Knowing (and monitoring) your credit score is important because it provides a snapshot of your financial reputation. It plays a critical part in determining your eligibility for loans, credit cards, housing, and favorable interest rates. A high score can help you save money through lower interest rates. Monitoring your score can help detect errors, prevent identity theft, and enable you to improve your family’s overall financial health
5. What is Our Total Net Worth, Including All Assets and Liabilities?
This is the biggest and toughest question, and it may take some time to get the ultimate answer. But in the end, it is critical to understand how much you have across all assets, including real estate, investments, retirement accounts, savings, and more, minus all your debts. It will show you whether your family’s financial position is healthy.
6. How do I Access Accounts?
It’s great to know how much money you have and where it is, but if you don’t have logins, passwords, phone numbers, contacts, and other key information about the accounts, it could be challenging to access your money in an emergency. Always keep a current list of this information in a secure physical location or a password-protected online one.
7. How do You Pay Bills and Track Expenses?
Everyone has their own system, which may include online payments, spreadsheets, physical checks, and more. Learn the nuts and bolts about how your husband handles simple, everyday finances so you, perhaps along with a trusted relative, can take over if he is unable to.
8. How Do You Define “Enough” Money?
This is THE question to ask to understand your husband’s thinking about saving and investing for the future. The two of you must be on the same page. Your partner’s vision of long-term security may not align with yours, and you are better off knowing while you have time to course-correct.
9. What Concerns You About Our Financial Situation?
This can be a loaded question, but if you’ve built enough trust with your husband in the area of finance, it’s an important one. Even the best family financial managers have areas they’re in doubt or denial about, and this question can be the prompt to get the two of you working on them together.
10. Is There Anything About My Spending You Would Change?
Your husband may be trying to keep the peace and not address spending issues that bother him — or that could harm your financial position. You’re delving into how he handles family finances. It’s only fair for him to address how you manage your personal ones.
11. What is Our Retirement Strategy and Time Frame?
Retirement planning is different from aligning on having enough money. It includes saving enough to enjoy the retirement you have in mind, as well as tax planning, retirement income, and other strategies to ensure your money lasts through retirement.
Ensure you understand these so you can handle or monitor them if something happens to your husband. It is particularly important to address life after widowhood because women tend to outlive men, and their income from Social Security, pensions, and other sources is typically reduced.
12. Do You Have a Plan to Care for Parents?
As people live longer, many retirees and near-retirees find themselves caring for aging parents. If this could be a reality for you, make certain you and your husband consider it, as it could significantly impact your retirement plans.
13. Where are Important Documents Located?
Family finances go well beyond accounts and access to them. They also encompass critical documents such as insurance policies, wills, estate plans, legal documents, statements, and more. Find out from your husband where and how he files these things (physically and electronically) so you can access them when needed.
14. What are Plans for After We Pass Away?
Family financial planning does not end with retirement. You likely want to ensure that family, friends, and causes you are passionate about are cared for after you pass away. Make sure you have complete transparency about — and input into — how your assets are distributed after you and your husband pass away.
15. Insurance?
This is the one-word question many people don’t want to ask. The reason is that it makes them think of ill health, home crises, mortality, and other scary issues. Still, it is critical to make certain your family has adequate insurance. Even the most affluent families can take a significant hit if they are not adequately insured against threats like theft, fire, death, or illness.
How to Ask Your Husband the Tough Finance Questions
If your spouse has been handling your family’s finances exclusively, don’t try to gain transparency by bombarding him with all these questions at once. It will overwhelm him, and he will likely shut down. Or he may feel threatened.
Instead, introduce your interest in your investments and family finances slowly. Explain that you want to know more to protect yourself and him should he become incapacitated.
These conversations should ideally happen in a comfortable, non-defensive setting, or during a scheduled money date to avoid panic- or anger-driven discussions.
Another option is to involve a financial professional, like those at Chase Investment Counsel. We have extensive experience facilitating challenging family financial discussions and providing women with the support and advocacy they need to gradually gain more control over their money today and well into the future.