How often do you and your SO fight about finances?

sweetsunnyc

Hi All-

Just wondering how often finaces are the source of a fight at your house? My husband and I both make good money- we just have a lot of debt (car loans, mortgage, student loans, childcare etc) My step daughter just let us know that she is coming to live with us full time for high school, so I am stressed out to the max. It seems like no matter how hard we try to set a budget, we never stick to it. We pay our bills on time, but it seems like we have very little left over at the end of the month- forget about contributing to savings. Now with having three kids in the house, I am feeling the pressure of how tight finances are going to be. Instead of having constructive conversations around this, my husband and I just blow up at each other and I'm afraid that it is taking a toll on our marriage. Maybe this is more of a vent than a post, but just wondering how other working moms manage money and stress when finances are tight. Any great budgeting tips on how you make it work would be appriciated. TIA!

thedash

We do have arguments about money regularly even though we're in pretty good shape as far as budget and savings. It's such a common thing to fight about.

I cannot recommend mint.com highly enough. You have to invest time and effort in it, especially setting it up and then at least weekly for a few months. But it's free and really gives you a stark picture of your spending. It has helped us so much because we can pull it up on the ipad and make spending, saving, and budgeting decisions based on our actual spending over the past X months. It is an objective view of our cash flow that we can't argue with.

In our case we are both very thrifty but disagree strongly about whether it is "worth it" to spend money on certain things. DH is capable of never, ever, ever eating lunch out and then will feel OK to spend a big amount of money on an item or event he wants. I like to bargain shop for big items and then have freedom to grab lunch or coffee out when I feel like it. We agree to compromises and then our mint.com account holds us accountable!

82Sonia

We argue about money a lot.  The ridiculous thing is that we never fought about it when we didn't have any. Now that we make substantially more, it's a constant source of fights.  He wants to spend, spend, spend and then gets irritated at me when we don't have a downpayment for a new house (it needs to be a very substantial amount). 

I can't seem to get through to him about saving because all he sees is how much we make and then thinks he should be able to buy what he wants. I have no tips, just shared frustration. 

Netty_3

Not too often anymore. Ever since I took over the finances anyway. I read Dave Ramsey's book and pretty much stick to that trying to pay down our debt. It's on the horizon. Maybe you can check the book out at the library and see if it's something you can get behind. It's nice to watch bills go away.  We've had some snafus in our plan (like a mountain of medical bills) but now it's back on track moving forward.

2chatter

We don't really argue about money much, but when we do, it's because one of the following have broken down:

- I have paid something he is delegated to pay because he is disorganized (like, he pays for DC for DS.  He sometimes cannot locate his checkbook, so I pay it from my account.  Then he needs to reimburse me, but drags his feet, or spends that money and I have to wait).

- Our budget has changed, but we have not updated the budget spreadsheet so we are not on the same page.

- He wants to fund something outside of the budget, when I think he should use his budget to fund what he wants.

Things we are doing now to mitigate these risks as we just moved and things feel very fluid right now, and we are also a blended fam, so that makes things complicated.  Very similar to your changes.

- We meet weekly to update the budget spreadsheet with actual versus estimates and re-evaluate priorities for purchases, kept in a seperate master spreadsheet.

- We lined out exactly what "his" budget and "my" budget are to be used for (the clarification was - extras outside of kid budget comes from our budgets.  He sometimes wants to just pull that from our joint coffer, and I do not do that for our kids - it comes from my budget).

- I write his checks, he signs them and delivers them as needed.  This feels very 1950's housewife, but it works.

So...what can you do differently that might change the dynamic?  We are both project managers, so that's how we think.  We had to employ those skills to stop the arguments.

mexicolombiana

Money issues are one of (dare I say- THE) biggest reason for divorce. 

I'm a bankruptcy lawyer and fights about money can get brutal in my office.

Also, I fight about money with my husband ALL the time.  No matter how educated we are, how smart we are, how much we manage our finances in MINT.com, etc. we STILL fight about money.

But even though we fight about $ all the time, we try not to get too heated about it.

traveltheworld

We don't argue about money.  I'm in charge of our finances and occasionally when I get stressed out about money, I snap at DH "> 

We have a joint account and no individual accounts and all our bills get paid automatically out of that account.  Same with savings - it gets automatically transferred to our investment account.  We don't keep track of what each person spends on themselves for fun and this works because we have established what our financial goals are and we have identifical views on spending, so it's not like either one of us would suddenly go out and spend $500 on something frivilous.  We pay for evertyhing using a credit card so I can track what we spend money on.  I don't really have a budget but I have a very detailed list of our fixed expenses (savings is considered a fix expense) so I know how much money we are left over with every month, then I add $2,000 or so for "disposable spending" (i.e. food, entertainment, clothing, gifts).  I check our credit card account at the beginning of every week so if we are getting close to the $2,000 mark, I adjust accordingly (e.g. not go out that weekend, eat out of the pantry, etc.).

I also do a very detailed cash-flow projection and my rule is that we can indulge ourselves and buy stuff we want (but not need) if our cash position is better than projected at the end of each quarter.

 

 

mpnowak

Netty_3 said:

Not too often anymore. Ever since I took over the finances anyway. I read Dave Ramsey's book and pretty much stick to that trying to pay down our debt. It's on the horizon. Maybe you can check the book out at the library and see if it's something you can get behind. It's nice to watch bills go away.  We've had some snafus in our plan (like a mountain of medical bills) but now it's back on track moving forward.

We use to fight every month about money. Never seemed like enough! we did the same thing and in less than 2 years we will have paid off our CC, our car, and a small student loan. There are no more fights and we both have a share of the responsiblity for money choice. I recommend this book to everyone who is looking for a little money advice, its not easy, but after you work the bugs out, it is so worth it!

jaimevogt

We've only been married 4 years, and though we "plan to" we've never merged our finances. I feel like this has helped avoid a lot of conflict. So maybe we will hold off on that even longer. 

skyejo

traveltheworld said:

We don't argue about money.  I'm in charge of our finances and occasionally when I get stressed out about money, I snap at DH "> 

We have a joint account and no individual accounts and all our bills get paid automatically out of that account.  Same with savings - it gets automatically transferred to our investment account.  We don't keep track of what each person spends on themselves for fun and this works because we have established what our financial goals are and we have identifical views on spending, so it's not like either one of us would suddenly go out and spend $500 on something frivilous.  We pay for evertyhing using a credit card so I can track what we spend money on.  I don't really have a budget but I have a very detailed list of our fixed expenses (savings is considered a fix expense) so I know how much money we are left over with every month, then I add $2,000 or so for "disposable spending" (i.e. food, entertainment, clothing, gifts).  I check our credit card account at the beginning of every week so if we are getting close to the $2,000 mark, I adjust accordingly (e.g. not go out that weekend, eat out of the pantry, etc.).

I also do a very detailed cash-flow projection and my rule is that we can indulge ourselves and buy stuff we want (but not need) if our cash position is better than projected at the end of each quarter.

 

 

We are the exact same, seriously.  One checking account, everything on a credit card that gets paid off in full each month, same disposable income amount, etc.  I can't recall one fight we've had over money.

sweetsunnyc

Thanks for the great advice- I will definitly check out the Dave Ramsey book and mint.com

We share an account and I think that we are both just spending so unconsciously-

I appriciate the advice!

fryrat

It's easy when you don't have any money, lol. We have a lot of obligations, and what little is left over is needed for when DH is on the road, for meals. Other than that, we spend wisely. I manage the accounts, but I will check to see if he needs anything urgently before I spend anything. In turn, he does not buy things without checking with me. It works for both of us. We are not the type to nickel and dime spend, so we don't have arguments.

jbatch

We argue about money often because my husband likes to spend money on drums and cameras and stuff while I want to save money so we can get a better house in a better area.. I want to make a budget but my husband gets mad when I suggest it.. Grr.. There's my vent

SunAndRain

We USED to fight about money horribly.  Two things that helped us stop the madness:

1) went to see a financial advisor who we have now been with from nearly 10 years

2) read SMart Couple Finish Rich which helped redirect our discussions away from dollars to values and goals.

After we got realistic about what we can afford and once we got on the same page and understood what each other wanted out of life (DH a bigger home, me to pursue my hobbies) then those goals became the foundation of all financial decisions.

It was a long road but it delights me to no end that DH and I can discuss spending without fighting anymore.

katieh1017

Add me to the Dave Ramsey paid off club. We paid everything but our house off last November. It took less than 2 years, tough at first but when you start to see results it's like addicting and you want to see those balances go down. I just use a spreadsheet to track everything. Good luck!

Nechie122

jaimevogt said:

We've only been married 4 years, and though we "plan to" we've never merged our finances. I feel like this has helped avoid a lot of conflict. So maybe we will hold off on that even longer. 

We never fight about money. I think this is why.

Jenn06L80

This is going to sound awful - my husband doesn't know how to write a check. When we got married he didn't have a dime to his name or a bank account. I put him on my checking account and for the last 8 years I manage all the money. Money is one thing we never fight about.

iverske9

Go get the book by Dave Ramsey! He is amazing at budgets, and saving plan. It will also give you two a plan so it won't seem so abstract to "Save".

Mustardseed2007

I just want to second the Dave Ramsey advice. We don't follow his program 100%, but we followed it very closely when we had debt other than a mortgage. 

We have since paid off all of our student loans (which is huge b/c I went to law school; I had a lot of debt), car loans and CC debt. 

Now the only debt we have is our mortgage and we have 6 months of expenses stocked away. 

That really releases us from a lot of stress, so now we argue about money very rarely. It helps that we (especially he) has monthly "mad money" that we are allowed to spend on ourselves without checking with anyone else. That and keeping a budget have kept us out of money fights.

Clynnpollock

We have had exactly 1 argument money related in almost 9 years of marriage. We have a 3 checking account system - his spending, her spending, our spending. We have an equal, budgeted and mutually agreed amount that goes to the his/hers spending accounts. We are not responsible to each other for the amounts spent from these accounts. After DH overdrew his in the first few months we were married (causing our 1 and only money argument), we instituted a set "floor" amount for those accounts of $100 - those accounts should never be below that amount (it happens, but if we consciously set the floor at $100, overdrawing is not as likely and has in fact not happened again).  All other income goes into the our spending account. I am better with money so I became the budget maker/minder and make sure all payments are made etc. using the money in the our spending account. Extra gets transferred to savings until we make decisions regarding investments (which we do with our financial planner's input) or other needs come up. We have a small car loan and our mortgage as our only debt (both at under 5% interest). I paid off DH's credit card debt within the first 6 months of our marriage, his SL in 2 years and every car we've bought since we got married was either bought outright or paid off early. That may not happen with the latest car as our budget is going to be really really tight once we've got 2 in DC after LO2 is born at the end of the year, but we'll get there with periodic raises etc. We've also got a 6 month emergency fund in place, so living close after LO2 arrives won't be as difficult as it could be if we were living that tightly with no cushion for problems that might arise. 

I'd say the key to us not fighting is: common goals, and separating spending money out so that it's budgeted and not something that is visible within the "joint" picture as individual purchases, only as a single line item - spending money. DH being willing and able to give up full control of the joint finances has also helped. He honestly cares less about it than I do (and admits that I'm better at it, and he doesn't like it), so decided from the beginning that it was my baby, and he wasn't going to interfere. He provides input when asked (once/twice a year, or when we make big decisions if more often than that). He asks if bigger purchases for home improvement/car repair (his responsibilities) are in budget and helps set expectations for those items annually. Beyond that he stays out of it.  

Mjmksb04

Never. Separate accounts, y'all! Plus, we are both pretty conservative about spending.

Sparks in training!

ALL the time. I would say it is the number one issue in our relationship. We do not co-mingle accounts or money and split everything down the middle. great topic. Im glad to know im not alonte

Karla CS

We don't argue about finances. Our savings are set on auto-pilot, the same amount comes out every month, and we've never had to dip into it for anything other than planned projects. (We're remodeling the kitchen, so that will take a big chunk). Any of our big purchases, we always get the other's opinion on for, and we usually don't do right away. We spent about a year TALKING about getting a digital SLR before we actually did. We spent 3 years talking about our kitchen before finally pulling the trigger. 

I think we've set it up so that we're discussing things before there's any stress, so we're not fighting. It also helps that we're not really strapped for cash. We're not rich, but we're doing a very good job of living within our means.