
I pay my wife to do my laundry - jwwest
http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/10/pf/jd_roth/
======
benwerd
Very appropriate day to post this.

In my house, I do most of the cooking, the dishes and the laundry. (The latter
is because, being one of these work-at-home laptop-bound types, I'm at home a
lot.) My girlfriend tends to vacuum and tidy more. But none of this is because
we've established an internal market in our home and relationship. Between the
two of us, we do what's right for each other, and it just works out.

This applies just as well to startup co-founders as it does to marriages. You
want to find someone whose best interests you want to act in, and who will act
in yours. Life's too short to be negotiating about who's going to wash the
dishes, or who's going to pick up the mail. When you're emotionally invested
in a person, an organization, a project or a cause, you'll do the right thing
for it. And that's the kind of person you want to be in any kind of
relationship with.

------
edw519
Important man: I am the head of my household! I make all the important
decisions such as our family's position on the world's important political,
economic, and cultural issues.

My wife makes all the little decisions. Like where we'll live, how we'll spend
our money, what we'll eat, and where our kids go to school.

~~~
pestaa
The original author would deserve the credit, but upvoted for being relevant.
:)

------
philh
> Because I like to dine out more than Kris does, for instance, I pay for most
> of our restaurant meals. In return, she pays for most of the groceries.

I do something similar with my housemates. They usually buy the meat, because
I don't like to pay for good stuff. I usually buy the milk and vegetables.
It's not an explicit agreement, that's just how it happened.

It actually works out the same as if I was paying more for meat than I want
to. But I'm happier than I would be in that situation.

------
thematt
This seems foolish from a purely financial standpoint. Often times interest
rates are tiered and you can get significantly higher rates with the more
money you have in a single account.

They should combine them. They could keep pretending they have separate
accounts and just write checks for what they owe, just have it come out of a
single savings account.

~~~
radu_floricica
I'd gladly pay the loss of interest rate for the added convenience of not
having an excel spreadsheet which needs to be updated at every purchase.

~~~
georgecmu
Mint will update that spreadsheet for you.

~~~
radu_floricica
You still have to decide who's expense each item is. I've had common accounts
with my business partner for 7 years... trust me, it's bad. We're lucky we
don't really care about exactly how much each of us made, because we don't
know. Since changing banks a year ago and getting separate accounts things
have been heavenly. We just opened a separate account to store VAT (european
sales tax) and didn't even blink at the expense.

------
phamilton
My wife and I have joint finances (she's a stay at home mom), but we each have
an allowance. We each get money each month that is 100% ours. We don't need to
consult with each other about how it's spent. She can burn it for all I care.
It gives us enough freedom to make purchases we don't agree on (unspent money
rolls over, so one can save up if needed). Meanwhile, we are both very
involved in all other financial decision, with all disagreements settled in
favor of the more conservative party.

------
pestaa
The title is a bit too much in my opinion. I regularly come across couples
where expenses are taken note of, and the wife has to pay back the half of it
in case she doesn't have money. (Not necessarily the women owes money, but men
tend to be more money-centric in my observations.)

And when I say half, I really mean it. If a bread cost $1.4 3 weeks ago (in
Middle Europe at least, converted to USD), she is in debt of $0.7. This
situation is supposed to be rare, but who knows.

I also heard another story, where the husband earned some decent amount of
cash, the wife was at home with the child getting national aid only. The man
told her to get back to work or he won't pay the bills.

I don't know where this twisted way of thinking comes from, but it's really
depressing. And there are more and more people who wouldn't enter marriage
without a written contract.

I just can't understand.

------
nhangen
Seems strange and impersonal, but I know JD a bit and he's a great guy, so I
imagine that this is one of those stories that sounds more dramatic than it
really is.

~~~
scotty79
I fail to see anything dramatic in this particular story. He an his wife are
happy. They don't reproach or regret. They feel honest about themselves.

~~~
nhangen
Well though the story isn't dramatic, the article title is crafted to be
linkbait, so it sounds more dramatic than it really is.

------
dshankar
This is where companies like Laundry Locker in SF really help out.

------
Charuru
Must not be Asian. My friends give their wives all their money.

~~~
petercooper
They must be very trusting (or have typically financially literate wives). If
I were to do this, it'd confirm the worst: I'd gone insane.. :-)

~~~
nandemo
In Japan that's the default. Wife takes care of the budget and gives a monthly
"allowance" to the husband.

I don't know what you mean by financially literate, but they don't have to
know much about investments or interest rates. Their job is to set a budget
and stick to it every month. Most people will avoid getting deep into debt
except for large purchases such as a house or a car, and savings account's
interest rates are practically 0%. So being good at managing a budget is
nearly all that matters.

~~~
martinkallstrom
There's even more to that story. It's true that the wife takes care of the
salary and gives a monthly allowance to the husband. But whenever he files
expense reports to his employer, he is reimbursed to a separate account that
only he has access to and his wife has no insight into.

But he is dependent on her household management to such a degree that one of
the main causes for homelessness is men being abandoned by their wifes in late
years when the kids have flown out. He is unable to even cook rice, let alone
pay the electrical bill or rent. So he ends up in the street, sometimes with
his employment intact.

Suffice to say, this is not true for all men, but common enough to be a known
order of events.

~~~
nandemo
> _He is unable to even cook rice, let alone pay the electrical bill or rent.
> So he ends up in the street, sometimes with his employment intact._

Lol, what? I can't tell if you're serious. Just because men depend on women
for budgeting and house chores doesn't mean that they have to be homeless
after a separation.

~~~
melvinram
+1 to that "LOL what?" I don't buy the whole "if you don't normally handle the
house that you can't figure it out when you have to" idea. If someone can't
figure that stuff out, they have bigger problems then paying the bill or rent.

~~~
euroclydon
Not all people "on the streets" are entirely there against their wills. It's
not like they're trying to get off the streets every day, and just can't,
instead, they're hanging out, talking with their friends, and have, in
general, adapted to a new setting.

