My husband won't invest

cat81

Fri, Apr 23 2021, 9:26 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

At all.
We have no retirement plans. This scares the heck out of me.
I have brought this up to him a million times but he likes his money where he can "see it".
This is the stupidest thing ever. We would have so much more money if he would agree to invest years ago, money grows albeit slowly when invested. The same money loses value due to inflation over time.
He's just not convinced. And he doesn't want to speak to a financial advisor. And I don't know enough to take this on myself (I'm actually terrible with numbers and details).
His job doesn't have a 401k.
I don't work.

I just hate that we're being stupid with money because of his fears, lack of trust in others, in the market etc.

Ps please don't waste your breathe explaining to me that we should set up Roth IRA a etc. I know. I'm asking how to get him to agree and feel ok with it. We're not young I literally don't get what we will do when he doesn't have his job anymore.
Pps when I bring it up to him he tells me I'm stressing him out.

I understand your frustration as I have a close family member that is the exact same one. From my experience there is no convincing such a person, you will just get upset by the attempt.

I don’t agree with all other posts regarding doing things your DH doesn’t want unless he’s the controlling type and he’s doing this maliciously. Again from my experience, these people are just hard wired to save money in a FDIC bank.

What I would suggest is convincing him about getting CDs, Treasury bills and the like. They have much lower interest rates but are almost guaranteed.

amother

Fri, Apr 23 2021, 10:07 am

Ok thanks for these ideas.

My husband is a kind, hardworking, and reasonable man. He has grown up very poor and he feels very responsible to make sure he can provide for his family. He definitely has a fear of risk and so do I but I guess less than him.
I cannot currently work but I may be able to in a year or so, but that is something to think about.
The gold etc is not a good idea because he wants his money liquid ie accessible if we need for an emergency.
I will under no circumstances invest money without his agreement. I have full access to our accounts and there is a trust that decisions of purchases more than $100 are discussed between us. He is not controlling at all but he does have anxiety around money. It is of utmost importance that I maintain this trust.
I like the idea of framing it as a gift to me. He may go for this.
We have talked about it a few times and each time he sort of agree but needs time to work it through or whatever and it never happens and then he says it's stressing him out.
We recently had to spend a chunk of money for something so his fear of not having enough liquid funds was triggered.

Anyways let talk practical.
Help me have this convo with him by answering some questions if you don't mind.

How much liquid funds does a family need in case of emergency?
What is the risk/gain factor of mutual funds (worst case scenario)?
Can the invested funds be accessed?
Is there a way that they can be automatically deposited from the bank account?

Any other info that would be help him feel more comfortable with this?