Handling my own finances

We are coming to the end of the tax year.  I've spent a lot of time over the past six months especially thinking about my investing, saving, spending plan.  Did my ex-husband ever have a real clear plan for all that?  I wonder.  

He definitely had a goal of planning for retirement which aligned closely with what I wanted.  But we never talked about how we were managing the rest of our money - how we wanted to spend it, what we wanted to keep in savings, whether we wanted to do any non-retirement investing.  I probably let him handle finances too much.  I was aware of all he was doing but I trusted his judgment.  As an accountant, I thought he had more knowledge than I do in this area.  Now, I'm beginning to think he was too spontaneous and dependent on instant gratification to really have a plan beyond knowing we needed to save for retirement.

So this week, I sat down with my latest paystub and banking apps, found the current year tax tables, and estimated taxes I would owe and the impact of adjusting my retirement contributions for this last paycheck.  And I'm spending some time looking over my entire spending and saving for the year.

I feel really empowered.  Even after more than a year, I still surprise myself at how capable I am.  

I sometimes wonder how much more we could have accomplished if I had been more involved in our finances.  Although, that would have bruised his ego too much.  If he was resentful of my opinions on other topics, imagine how resentful he would have been related to the topic he was supposedly the expert in.  

I think it bothered him enough when I ended up handling our taxes those first years while he was exhausted working 80+ hours.  And that year early on when I found us another tax deduction we were eligible for that he had missed.  And in later years as he watched my HSA investment choices far outgrow his choices for his own HSA.  I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised I can handle this.

I think he had a greater negative effect on my confidence than I want to admit.  And so my renewed sense of confidence feels a bit foreign right now as it is new.