re: Who wears the financial pants?

quote:

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Wife handles bills and taxes. We set this system up years ago before my first of many deployments back when you couldn't expect easy access phone or internet forward.

I handle investments and long term planning.

We are both frugal and only debt is mortgage. Going without a budget works for us but that's atypical. I actually think our spending would have been less conservative and saving/investing less aggressive with a budget. Instead we have stuck to spending within reason and I've often been surprised how much accumulated in checking after a few months for me to move investments.

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This is us, as well.

We basically locked in our spending and that has allowed us to max 401k and IRAs.

We have our firstborn in college and we are covering his first year room and board. Money is definitely tighter right now than it has been.

I mostly make the money and manage the long term investment accounts
My wife runs the day to day household operation.

We pay all bills in full every month.

We max all savings opportunities. 403b, 457, etc.

We don’t do a formal budget, but we get whatever we want within reason. We discuss major expenses and purchases. I guess we could do a formal budget, but we kind of just paid ourselves first (retirement savings) for the last 31 years. If we did not have money, we did not spend it. We are not conspicuous consumers, but I built a deluxe sport court and belong to a golf club. Drive cars until they are well used.

Our main rule has been: don’t spend money you don’t have on stuff you don’t need.