Love And Marriage (And Money)
As part of a bi-religious dual-race multi-cultural marriage, raising children while teaching them different parts of two different religions, perhaps it isn’t a surprise that my wife and I occasionally disagree.
What may be a surprise is that we don’t spend much time disagreeing about religion or race or culture. We do on occasion, but really not very much. You can only have so many debates about who had the better tan, Jesus or Muhammad (PBUH). I refuse to verify her claim that I’m missing out by only eating turkey bacon. There’s no way to settle whether the caliphs would’ve made better backup dancers to Justin Timberlake than the apostles.
No — we disagree about the same things everyone else disagrees about: not folding the laundry; leaving milk on top of the refrigerator; not crossing off enough things on The Honey-Do list. Okay, these are just the last 3 things I got reprimanded over.
Yes – we also occasionally disagree about money.
Wait, What? A Married Couple Disagreeing About Money??
Now, I don’t qualify as a personal finance blogger, and I’m not giving advice, just sharing my experiences. I’ve read many different financial blogs, and learned from a few (White Coat Investor chief among them).
Maybe it’s just me (and it really may just be me, because I’m really stubborn and argumentative), but most financial bloggers don’t ever seem to mention the potential for strife when figuring out your financial future with your spouse/significant other.
I bring this up in part because I spend some time teaching trainees at my institution about personal finance (with the same caveat – I am not an expert).
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One of the points I give everyone, every time, is to try to be on the same page as your spouse/significant other, and not to hide money related issues or concerns. It’s a sure fire way to achieve the opposite of marital bliss.
However, getting on the same page isn’t easy. The discussions can be acrimonious. If you don’t discuss it in the proper context and with the proper attitude, it leads to hostility. Yes, you think you’re doing the right thing by suggesting your spouse buy the concentrated chai mix from Costco instead of going to Starbucks, however sometimes you forget that occasionally you just need someone to hand you a hot chai at the drive-thru window when you get up at the butt-crack of dawn to be at work by 6am for a 12-hour shift (this is purely a hypothetical. This didn’t actually happen).
I’m not a millennial – I just barely missed that cutoff. I have the impression couples several years younger than us spend more time discussing money before marriage than we did. Maybe that’s because of the recession, increased debt, and harder to achieve high-paying jobs (or maybe I just think that’s the case because of all the 25-30 year old people blogging about how they and their significant other are on a harmonious financial journey together).
So if you defined all monetary goals in advance of your marriage and you and your spouse are in the FIRE crowd (Financially Independent/Retire Early) at the age of 30 – congratulations! You are in rarified air. Go read Mr. Money Mustache.
If not, congratulations! You are like the rest of us, and you have to figure this out as you go. Keep reading this blog instead (but go read MMM also).
Rogue Wife?
Rogue Mom (I have not received her approval for this nickname, but we’re going with it for now) and I have come a long way in our marriage. We’re coming up on 11 years this month, and I’m not as overbearing and obnoxious about money and spending as I used to be (note the qualifier).
What is one thing I’ve learned? You can’t simply deliver a message about the need to save money or spend less. You have to have understand the financial goals you want to achieve. You have to figure out how to communicate that goal, be able to articulate why that goal is important, and both sides need to be open to having a reflective discussion of what behaviors may help and some hinder achieving that goal.
Yes, learning to agree about money and finances is basically the equivalent of reading self-help books and going through marriage counseling.
Why? It’s important to remember — your significant other may not agree with your goals. It’s all fine and dandy to say you want to eat ramen every day so you can save 70% of your income and retire at 35 (and eat ramen until you die so you don’t have to go back to work as a lawyer) so you can pursue your dream of building blankets for caterpillars to use in their cocoons as they become butterflies. But if he/she doesn’t want to eat ramen for the next 50 years while you make really tiny quilts in the wilderness, you may have to modify your plans.
Actually, Rogue Mom would be fine eating ramen until we die, so maybe not a great example.
This brings me to budgets, the original point of this post when I thought of it (yes, I hit a detour in the writing process). I thought early in our marriage that we needed a budget. We were in good shape financially with minimal debt and both of us working full-time, and we combined our finances relatively early in our marriage.
We maxed out our Roth IRAs, she always ensured she received her max work 401k match, and we saved some cash. We were doing better than most (way better than most doctors at that stage). Yet we did not have any defined savings goals. FIRE was not in my vocabulary (it just entered my vocabulary last year).
I wanted a budget because I was nagged by a feeling that we were overspending, even though we always had plenty of money and we were saving. So somewhere along the way I used Mint.com to set up some budgets for groceries, restaurants, etc. When we were close a grocery limit, I would tell my wife. The response I received was generally akin to: we need to eat, so unless you don’t want food in the fridge, that budget isn’t very helpful. Keep moving.
You can see the flaw in my approach. I was setting numbers without having mutual agreement on why and how much, and I was causing myself anxiety and her stress by placing artificial limits on things that needed flexibility.
What’s The Objective?
The bigger problem? I had not defined my own long-term savings goals or purposes. So the budget was a way to constrain spending, thus making me feel better, without having articulated why we shouldn’t spend the money. I couldn’t articulate it to her because I never verbalized it to myself.
I’ve spent more time over the past few years thinking about what we’re saving for and why. I am now much better at sharing why I think that’s important. She doesn’t always agree (she isn’t shy about disagreeing), but we have a mutual understanding of what the other is aiming for, so we can at least adjust our targets together, even if one side isn’t ecstatic or in full agreement with the target.
We abandoned the budget system years ago for a method that is better suited to our relationship and personalities. Early in our marriage we automated our savings and expenses, so as many things as possible are deducted without effort, including things like Roth IRA contributions or 529 contributions as well as things like the electricity bill.
I set up a spreadsheet that looks at our total income, subtract out the savings (retirement, college, etc.) and any fixed expenses (everything from internet to the lawn guy), and we have a number left over.
That number is our disposable income — roughly what we have to spend each month on every variable expense. That covers groceries to getaways. While some categories will be there every month (food), the amount for all of these categories can and will fluctuate. We periodically look to see what fixed expenses can be cut (bye-bye cable/satellite, hello antenna/Roku), and what variable expenses got out of hand in a given month (looking at you, Costco. Whoops — that’s on me.).
We charge everything possible to a single credit card (not always — future post on my mild version of credit card churning is planned) to make it easy to track spending (I’m very anti-debit cards due to fraud paranoia).
I still keep an eye on the spending, but instead I focus more on ensuring our total variable expenses for the month is under our monthly disposable income.
Automate Your Life — Skynet Approved
We automated our retirement and college savings to hit the goals we agreed on, so the major financial “stress” is ensuring that our variable expenses balance our disposable income over any few month time frame. This actually does require some effort depending on what’s going (high deductible health plans are painful early in the year), but we keep a small cash cushion in the checking account to avoid problems.
This setup works because of a few things:
• We’ve never had significant debt
• We both hate debt
• We never carry credit card balances
• We’re willing to forgo some traditional expensive “nice” things for the things that are more important (think less money spent on furniture so more is available for travel or kids or excursions)
• We have a steady income
• We don’t always buy the cheapest of everything (Cinnamon Frosted Pop Tarts have no generic equivalent), but we are cost-conscious
• I have some flexibility to work extra at times to help offset big expenses (i.e. I can work an extra shift if we plan an expensive vacation)
This setup obviously will not work for everyone, and it doesn’t work 100% of the time for us (but it works way better than my budget). My 3 loyal readers may think this is a terrible idea. J. Money at BudgetsAreSexy may think we’re out of our mind (I haven’t read much of his writing yet, but going off the website name I am guessing he likes budgets).
We’re also near what I hope is the end of a transition period that has necessitated re-evaluation of some of our goals. Hopefully in a few months I can share what I’ve learned from that transition, but the above is a reasonable summation of where we were before that transition hit.
Holy cow – this was about twice as long as I planned when I started writing this and I still didn’t squeeze in everything.
If you made it to the end of this, just humor me and let me know by giving me your social security number in the comment section. Or maybe just tell me what approach you (and your significant other if you have one) use with your money or what you think of our approach.
Remember — share widely and comment kindly!
I agree with much of this, nice post. You could likely write several other posts on this topic! This isn’t just a small issue for many folks!
Thank you. I think this is an endless discussion in some ways — probably why so many people write about it (and why some people can make so much money off giving advice).
The being able to be on the same page is the key. Which also means you need to be in the same book and reading the same author.
My wife and I aren’t always there, but trying to be. Frankly, I have a vision that I just am not very good and putting words to and life just has so many other things that just haven’t pushed too hard.
Hoping in the next 6-months to 12-months to try to give voice to the vision and get closer. We’ve been married 25-years. Life goes so much better when you are communicating well. When you aren’t communicating well, reflect on what brought you or has kept you together in the first place. You are not enemies, you are partners in all of this.
cd :O)
Wise words. I spend a lot of time thinking about this topic, but my wife can tell you that I’m often poor at communicating the reasons behind what I’m thinking (and sometimes the reasons are poor)…
You aren’t kidding when it comes to money being a sore spot for most people. It can be very tricky to have those conversations, no matter how long you have been with your partner. But I agree with you that in order to have a happy life (now and in the future), you have to be on the same page financially. My husband and I do not have a budget, per se, but we do have guidelines that we stick to each month. We keep separate checking and savings accounts. Our names are on both, but his check goes into his and my check goes into mine. The bills are split between us so each month the standard expenses are the same. Retirement and savings go directly into the appropriate accounts automatically. I also mainly use one credit card for purchases to track spending, but also to earn miles so when we head to Europe in a few years at least one person’s airfare will be paid for in miles. We also have an agreement that we can buy what we would like up to $200. If the item costs more than that, the other person has to agree to the purchase. While it might not work for everyone, it works for us! Keep writing as I truly enjoy your blog!
Thank you for the support! The more people that read the more likely I keep writing. So spread the word 🙂 I think you have a great approach. When we were first married we kept our finances separate but then split the bill pay (we even itemized our common credit card and manually contributed to the payment from our own funds). We decided after awhile that wasn’t worth the hassle, particularly once her income was down from being part-time or in school and my income went up, so splitting bills that way wasn’t really fair. We each have our own “private” credit card that predates our marriage that we kept (keep the credit scores up!) and we use those to have a way to spend a little on our own without the other knowing, but we haven’t set a spending amount. We used to do that but probably should again — I think that would help us harmonize things more. I do some mild credit card churning to get sign on bonuses/miles and have used that to pay for nice chunks of trips. I’ve got 100k AmEx points to spend on a trip to the UK we have coming up.
How did you know I’ve always wanted to knit quilts for caterpillars? It’s like you’re inside my mind. (And no to the SSN, I only give that out to African Princes who have lost their fortune, but can only get it back with my help.)
It sounds like your household runs a lot like ours. I’m overly financially conscious and my wife has had to remind me that a family of 4 can’t eat with a $100 a month food budget. We’ve landed in the same neighborhood as you as well. I don’t so much budget anymore as much as ensure our savings goals are being taken care of. Great post! Looking forward to the next one. And happy 1 month Blogiversary!
We have a blromance going — remember? A formal budget just doesn’t work for us, but if you meet the savings goals and don’t carry debt, then I’m not sure it is necessary. For some people it’s a necessary step, and just having an idea of where the money is going is still important. Looking at how much we’ve spent on Rogue One’s upcoming summer camps makes me want to vomit (and Rogue Mom wasn’t super excited either), so we may ratchet it back next year.
As a physician in-training about to be married to another physician, I found this post helpful. The common theme I’m hearing from most regarding finances in marriage have to do with goal setting and communication. I’m also not a huge fan of strict budgets. I’d love to see a follow-up post on this topic. Thanks!
Absolutely. The communication thing is an ongoing process. I haven’t mastered it. If the blog stays alive I will definitely follow up on this.
Win with the big rocks. Forget about the small rocks.
A wise person once mentioned to me that you don’t have to be on the same page with your spouse, but you both need to be reading from the same book. And no, there’s no Bible/Koran allusion there, just saying you’ve got to be close with your financial outlook, but not exactly the same.
Those are wise words — who said them? I think the harder part is figuring out what to do if you aren’t reading from the same book. Maybe go find a neutral third party book (Torah?)
So my SSN is… Haha. My husband and I use a budget template/spreadsheet. It works well for us and we’ve been doing it so long that we couldn’t imagine doing it any other way. Some things are automated like ROTH IRA contributions and certain bills, while other bills aren’t. I don’t really like companies having access to our money automatically. It has always made me feel like they’ll just try to take the money even if we don’t agree with our bill. Or maybe I’m just a little paranoid.
I think it’s a good idea to be on the same page as your spouse financially. Although we are very efficient with budgeting, it doesn’t always come easy. So a lot of the times we have to compromise. One of our biggest issues is the amount we spend on groceries/toiletries. I don’t think we’ll ever come to a complete agreement on that one.
I don’t knock people who don’t do a budget. I think that as long as what you’re doing is working for you and you truly feel like it’s working for you, then that’s what matters. What you and your wife are currently doing sounds very close to a budget though.
Almost every bill I automate goes to a credit card. I don’t like auto drafting from a bank account either, given that you never know what they will screw up. Some places don’t allow that and I’ve lived with it for the sake of convenience, but it is a concern. I would say what we are doing is distinct from a budget — we don’t actually alot a target amount of money to categories. We look at overall spending and I see where it goes, but if we have room to spare with our disposable income in a given month we don’t stress much about it, just carry it over to help with months where we overspend. It means we don’t trim as much fat from our spending as we could, but marital harmony requires some leeway. 🙂
There may not be off-brand available, but there’s even better – try home made pop tarts: http://altonbrown.com/toaster-pastry-recipe/
Those look amazing. But I am going to admit I am probably too lazy for that. Pop tarts are a guilty pleasure for me. The time it would take to make those would take away the guilt and make it harder to indulge myself. 🙂 Probably a good thing for my health though if I have to make them instead of toast — wouldn’t easy as many and would appreciate it more.
I’m the FI one and kidnapped my husband on board the FI train. The goal for us is not early retirement though — just security.
It wasn’t easy getting him completely on board. He didn’t splurge but he wasn’t smart about investing or saving. Last night I heard him whisper in his sleep something about energy efficient light bulbs and I’m sure he’s a convert now. It only took me 2 years, ha!
So when you say your goal is security, how are you defining that? Physician on Fire has some nice terminology describing what he considers the various states of this — I think the term “financial freedom” may have been what he described as closer to what you mention (but I can’t find the post at the moment). I’m not focused on FIRE, but I am focused on flexibility. While we’re doing a reasonable job saving, I don’t see myself retiring in my 40’s (though to be fair I’m not on a path to do that anyway). If I don’t want to work long enough to help my kids w/college I could retire much faster. Frankly if it weren’t for kids I could probably retire in 5 years… or at least work part-time.
Even the most harmonious marriages have to be built on some compromise and flexibility. I feel very fortunate that Mr.Need2Save and I have always had similar values and goals financially and otherwise, but they have certainly evolved over time. In addition, we are very different in our thinking and approaches so sometimes one of us reaches a conclusion in advance of the other and we need to be patient while the other one catches up. But we almost always get to the same place in the end. It also helps that we each bring different skills to the table in the pursuit of finding creative ways to reduce expenses and making our funds stretch farther.
Also, not everyone blogging is 25-30. 🙂 We are 44, and there are plenty of fellow Gen X-ers and even Baby Boomers talking about similar topics.
Ha — I know there are people of all ages out there. I feel like it’s the 25-30 crowd that is acting militant about it. They seem more likely to be Mustachians. It sounds as if you two are on the same page. I am curious when you say you reach “a conclusion in advance of the other and we need to be patient.” For a lot of couples that sounds like a fight and a reconciliation. 🙂 Do you have a better strategy you can share?
Oh, luckily we never fight. We have enough respect for one another that we can agree to disagree. If one of us feels strongly about a certain thing, we gently make our arguments and give the other person time and space to think about it. Some times it’s a couple days – sometimes it’s a couple weeks and then we can talk about it again when the other person has had time to think about. There are certainly things we never agree on (politics for example). The key for us, I guess, is patience and respect for the other’s opinion.
I’m extremely stubborn. That’s not a good trait when resolving financial disagreements…