TLDR: How do you response when someone asks about your career, finances, insurance, etc? As a full time or part time SAHM or housewife? I’m listing the questions I’ve been asked below and my answers/thoughts, but I’m just looking for advice on how to answer these things more naturally/gracefully rather than floundering or sounding like I’m a bimbo when I’m put on the spot.

Obviously I would like to surround myself with people who have similar values, but we have friends and family from all different backgrounds and belief systems. I enjoy these relationships even if I disagree with them on some things.

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My husband and I had our neighbors over for dinner last night. We typically do dinner 1-2x/year with them, but that’s about it, so we don’t have a very close relationship with them.

A few questions came up, thar I struggled to answer:

1. They asked how my business is / how work is / if things are busy / if it’s an 8 hour work day / how I get clients, etc.

I am self employed, and by choice I only work on a handful of projects each month, maybe 5-6 hours a week. I am primarily a stay at home wife and my husband is able to provide for us.

I mentioned that things are slower but they typically are this time of year, that I set my own schedule, and overall enjoy just living a “slow life”

I feel like it’s more acceptable to say I’m a SAHM, but I don’t have kids yet. My husband and I are trying to start a family but are only a few months into TTC, and obviously that journey can be unpredictable. But saying I’m a housewife, idk, I feel like it’s hard to admit that and comes off to others like I’m lazy or not motivated/hard working. I’m just wondering what the best way to respond to questions like this is.

2. They asked about our health insurance

This probably sounds like a rude/invasive question, but they are in a similar situation to ours. The husband is a business owner (like mine) and the wife is retired after being a teacher/mom. I think she was asking because we were discussing the limited options up here as far as doctors, dentists, etc. go because we live in a remote area and she was wondering if any of these are in network.

Honestly, IDK much about our insurance at all. My husband manages this. Obviously he shared the details with me, but I trusted him to pick the right plan with our insurance guy based on both of our medical needs. I know it’s not a typical plan, but rather some type of crowdsourcing/money pooling thing, and that we are planning to move to a more traditional insurance in the new year. This is what I tried to answer but just sort of rambled because I didn’t really know and said my husband knows more about that than me.

These neighbors haven’t asked, but I’ve also had friends or acquaintances ask about our finances/plans for eventually moving and building our “forever home”

My husband is a home builder, and due to the nature of his career, after we build a new house and live in it for a few years, if the market is right, he wants to sell the house, he sees it as an investment opportunity. We’ve been in our current house for 3 years now, and our goal is to buy land with more acreage and potentially build our “forever home” while he moves to building specs. I say “forever home” in quotes, because again, I try not to get too attached to the idea of this because I know we may sell again in the future if there’s a big financial gain.

I’ve talked to friends about this, who don’t really understand why a person would want to sell a brand new house. They ask things like why we would do this, what our plan is, where would we live while building a new house, how we can financially accomplish this, etc. Again this is my husbands area, not mine, obviously he consults me on my wants and needs but I trust him to make these financial decisions for us.

^ And that’s basically the way I answer, I say this is my husbands area of expertise. But again it just makes me feel like they think I’m dumb for not being super involved.