money squabbles with spouse

dnhardy

My wife and I pool all income.
I make 3x what she does.

Every dollar I earn is hers and every dollar she earns is mine...because we're married.

As far as spending is concerned. We have a long standing rule that either of us can spend up to $100 without consulting the other. More than that and it requires a conversation on priorities. If I were to become unsympathetic to her priorities, I'm pretty sure she would become that way with mine. Since we love each other and want each other to have the sensible things we want, we've yet (18 years) to have a serious disagreement over money.

Cosign. My future husband is an attorney and I will be a stay at home mom soon.. so he obviously makes more than me. We have the $100 rule and we respect each other. I don't agree with every single thing he spends our money on. But we at least talk about it. We both want each other to be happy is the main thing

lilRicki

Those of you that have seperate bank accounts, do you have children? Who is responsible to that? We have a joint account and most of the money I spend is on our girls and what they need. He eats out at lunch, I don't. I pay all the bills, food shop and clothes shop for everyone. We don't fight about money however, I am in charge of most of it. He does make more. Just wondering.

I pay for most of the things for our child. My fiance pays for games, hot lunches at school, haircuts, toys and frivolities. I pay for clothes, sports and sports equipment, favorite food, and toiletries

saxmaniac

My dad is a horrible money manager, if he had his way he'd drain the joint account and go play poker or on a boat or something.....Mom had to finally take him off withdrawl access from the joint account and set him up with a pre-paid card for the month. Sometimes he's blown his 'fun' spending in the first week after getting it.....and no matter how much he *****es and moans, mom doesn't give him more $ to spend.

Yikes. This is sounds more like a mother/son dynamic, which is just as bad as a man controlling all access to wife's spending even though she works -- which we'd call "misogyny".

Ideally, you find a way how to make budgeting a team effort, so that the other person has a SAY, rather than one person "winning" via force. Especially if they contribute in some way via cash, or taking care of kids (just because it's not income doesn't mean it's not valued).

I think the separate accounts method can work if 1) you both make a similar income and 2) you're both naturally good with money. But that's a big if. If a person is staying home watching the kids, then they are working, and you can't just tell them to screw off and have no spending money. Similarly, if one person is bad with money, then they can drain their account on stupid stuff, leaving the more responsible person to pay the bills. Bad idea...

Personally, as family, I prefer we have shared goals, and shared account. After a year of doing Dave's FPU all our non-house debt is gone, and we have a few thousand left over every month to put into stuff we both agree on. It's the only way, IMO, to manage a family of 5 on a single income, in an expensive COL area (Boston).

dsimmons107

This is a very complicated topic for so many reasons.
1. The relationship between the two partners and their skill level with managing money.
2. Your financial goals and your ability to fund those goals.
3. The structure of your finances for current and future needs and possibilities.

I have been married for 24 years and my wife is an accountant. I at one time was a financial advisor. We have a number of accounts and all of them are joint. It is just smart in case something happens to one of us. The other has full access and no hassle in case of death or other emergency. Joint with rights of survivor ship is the best way to set them up. Second I manage certain accounts and she manages certain accounts. We have budgets for each account and a purpose for each account. The accounts I manage I make an effort to be efficient and I get rewarded for the effort by have extra that I can spend any way I want and vice versa. If she goes short on the budgets for the accounts she manages that means she nothing extra to spend and vice versa for me. One bank account is set up for household expenses for example. Another is set up to pay for any debt that we decide to take on. That is usually only car or house. We carry no other debt. Everything else is cash and carry. We have short and long term goals and accounts for each goal. We both make good money so the only time we argue about money is usually on the estimated taxes I should be paying. I like to pay the least I can and she thinks I should pay more. I say it does not matter as long as all of the taxes get paid at the end of the year.
We have an emergency fund that no one touches unless there is a true emergency. You get the point. I don't care how she spends the money for the accounts she manages as long as it does not require me to fund a budget shortfall because she did not manage her budget correctly. That pisses me off and it does happen and if it is not something is required for both of us we just go without. I know it is a very complicated process but we are never broke and our bills get paid and we rarely do without things we want or need. Yea and we have two very expensive kids. Both are in college.

IamNhappy

3 of our bank accounts are joint & we each have a seperate account. which has the money we can do whatever we choose to do with (5% of our income). I'm only a RN and he is in neuro so I don't make as half as much as he does. Most of our money goes on the kids anyways

HappyNinjaStar

I recently implemented an allowance for my husband, as he has a serious spending problem. I take care of the finances, but we had the joint checking account, and if he saw money was 'available' he would often spend it without thinking it might be for a bill.

Needless to say, money has been an issue for us for a few years, and I got so angry with him on so many occasions for what I considered frivolous personal spending when I never spent anything on myself because there was never extra money in the budget after my husband spent whatever he felt like.

So starting at the first of this year, I opened a checking account that was only in his name, he gets a certain amount of money transferred to it every week from our joint checking account. He gave me the debit card for the joint checking account, so he doesn't spend any of the money from that account. It is his responsibility to manage his allowance, and he can spend or save at his discretion. All purchases that involve only him are to come only from that account.

So far it has worked out really well. He's happy with it, and I'm happy with it. In fact I'm thrilled, because now I have a non-varying amount that I can account for each month in my budget. Something similar might work well for you and your husband.

sjmitchner

We have a joint account and rarely fight. We both put bills and needs before anything fun. We occasionally disagree, but things got much better after my hubby admitted he shops and buys things to make himself feel better. We went through a big purge of stuff/junk from our house and lives. Now we don't have that issue any more. He likes that the house isn't cluttered with things we never use. We always call and talk to each other before making a purchase if it isn't a necessity. We also put at least 10% into savings from our checks. Not much but it helps when things get tight or something needs to be repaired. I think it's about perspective. The money we make isn't "his" or "mine" it's "ours" just like "our house" or "our truck" We fight about money sometimes but not often at all.

MelSabourin

Those of you that have seperate bank accounts, do you have children? Who is responsible to that?

Our daughter will be 19 in March. She has always played sports, and played competitively so it was pretty expensive once you factor in "equipment", clothing/tracksuits, etc through the club or schools, and trips/tournament fees. My husband always paid all the sports related fees, and I basically covered everything else (hair, nails, clothes, entertainment $, etc).

Every year we go on an all-inclusive vacation. We each pay our own, and split our daughter's cost. Weird - I know. But it works:)

Athena53

I’ve been through this on another Board I’m on that deals with personal finance and the bottom line is that spouses should be on the same page when it comes to the big things (% saved, donating to charity, big splurges such as vacations). Beyond that, it doesn’t matter whether you have separate accounts or joint accounts. But, here’s my story.

Ex-husband: absolute basket case, spent all he made and then maxed out his credit cards. Mortgage was in joint names, everything else separate. It still wasn’t a good model: guess who had to wave her magic wand and come up with $$$ if the house needed a new roof, or the water heater died, because he had nothing but a pile of credit card bills. Of course I had the money because I had avoided spending on some things I really wanted, such as travel, so that I could pay the bills and have money for emergencies and my retirement.

Current husband: a dear man whose main income is SS (he’s 74) with a little from freelance work. Very simple tastes except that he and I LOVE interesting travel. We also have separate accounts, mostly because I’m a control freak about finances. Every month he writes me a check for whatever he has left and I invest it. I don’t care what he spends the rest of it on and I never ask. He’s an adult. My only other splurges beyond travel are jewelry and tailor-made clothes. He knows that if I come home with something new I’ve figured out how to pay for it without defaulting on the mortgage or raiding the retirement funds, and he’s always happy to see me buy something I like. Life is good.

We’re looking into doing a Dave Ramsey course at our church and I may be the facilitator; I’ve heard it’s very good for getting husbands and wives on the same page financially.

cbwilliams2004

Sign up for Dave Ramsey's FPU class, and go to every session. Best $100 I ever spent.

Seriously, just go. Now.

If you hate it, I will personally send you a check for $200.

^^^ THIS!!! Absolutely right. My wife and I had constant arguments about money until reading Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. Now, the last week of the month we sit down and write out next month's budget. We each have an agreed upon amount of 'Free Money' to do whatever we want like lunches, football pools, etc.
I'm reading a lot of people talk about separate accounts. I know that's all the rage right now but here's the cheese: Intamacy extends beyond the bedroom! Intamacy is 'oneness'. You and your spouse should be 'one' in everything you do. Money, disciplining the kids, goals for your family, etc.
Go through a Dave Ramsey class or book. Put it in action. You two will probably argue even more in the beginning. That's okay. As long as you both are in it with common goals (i.e. what's best for the other person and your family as a whole) you will get through it. And when you do, you will most likely find yourselves even closer than before! :-) Good luck and God bless.

hikezilla

Dave Ramsey - get his book and read it, or go to FPU. You will never ever be able to manage your money until you know what you have, and where is has to go, before you spend a nickle. Every dollar coming in needs to have a destination before it gets there. A budget is what you need and you BOTH must agree on the budget and then do you best to stick to it. Things will ALWAYS come up unexpectedly, so you need to budget a monthly amount for those surprises...that money eventually starts to build up a bit but you have to remember is is NOT extra money...it is ear marked for "the unexpected". Once you do your budget you might find out you don't have enough income, or you might find out you have more left over than you expected...deal with it.

Linli_Anne

While we didn't ever argue about money, it is a stressor in all lifes (unless you have more than you know what to do with I guess).

What works for us is a budget.

I created an excel spreadsheet that lists absolutely EVERYTHING. I have it broken down into sections - things that are automatcially withdrawn, and their dates, groceries, gas, fun money, kids activities, day care, debt repayment, mortgage, car loan etc.

We have been using this system since we started to save up money for our wedding.

We each get an "allowance" every 2 weeks, we withdraw the cash and are done at that. Obviously things come up from time to time, that we figure out, but we are in a pretty good position overall.

sarahisme18

My husband and I have allowance for each of us, and we can spend it on whatever we like. The only things in our budget are things that we can both agree on—food, gas, eating out, rent, car payments, bills, etc.

But the biggest thing that keeps it civil between us is that we are both understanding and have grace towards each other if one or both of us spends money outside of our allowance that wasn't in the budget. I know it is annoying and can cause you to be short in other areas, but you have to respond calmly and with forgiveness. If you just get mad and hold on to it, things won't get better... nobody is perfect, and you'll both go outside of the budget occasionally. Not the end of the world!

RunningMannn

We each get 120 bucks a week for spending money. The bill money for February is saved from paychecks in January. So February 1st, all bills are paid. You have to get ahead and stay ahead. They say to get ahead 6 months..We might be two months ahead of the bills.

djeffreys10

I got a divorce. Considering she married me for money, it fixed all my money problems. In the 15 months since our divorce she married a private in the national gaurd that she knew all of two months and is living with her parents, and I have my kids and my salary.

Of course, her having an affair, a federal felony conviction, and a domestic violence conviction all the last 9 months we were togother played a role also. But still.

kit_katty

I agree with having a joint as well as separate accounts, some SOs end up not being the best choices...

Personally I have a budget and allowance, I think it's the best thing!

I know other people, like some people here, where Hubby pays for A and B, Wife pays for X and Y, so long as it's figured out, that's fine!

To me the key is communication and budgeting.

bolesbe

Dave Ramsey - get his book and read it, or go to FPU. You will never ever be able to manage your money until you know what you have, and where is has to go, before you spend a nickle. Every dollar coming in needs to have a destination before it gets there. A budget is what you need and you BOTH must agree on the budget and then do you best to stick to it. Things will ALWAYS come up unexpectedly, so you need to budget a monthly amount for those surprises...that money eventually starts to build up a bit but you have to remember is is NOT extra money...it is ear marked for "the unexpected". Once you do your budget you might find out you don't have enough income, or you might find out you have more left over than you expected...deal with it.

I agree Dave Ramsey's book or Finacial Peace University class is the best thing out there. It has hanged our lives by teaching us how to handle money. We are almost 100% debt free. Check it out, it's not easy but it's worth it!!!!

TraciStivers

When first married we had a joint account and it was TOXIC!!!! I'm a saver, when I do spend I want to make repairs to our home and get new windows and get new carpet and things like that!

My husband on the other hand wants Xbox games, movies, stereo equipment for his car, to go to comedy clubs, etc.

I have no trouble doing fun things, but I think they should come last.

Finally, we got seperate bank accounts, he pays certain bills and I pay certain bills. It works, except the last few weeks he's been bumming me for money and I find that extremely irritating!

Edited to add: We have also watched some of Dave Ramsey's seminars online and he has a ton of good advice! That too has helped us.