Women and money- chalk and cheese or peas in a pod?

The demographic I am part of, and the geographic area I live may be skewed, but every couple I know (our age), the women are in charge of household finances. Obviously there are exceptions to every rule, but in the circumstances where finances have joined, it seems to be the girls in charge of the everyday cash, bills, and banking**.
This is in contrast to times gone by when the "men" were the dominant financial force in the home, being the breadwinner.

However, women are still facing domestic issues such as "Should women keep a secret money Stash?"
In our situation I would say M is more in need of one than I am LOL. But perhaps for some women it would be an idea?
A key concept in this article, Financial Questions Couples Should Ask, is that sole responsibility or anything in the home should not fall to one person. Should that person die unexpectedly, their spouse should have an idea of how that affects their finances.
Unfortunately, while a good article, it focuses on retirees, one example being of a woman whose husband dies, leaving her with no idea how to manage the money. This is precisely what I DON'T think will happen with our generation of women.

Perhaps I'm the one who looks after our money simply because I had more of an idea of how to run a "budget" going into our relationship. The book I'm reading right now, Your Money, Starting Out and Starting Over, by Anita Bell (in the sidebar) is actually the second in a series. Several years ago I read the pre-cursor to it, which is called Your Mortgage, How to Pay it off in Five Years (by a woman who did it in Three). It would be as many as 5 years ago, and I was working at Coles at the time, a little worker bee plodding along wasting my money. It was recommended to me by a friend, even though neither of us had mortgages, nor would we in the forseeable future, because it was a great starting block.

I read it, worked out a budget, filed the information I think, and promptly blew through probably more than $70, 000 in three years (I was living at home, few expenses, lots of clothes, shoes eventually and jewelery when I worked in a Jewelery store)
I always had the money lessons in the back of my head, but didn't really think they were hugely relevant for the most part.

Then I decided to move out, and decided to get serious with managing my money, as I didn't want to be the kind of person that didn't have money for rent. That was when my budgeting lessons really hit their stride, and I've been operating with them every since. I just had to tweak my spreadsheet to include M's income, add a few more expenses etc etc, but its essentially the same. I never ever worry about paying our bills, loans, or mortgage, having money to buy gifts at Christmas, getting my hair done or the car needing a service.
The only thing I worry about is we *should* be saving more of the bit thats left over.

In fact its so easy now, I don't understand why everyone doesn't do it this way!?!

**...this of course does give rise to the idea of the boys being "under the thumb" as they have to ask their WAG's for or about money. Which is of course ridiculous. Mostly it seems to happen because they never know how much money the couple have for the week/month!

Skills you can't put on your resume

We've all got them. Things that you're good at, talents we have that no one cares about for the most part. Usually they won't get you anywhere in life. Forget about putting them on your resume, and don't rush out and register your ABN in a hurry; this skill simply isn't marketable, because no one would ever pay you to do it.

Some skills of mine I'm particularly proud of, but are essentially a giant waste of head space:

~ I can learn the words to a song on the radio relatively quickly. I find myself really listening to songs, hearing the words so I can sing them back later.
This translates into driving along in the car, singing along to songs my husband says he's never even heard before. (In the same vein, I can remember the words to songs years later, and sing along quite well. I have no idea where these talents come from, as I wouldn't class myself as musically inclined at ALL.)
~ I can unpack my trolley onto the conveyer belt at the supermarket into shopping bag sections. I line up everything as I take it out of the trolley, and if I watch as the checkout person packs it, they can go along the belt and pack it exactly like I unloaded.
* pet hate #423- When they ignore my belt layout and shove everything in every which-way. Grr! >:-Z

I'm sure there are millions out there - Perhaps the ability to slice a cucumber perfectly straight, and yet no other vegetables (making you a useless Chef). Perhaps you can perfectly time your coast to the red traffic light so that you don't have to fully stop? I knew a guy who, when he changed lanes with those little bumpy dots, he could time it perfectly to avoid them.

What are yours?

Shorten Retail hours, not Extend

Gah!

I don't work in Retail anymore, but I still keenly recall the frustration of working while no one else is. I strongly beleive that shops should be closed on Sundays. We should be re-claiming family time, moving away from an Open-All-Hours lifestyle.

I remember back as a lowly checkout girl at my local Coles, a regular who I was friendly with, moved to Perth. She was a really interesting personality actually, very flightly really, flitting from job to job, boyfriend to boyfriend. She was the first person I knew of that did Temp work, and she proudly told me she was so good at it, she could ask for whatever hourly rate she wanted.
At the time this seemed soemhow fantastically glamarous, stepping into different offices all the time, being wonderfully efficient and tailored, and ....officey.
Now I kind of think of her as a bit seedy, like she could have been talking about prostitution between the lines, and it would still make sense.

Anyway, she moved to Perth, but evidently it didn't work out because she came back again to harass the Saturday night staff at her local supermarket (remarkably telling factor in her life when you think about it). One of the things that I recall most about her recount of her time in Perth was how "behind" they were, illustrated when she recounted that all the shops shut at 6pm, and noon on Sundays. Even the supermarkets.
I've never forgotten her telling that story, and even now, I read with interest stories in the papers about changes to trading times for our West Coast cousins, for its only recently they've had Sunday trade granted, and extension for supermarkets to hours similar to our own. Even regional NSW stores are open to midnight, so its hardly surprising.

I came across this story in SMH today, and I find it annoying, but sad mostly. Instead of making it easier for stores to open Sundays, I beleive government should be making it harder, which is precisely what all the red tape was there for to begin with. Grr.

Sleep! Who needs sleep!

I had the worst night's sleep last night. And when I did sleep, it was peppered with these weird wedding dreams. One of my dreams was that it was the morning of the wedding and we were all having hair and makeup done and it was the worst weather, pouring rain and slate gray skies, no hope of it clearing. So everyone's having makeup and hair done and I'm sitting there waiting and suddenly it;s like 11.30 and the photographers arrived and I haven't had anything done and he's at home and I'm not.....

I realised I was awake at one stage, awake and sort of tossing around, and my brain was absolutely racing with wedding crap, none of which I remember at all this morning, so I hope I didn't think I was solving the problems of the world at the time. It was like 3.30 or something and I do remember thinking, great, I was trying to get good sleep before the wedding so I don't look like some sort of hung over sleep deprived mess, and I'm lying awake. Bah.

The other dream I had was this bizarre psuedo world and I somehow was in this Coles-type store, except I was just standing there, a customer I think, and this guy asked me to get behind the counter and serve and I was pulling out this weird cigarette type clear drawers, and selling cigarettes and Nurtimetics makeup brushes. And the sky was some sort of weird lilac colour or something. It was all very strange.