Key roles in the money game

Within a relationship, we tend to slip into doing tasks that may not match our skills

- Phil Slade

On family holidays we love to play games. Recently, while at the beach for a few nights, someone announced that we should play a card game. As soon as it was suggested there was instant agreement and everyone automatically went into action.

I started to draw up the complicated score sheet, someone else went to make drinks and nibbles, another found the cards and started shuffling, and another cleared the table and set the room ready to play. It was as if we had choreographed the whole thing, but we simply slid into roles as a matter of routine and learned history.

This automatic “slipping into roles” also happens in relationships, where partners create a sense of ownership over certain jobs over time – from who cleans the kitchen, to who mows the lawn, to who takes out the rubbish, to who has the tough conversations with the kids. Couples tend to settle into a routine of who-does-what without necessarily considering who might be more effective at what – it just kind of happens.

Interestingly, this is also what we can happen when it comes to financial tasks.

The four most common roles are:

• Chooses the long-term investments

• Directs the day-to-day budgeting and spending

• Sorts out the tax

• Instigates and plans holidays and “life” spending.