Rich US homes: Who controls money

Though both husbands and wives bring home almost equal salaries nowadays, it is enigmatic to decide who wears the pants at home when it comes to taking financial decisions.

The response is situational and relative and it depends on whether you ask the men or the women.

As many as 56 per cent of affluent men say husbands make the financial decisions, but just 20 per cent of affluent women agree.

Meanwhile, majority of affluent women (61 per cent) say financial decision-making is a joint effort, according to a new Spectrem Perspective (TM) report, Affluent Household Financial Decision-Making, released on Tuesday.

"Affluent men and women are not seeing eye-to-eye about just

who's making the family's financial decisions. More than half of affluent men say husbands are making these decisions, but just one in five affluent women agree.

"Instead, nearly two-thirds of the women say financial decision-making is a joint effort."

"Despite this disagreement, most affluent households have all their finances pooled. So regardless of who makes the decisions, the family's money appears to be working together," said Catherine S McBreen, MD of the Spectrem Group.

In all, 61 per cent of affluent households have all their finances pooled, compared with just 5 per cent that keep them completely separated. The remainder has some combination of pooled finances and separate accounts.