<p>just a quick note…the pensions are $2000 total between us…if we stay more years with the same companies, they will rise further. We are fully vested in these.</p>
<p>Glad to hear the optimism on Social Security…will figure in 75% into planning numbers.</p>
<p>babyontheway…I like your succinct advice!</p>
<p>More later tomorrow…</p>
<p>*
Laws needed to get enacted to protect (usually) women from H’s who are being rather short-sighted</p>
<p>Not sure one can legislate against stupidity*</p>
<p>LOL… I agree.</p>
<p>But in this case I think the law was to protect women who might not be given the correct info from their H’s about their retirement or might have H’s who might intentionally mislead them.</p>
<p>Or maybe the husbands were just assuming that their widows would remarry and lose the retirement anyway…so take the greater amount now. Either way…there were widows who did not know that either the option to have survival benefits was available or did not know that their husbands had opted for SLA and found themselves impoverished.</p>
<p>I doubt all these states started passing these laws because of a few isolated cases. I think they passed these laws because there were too many of such cases. We can’t forget that the widows of 20 years ago often had families where roles were clearly divided and one spouse just trusted the other about his or her “areas.” In many such cases, finances were the H’s job…and that would include retirement planning.</p>
<p>Some people (dk if this is more true for men or not) have trouble facing mortality, and believe they will outlive the odds. This is not good thinking for someone who is considering owning a motorcycle!!</p>
<p>True…and some wrongly assume that they’re in the “better health” and will outlive their spouse. Sometimes the “healthier” spouse dies much earlier.</p>
<p>Hotchilipepper…</p>
<p>Would you consider having 3 spending accounts where money is deposited for spending…one for you, one for H, and one for family/household expenses?</p>
<p>I’m not really getting this…<br>
See what money does to people.</p>
<p>Husband doing renovations. Sister in law and wife to get 100,000 each relative to the renovation.</p>
<p>Married 20 years, very decent financial picture. Have liquid money, 401K, a large decent college fund for children.
Let him get the Harley. Geesh.
It seems the OP want to have control of the finances and have it her way. I don’t mean to be harsh but really I don’t get this. I’m reading pages and pages of how to separate money and put things in separate accounts, inheritance law, do this and do that, etc.
It’s not making sense.
I wish I had these kind of money problems.</p>
<p>^^^ “I wish I had these kind of money problems.”</p>
<p>There’s a lot of truth in that – with money comes problems. If OP was not inheriting this house, this particular problem would not have come up.</p>
<p>Life is simpler if you live like you don’t have the money.</p>
<p>H and I always say we never fight over money because there’s nothing to fight over.</p>
<p>My wife has always been frugal growing up in a third-world country. When I looked at her finances, I realized that she had five times the savings that I had even though I made five times as much. She brought me over to her side of thinking. Later on we discovered that I had a knack for investing which really pumped up our assets which greatly allayed fears of financial worries (she’s always been a SAHM). Life is far more pleasant when you don’t have money arguments. There’s other stuff to argue about of course but those generally don’t have the pressure of money.</p>
<p>The three checkbook system just sounds like more work for the OP to me, and may not provide much beneft. If her H is anything like my ex-H (and it seems like there are definitely some similarities!), he doesn’t want to know the details, manage any accounts, etc. He just wants what he wants, and doesn’t want to own any of the work involved with managing or tracking the money. So OP will end up tracking two accounts instead of the one she does today. She probably also handles all the investment accounts, annual benefit enrollments, bills, etc. already, and he likely doesn’t do a thing (or even recognize that as ‘real’ work in the marriage). Just saying…</p>
<p>received this today and how appropriate: [How</a> to Help Someone Without Saying a Thing | tinybuddha.com](<a href=“http://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-to-help-someone-without-saying-a-thing/]How”>How to Help Someone Without Saying a Thing)</p>
<ol>
<li> Acknowledge feelings. I know this can sound like touchy feely stuff. But it’s the crux of good communication. It’s worth repeating again: when people feel understood, they’re less likely to get defensive and argumentative.</li>
</ol>
<p>^^^I agree that communication seems to be the issue here, rather than money. The OP is not feeling appreciated or understood, and chances are, her husband isn’t either.</p>
<p>Just so we are clear, all these people saying the the earnings are community property and the inheritance is separate are saying that because it’s the law. At least in California. I swear they should make everyone go through a mock divorce BEFORE they get married. The law recognizes the value of each partner in marriage, the law recognizes that inheritances belong to the inheritor, too bad many spouses have no idea. Marriages might never develop these odd power issues if the legal framework were more clear.</p>
<p>What does the law consider gift monies, Alumother (or anyone)?</p>
<p>xaniamom, I don’t know all of it, only that inheritances from families are separate property, and any jewelry or significant items given to one spouse during the marriage can be considered separate. How hard it is to establish gift status, for things other than inheritances, I don’t know.</p>
<p>I am not an attorney. Inheritance law varies by state, and California is notoriously odd regarding legal matters (seriously – ex-H is an attorney, and he said when we got married that we could live in any state EXCEPT California because he did not want to attempt to pass the California bar exam).</p>
<p>That said, almost every state recognizes the inheritance as belonging to the individual. However, if you then mingle the inherited funds with your common funds, you usually lose that status for the money. You can no longer prove that the inherited funds bought a specific asset (stock, mortgage payments, cars, etc.). In my state (and most, I believe), it is the same with gift money.</p>
<p>Thus my earlier advice in this thread to open separate accounts for inheritance and/or gift money, and make payments directly from that account, rather than mingling the funds with other accounts. As stated earlier, I am in no way advocating that the person receiving the inheritance or gift refuse to spend it on their family’s wellbeing, merely that the accounting be done in this way to keep a clear audit trail of non-marital money.</p>
<p>I personally think more education in this would not make one iota of difference to 99.9% of people entering into marriage for multiple reasons. Most do not expect to receive inheritances or gifts (or if they do, it seems like a long ways off when they marry). And EVERYONE expects their marriage to last, so many would disregard this advice. At their peril, IMHO, given divorce statistics in this country. For someone like the OP, whose marriage does not seem terribly solid, it seems like a good idea for her.</p>
<p>intparent is right. Once you spend inheritance on family lifestyle, it’s commingled and therefore part of the community.</p>
<p>This whole thread has got me thinking about what to tell my adult children (who are now almost-24 and 25) about financial compatibility in a relationship.</p>
<p>When I met DH and fell hard for him, it never occurred to me to discuss future children or finances. Really. It was April 15th, three months after our marriage, before I discovered he hadn’t bothered to file his taxes for a few years (he had refunds coming but hadn’t taken the time to file)–and that he owed several thousand dollars in student loans.</p>
<p>In this day of enormous student loans, would you tell your children not to marry someone who owed a hundred thousand on their education? What questions would you want them to ask before marrying?</p>
<p>
It sounds relatively simple in principal, although could get complicated in practice? For example if you made a mortgage payment, could you specify that the principal was paid from the separate account, and the interest and escrow from the joint account? And would that make the equity acquired with the separate funds yours, even though you could not have acquired it without also paying the interest? (Did that make sense?) </p>
<p>Also, wondering if, say, you purchased an item with this separate money, and it appreciated in value, would the appreciation be community property? Or would it belong to the party whose money purchased it?</p>
<p>dmd77-- do you remember this thread? <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/628417-how-would-you-feel-about-your-kid-marrying-someone-large-student-loan.html?[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/628417-how-would-you-feel-about-your-kid-marrying-someone-large-student-loan.html?</a></p>
<p>dmd - this NY Times article was all over Yahoo finance yesterday:</p>
<p>[how-debt-can-destroy-a-budding-relationship:</a> Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance](<a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/110604/how-debt-can-destroy-a-budding-relationship]how-debt-can-destroy-a-budding-relationship:”>http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/110604/how-debt-can-destroy-a-budding-relationship)</p>
<p>While it’s interesting that people have different approaches to money – spend it on stuff, spend it on experiences, save it, etc, etc – what’s REALLY fascinating to me is how strongly some people on this thread think that their way is right and that anyone who disagrees is wrong. It’s like religion and politics! Earlier posts today have it right. It is all about listening to and understanding your spouse’s different viewpoint, and RESPECTFULLY working through the differences.</p>