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As I wrote earlier this week I am the primary buyer for my household as most women are according to statistics. I actually call myself the gatherer from the days of men and women being categorized as hunters and gatherers. While I dislike gender based roles in general living in a home full of males (including my lab) I am clearly the gatherer. I actually like gathering…maybe a little too much!
One disconnect that I found to be occurring in our system was that I was the primary buyer i.e. money spender while my husband handled the transactions to actually pay the bills. While it was convenient for me not having to do the task I felt that by not seeing the bills I was not being as responsible with spending as I could be. There is something psychological about spending that money and not actually paying the bill. That plastic is sooo nice. There was clearly a hole in our system one that I was determined to patch.
Having taken advantage of free money through zero interest rate financing and the fact that there were business and personal credit cards in each of our names we had quite a few cards. It just felt messy to me as I have never liked debt on depreciable assets since I bought my first car an orange 1974 VW bug with a loan my father co-signed (smart thinking). I created a spreadsheet listing all of the cards interest or fees if any and when zero interest ends so that it can be paid off. Now that plastic has lost some of its shine! In my quest to spend wisely reduce clutter and be a financial woman this simple tool has helped enormously and provided clarity around my “gathering”.
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