Questions to ask your father-in-law

31 questions to ask your father-in-law about money and getting by

Money is the chapter families least like to ask about and most need. Prices, wages, who held the purse, what was done when it ran out. Ask the numbers; they will be exact. Ask him for a practical skill. A man who will not talk about himself will talk for an hour while showing you how to do something.

How to use this list. Ask by voice and record it. One or two questions a visit is plenty; the follow-up ("Who else was there?" "What did she say?" "What happened the day after?") matters more than the next question. The 3 marked tender come last: ask them once, late, in person, with "or would you rather leave that?" in the question.

1. What did you do with your first real paycheck?
2. What did money mean in your house? Who held it, and what did "we can't afford it" sound like?
3. What was rationed, scarce, or impossible to get, and how did people manage?
4. What did you eat when there was no money?
5. What was the first thing you bought here that felt like a luxury?
6. What was the first place you paid for yourself? Describe the day you got the key.The first key is a turning point nobody thinks to call one.
7. What did you wear to school? Who made it, and who had worn it before you?Hand-me-downs are a family economy in one garment.
8. What was the first thing you saved up for, and how long did it take?A long wait for a small thing sets the scale of a childhood.
9. What did your first wage packet hold, and how much of it did you hand over at home?The split between the wage and the housekeeping is the whole family economy in one number.
10. How did your parents pay for things? Cash in a tin, a book at the shop, the never-never?The tin, the tab and the hire purchase are three different families.
11. What did a week's shopping cost when you were first married, and where did you buy it?An exact figure lets the reader feel the decade in their pocket.
12. Who in the family was tight with money, and who was hopeless with it?
13. What was the biggest thing you ever bought, and who did you tell first?
14. What did you do for extra money when things were tight: a second job, a sideline, something off the books?The sideline is where the ingenuity lives.
15. What was the first thing you bought that your parents would have called a waste?
16. What did you teach your children about money, by saying it or by what they saw?The lesson they meant to give and the one that landed are rarely the same.
17. What did a haircut, a cinema ticket or a pint cost when you were twenty?They will know it to the penny. Use the number.
18. Did you ever strike it lucky: a win, a windfall, a deal that came off? What did you do with it?
19. What will you always spend money on, however little there is?
20. What was the first record you bought with your own money, and where did you play it?The first record is a date, a taste and a room, all at once.
21. Where did you spend your honeymoon, and what did it cost?
22. What did a loaf of bread, a bus fare or a week's rent cost then? Which number do you still remember?One remembered price does the work of a paragraph of history.
23. What was your weekly wage in the 1960s, and what did a night out take out of it?Wage against night out is a ratio the reader understands instantly.
24. Were there power cuts, strikes or petrol queues where you lived? What did you do during one?A candlelit evening is a scene; "the seventies were hard" is not.
25. What did a house cost when you bought your first one, and what was the mortgage rate?The number will be exact, and it will stop a younger reader cold.
26. What did your children wear to school in the 1970s, and what did they beg you for that you would not buy?
27. What did you do on the first proper date, and what did it cost?The cost and the venue date the scene exactly.
28. What were you paid when you started, and what were you getting when you finished?Two numbers, forty years apart, are a career in a sentence.
29. Was there a time you could not pay for something you needed? What did you do that week?tender
30. Did you ever lend money to someone who never paid it back? Did you ever say anything?tender
31. Was there ever money you were ashamed of: owed, lost, taken, or more than anyone knew?tender

What these questions are for

A good book about a person needs more than facts. It needs the person on the page: how they talked, what they wanted, what they did when it mattered, the story that shows them. These questions cover 11 of the things a writer needs about your father-in-law: habits, routines and work, wants, fears and wounds, beliefs and values, their place in history, objects, places, food, music, the story that shows them, how others saw them, key relationships, contradictions, loss and fate, loves and tastes.

More questions to ask your father-in-law

• All questions to ask your father-in-law
• Questions to ask your father-in-law about his childhood
• Questions to ask your father-in-law about family history
• Questions to ask your father-in-law about love and marriage
• Questions to ask your father-in-law about his work
• Questions to ask your father-in-law about the war
• Questions to ask your father-in-law about faith and beliefs
• Questions to ask your father-in-law about food and the kitchen table
• Questions to ask your father-in-law that are funny

Or see questions for everyone else, and how to interview a parent about their life.