Tension in a battle of the planets

IN the month that we are celebrating International Women’s Day, I thought I would look at the difference in how women and men tend to deal with money. It is a well-known fact that women are from Venus and men from Mars, or is it the other way around?

While I am occasionally accused of being a great man for sweeping generalisations, I also have a bit of insight from 15 years spent sitting across the kitchen table from couples, helping them with their money.

While traditionally, men were the ones earning the money, that has changed dramatically in the last 30 years.

Men still see this as one of their central roles, and feel threatened, stressed and without purpose if this is not happening for them. This may also lead to conflict.

From my years helping those in mortgage arrears, it was plain to see that the loss of a job with the inability to pay the mortgage has a particularly destructive effect on men. It also frequently leads in no small part to relationship breakdown.

When it comes to budgeting, women are better at managing tight budgets but men obsess and fiddle with the budgets and spreadsheets more.

In general, men also take more risks with money. This shows both in the fact that they are more likely to invest money, and also more likely to take risks with these investments.

Curiously, they tend to blame others for financial loss.

Contrast this with women who, in general, blame themselves for financial loss and take more calculated risks. In keeping with the stereotypically more emotional way that women communicate, they like to make decisions by consensus or jointly and don’t like to go it alone.

Money is more a means to an end with women, and a means to attaining something more important, feeling guilty if they consider their own financial needs first. As I said earlier... Venus and Mars!