# Building Spouse’s Credit Rating



## Numbersman61 (Jan 26, 2015)

My wife and I have been married for almost 12 years - I’m nearing 80 and she is 10 years younger. Despite having financial assets nearing $1 million, she has no credit rating since all our Credit cards are In my name and she has supplementary cards for her use. When I die, my credit cards will all be canceled and she’ll be in the position of having to obtain new credit cards with no credit history. At the time of death of a spouse, this can be just be an unsettling experience.
Since we have most of our investment accounts with TD, we met with our personal banker and she issued an Instant no fee credit card with a limit of $18 thousand. The intention Is that the card will be used for a few monthly recurring charges so that the account will remain active.


----------



## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

Numbersman61 said:


> My wife and I have been married for almost 12 years - I’m nearing 80 and she is 10 years younger. Despite having financial assets nearing $1 million, she has no credit rating since all our Credit cards are In my name and she has supplementary cards for her use. When I die, my credit cards will all be canceled and she’ll be in the position of having to obtain new credit cards with no credit history. At the time of death of a spouse, this can be just be an unsettling experience.
> Since we have most of our investment accounts with TD, we met with our personal banker and she issued an Instant no fee credit card with a limit of $18 thousand. The intention Is that the card will be used for a few monthly recurring charges so that the account will remain active.


Sure why not?

My wife and I purposely split all bills and accounts 50/50 for this reason.


----------



## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

MrMatt said:


> My wife and I purposely split all bills and accounts 50/50 for this reason.


Not sure what that means in the context of building credit rating. Presumably your spouse has JTWROS bank or credit card accounts, or her own accounts, with her name first to build credit rating and in the case of investment accounts, tax slips in her name. 50/50 has nothing to do with it and 50/50 would be a relatively rare coincidence anyway in investment accounts where attribution is proportional to contribution of capital.

The subject of this thread is an important one that has likely been discussed before at CMF but it is a critically important one. Too many boomers and especially the pre-war generation before it were far too husband dominant/centric to recognize the importance of spouses being able to stand alone. My father was no different and it took quite sometime for bro and I to get mother engaged and integrated into the world of 'personal finances' and she was only 74 at the time of father's death. She had 22 more year on her own.


----------



## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

AltaRed said:


> Not sure what that means in the context of building credit rating. Presumably your spouse has JTWROS bank or credit card accounts, or her own accounts, with her name first to build credit rating and in the case of investment accounts, tax slips in her name. 50/50 has nothing to do with it and 50/50 would be a relatively rare coincidence anyway in investment accounts where attribution is proportional to contribution of capital.
> 
> The subject of this thread is an important one that has likely been discussed before at CMF but it is a critically important one. Too many boomers and especially the pre-war generation before it were far too husband dominant/centric to recognize the importance of spouses being able to stand alone. My father was no different and it took quite sometime for bro and I to get mother engaged and integrated into the world of 'personal finances' and she was only 74 at the time of father's death. She had 22 more year on her own.


We split all bills and accounts (that we are legally able to) half in her name, half in mine.

For us that means
Master card - Hers
Visa - Mine
Phone Bill - Hers
Internet bill - mine
Hydro - hers
Gas bill - mine
vehicle 1 - hers
vehicle 2 mine

4 in her name, 4 in mine, that's 50/50.

Of course LIRA, RRSP TFSA, Pensions, CPP etc don't work quite like this, we each have our own with comparable assets, in accordance with the applicable laws.

I know couples who operate on some ridiculous "traditional roles" split, myself I would have never married the type of woman who would have accepted such nonsense.


----------



## Numbersman61 (Jan 26, 2015)

In my case, it has been a challenge getting my spouse involved in financial matters. The main reason -primarily due to her lack of familiarity with the internet. Consequently, most accounts are in my name with my email address. Whenever a bill arrives, I forward it to my wife‘s email account so she can look after payment. We’re spending more time together reviewing financial matters etc. - we both recognize the necessity for her to be more comfortable with financial matters.


----------



## Retiredguy (Jul 24, 2013)

I suppose I might agree that, generally, men have dominated the family finances overs the years but I've also heard lots of contrary stories of men simply handing their pay cheques to their wifes who did it all as part of running the household. Recently a 86 yr old friend died and he was totally clueless about money running a home paying bills etc. His son told me that his dad wouldn't know how to do any of it because his mum always did it. Fortunately she survived him. They were married about 65 yrs. Dad fought in Korea!


----------

