Money Differences

[Hokuspocus]

What does everyone do when they have different ideas on how to spend money and manage it? Dh and I have been fighting about this for a while, where it go to the point yestereday where I said if you don't do something I'm going to leave. I just feel he spends his money on things that are too expensive...(given the fact that xjt isn't stable and we still won't know until after the next surgery if he can even go back to work) He has the money to buy the stuff I just think he should save it. My other problem is that it is HIS money (from his parents) so I feel kind of bad telling him how to use it since its not mine...I was just wondering how everyone else delt with differences on how to spend/save money?

[TheWife]

You're married, IMO you don't have "HIS" money and "HER" money, it's "BOTH of yours". How would he feel if the role was reversed? I think the two of you should sit down and make a monthly budget, and think of the long term goals you have like buying a house or saving for retirement, and short term goals like a vacation next year. In your budget, be sure to include a misc. amount for things that don't come up monthly, but are still expenses (like car registration, Dr. co-pay, holiday money, etc.) After your budget is done, look at what you have left over monthly from all your income sources. Now agree on an amount to set aside monthly for your short term goals, long term goals, an emergency fund, and an agreed on discretionary spending fund for each of you. If there is nothing left after your monthly budget for those things, then IMO your dh shouldn't be spending any money on anything until you are able to put your budget and savings needs first. In our family we both agree on what's spent out of our money, or it doesn't get spent until we can come to an agreement. (Which is RARE.)

[Regina]

I agree with Michelle....this is good advice. And to reitterate your point about expressjet...no airline is stable right now. In fact, no job is stable right now, airline or not. I think it depends on how you guys look at the money, bills, etc. Do you look at things as our's, or do you look at things as mine and his? That would determine how you will go about dealing with this subject. So, I guess my first thing I would do is ask how he/you want to view the money in your guys' lives.

Originally Posted by TheWife

You're married, IMO you don't have "HIS" money and "HER" money, it's "BOTH of yours". How would he feel if the role was reversed? I think the two of you should sit down and make a monthly budget, and think of the long term goals you have like buying a house or saving for retirement, and short term goals like a vacation next year. In your budget, be sure to include a misc. amount for things that don't come up monthly, but are still expenses (like car registration, Dr. co-pay, holiday money, etc.) After your budget is done, look at what you have left over monthly from all your income sources. Now agree on an amount to set aside monthly for your short term goals, long term goals, an emergency fund, and an agreed on discretionary spending fund for each of you. If there is nothing left after your monthly budget for those things, then IMO your dh shouldn't be spending any money on anything until you are able to put your budget and savings needs first. In our family we both agree on what's spent out of our money, or it doesn't get spent until we can come to an agreement. (Which is RARE.)

[Mistress Trista]

My dh and I are going through the same thing, but it's reversed. He's cheap, I'm not. I wish I knew what to tell you.

[Mistress Trista]

Originally Posted by TheWife

You're married, IMO you don't have "HIS" money and "HER" money, it's "BOTH of yours".

You know, I was thinking about this one sentence and I disagree. We co mingle our money, but because we choose to. What's right or what's wrong is determined by the individual couple, not by a majority rule or by what other people do.

[Hokuspocus]

Well as far as budget (I usually don't bother ) I make a list of all the bills that need to be paid and put it on the fridge. We have no where near as much coming in as we have going out (its not me spending it) dh has ALOT of money saved (probably my salary for 2 maybe 3 years) but I don't want to use that to subsidze our monthly bills. I want to make it so we can pay our monthly bills with what we actually have not use savings. We do have a joint account, but then he as his "other" account. Its not that he constintly spends alot of money but take for example our house I wanted a smaller house that we could have paid off (makes financial sense right?) so he builds this monster and we really don't need all this space, he's now agreed that we should have built a smaller house (like I suggested) but its too late. I like the house but for two people its just huge, he grew up in much bigger house though and thinks this one is small, I grew up in a much smaller house so I think its huge! I guess its kind of a difference on what you had (or didn't have) growing up....Thanks for the ideas we do tend to look at my money vs his money even though we have a joint account...

[TheWife]

Originally Posted by Mistress Trista

You know, I was thinking about this one sentence and I disagree. We co mingle our money, but because we choose to. What's right or what's wrong is determined by the individual couple, not by a majority rule or by what other people do.

That's why I said "In MY Opinion"

[Bigsweetie]

I agree with you Hokus that the bills should be paid with the money coming in, not by a savings acct. We use our savings acct. on a rare occassion if we're a little low that month, but we make it a point to put it back over the next couple of months.

At our house, i'm the saver and DH is the spender. In the beginning it was a recipe for disaster. Before we got married we talked about spending habits, debt, etc. and DF agreed that his spending was out of control and he couldn't keep living on his credit cards. After we got married, and he knew I "couldn't" leave him, he went right back to his old ways. I was doing the bills and we'd fight almost every day about his spending. One day, I just had it. I told him i'm not doing the bills anymore, you do them. I hope we stay afloat. Not the best way to handle it, but I needed him to see first hand how his spending was affecting our financial situation. He didn't believe me when I told him, he needed to see it first hand.

The first few months, he didn't change any of his spending habits and he saw on the statements how little we were left with at the end of the month (if anything at all- and actually most months he dipped into our savings). It took a while for him to "get it" but he finally did and now he's more of a miser than I am! LOL! Not really, but he doesn't like our checking acct. to go below a amount that I think is too high.

We've learned to balance each other out though. I used to be a horrible miser and would NEVER spend money on myself - EVER! Now that he makes a little more money, I allow myself little luxuries here and there (i.e.- a new tshirt if I need one, or getting my haircut more than once/yr - although it's still at the cheapest place in town LOL!).

My advice - after all that rambling... find a balance. He needs to understand that you can't "live in the moment" with this money from his parents, and that he needs to save for the future. You need to learn to let him have a little something extra once in a while and not worry that the sky is falling (not that you're doing that, i'm just saying...).

Could you work out a compromise that allows him one or two "luxuries" per year and the rest of the time, the money is saved (or invested or whatever)?

Good luck!!