Financial Budgeting In Relationships - What works for you?

[Nifty]

I love this topic!! I could sit with another married couple and talk about if for ages.

I've found that no matter how frugal or spendy each person is, there is always one that is a bit more spendy or frugal than the other. This being the case, it often ends up being a little (or even huge) point of contention in relationships.

So, I'd love to see a discussion on what you do. A few questions to get the conversation juices flowing:

1) Who is more "frugal", you or your spouse?
2) Has the unbalance caused any issues (small or big) in your relationship?
3) Do you both have the same financial goals, e.g., retire young, live out in the country, be debt free, big vacations, or simple living?
4) Have you tried to budget? If yes or no, why?
5) If you have tried to budget, what has and/or has not worked for you?

 

[me&thegals]

I agree--this IS a fascinating topic! Almost all my friends are dramatically different from their spouses, like you've noted. My husband and I began our relationship as polar opposites, eventually crossed each other in the other direction and have now met directly in the middle

I had to put myself through college and so could not bear to spend a penny unnecessarily. He was working right out of high school and blowing it all.

1. These days, we're equally frugal.
2. No imbalances, except when he goes on hunting trips and I try not to resent it. My money is spent on crafts, but I give them away for gifts or sell them, so they actually make us money. Not a big issue for us, though.
3. We have the same financial goals--to be debt free (except mortgage), own land, pay our bills, save for retirement. I have the additional goal of helping our children with college, which he does not share but goes along with anyway.
4. We don't budget since we don't seem to need to. We try to save money everywhere we can and leave beneath our means. Mainly, I'm unwilling to take the time/effort to track everything. I would LOVE to know, though, exactly where it all goes. Occasionally I will go through our checkbook and card statements to find out how much went to gas, restaurants, grocery, etc.

I think being mismatched financially would be incredibly stressful on a relationship. My friends who are mismatched have found that sticking with a spouse's budget has brought peace to the household

 

[Beekissed]

Divorce?

Sad, but true, actually. A more extreme case of differing views on finances than has been described here, but the cause of many divorces, I'm sure.

 

[FarmerChick]

1) Who is more "frugal", you or your spouse?
2) Has the unbalance caused any issues (small or big) in your relationship?
3) Do you both have the same financial goals, e.g., retire young, live out in the country, be debt free, big vacations, or simple living?
4) Have you tried to budget? If yes or no, why?
5) If you have tried to budget, what has and/or has not worked for you?

********ME---I am more frugal because I buy "more" things for the household on a daily basis.

***no unbalances at all.

***same financial goals. to be debt free and use the farm as a means of support vs. spending money to buy our survival.

***no budget now....I budgeted before when in debt and had to dig out. Now that is over (whew..lol) I know I don't need a budget to never spend into the hole again.....we now buy in cash etc. so if I have it to spend I might, if I don't, I don't buy.

***One pet peeve of mine is the farm equipment. Everything is so darn expensive to buy or fix. Tractor tire will set ya back $600 for one tire! Tractor rototiller was $1500---never a small ticket item it seems on the farm....but when Tony spends big money on things I don't resent him for purchasing, I resent the cost in general..LOL

I don't see money tensions between any of my friends and their spouses. I heard of "money" being a main issue for marriages of course, but my circle is mainly the woman control the money...lol...and the men folk stay within reason

 

[BrookValley]

I love this topic!! I could sit with another married couple and talk about if for ages.

I've found that no matter how frugal or spendy each person is, there is always one that is a bit more spendy or frugal than the other. This being the case, it often ends up being a little (or even huge) point of contention in relationships.

So, I'd love to see a discussion on what you do. A few questions to get the conversation juices flowing:

1) Who is more "frugal", you or your spouse?
2) Has the unbalance caused any issues (small or big) in your relationship?
3) Do you both have the same financial goals, e.g., retire young, live out in the country, be debt free, big vacations, or simple living?
4) Have you tried to budget? If yes or no, why?
5) If you have tried to budget, what has and/or has not worked for you?

1) I am definitely more frugal. I try to make my own things as often as possible, shop sales and coupon, etc. My husband isn't super spendy, but he is much more impulsive than I am. I carefully research each and every purchase, for the most part, whether it be flour at the grocery store or a big-ticket item. Yes, I'm human and I've made the ocasional impulse buy, but it's very rare! As a rule, I don't buy things that I don't need. My husband is very good at finding the best prices on something--he rarely pays full price for anything--but somehow this seems to give him an excuse to buy things that he doesn't need. "But it was on sale!" or, "But it was only $20" really gets to me. Those unecessary items add up! Which I guess leads into #2....

2) Yes. The difference in our spending habits has caused issues, many small, some big. In many ways we are on the same page, but when I come home after a weekend trip to visit an ill friend and find a very fancy brand-new drum set hiding in the extra bedroom....well, I get a bit angry. On the flip side, while he's been a good sport about it, I imagine that my husband might sometimes resent the fact that I spend a lot of money to feed our animals (we have a lot).

3) We do have common goals. The only real debt we have is a large chunk of credit card debt, and we both know we want to get rid of that and be debt-free. We both like to live simply--I could live quite a bit more simply than he would ever like to, but we've met at a middle-ground that makes both of us happy. All in all, we're pretty much on the same page.

4 & 5) Yes. We do budget. But after bills and payroll deductions (my husband puts a lot of his paycheck into retirement funds, education funds for the little one, etc.) we don't have a lot left over. I only work part-time hours now because I stay home with our son, so my paycheck goes to groceries (I do some serious budgeting there!) and to feed the animals. For me, it's like a game--I like to see how much food I can get for $50 and how long I can make it last! My husband does everything electronically, so each paycheck is automatically divided between bills, 401K/mutual funds/education, and savings. My system is not so organized because I never know how much I'm going to make each pay period--I only work when there's work to be done, so sometimes I'm busy and sometimes I hardly have any hours to charge. We keep all of our money separate--we don't have a single joint account, and never have.

 

[miss_thenorth]

I love this topic!! I could sit with another married couple and talk about if for ages.

I've found that no matter how frugal or spendy each person is, there is always one that is a bit more spendy or frugal than the other. This being the case, it often ends up being a little (or even huge) point of contention in relationships.

So, I'd love to see a discussion on what you do. A few questions to get the conversation juices flowing:

1) Who is more "frugal", you or your spouse?
2) Has the unbalance caused any issues (small or big) in your relationship?
3) Do you both have the same financial goals, e.g., retire young, live out in the country, be debt free, big vacations, or simple living?
4) Have you tried to budget? If yes or no, why?
5) If you have tried to budget, what has and/or has not worked for you?

#1 Me. My husband appreciates my frugality, but is wasn't always this way. hence--\

#2 Yes. When we first started out, we both spent liberally, and were overdraft every month, with me hiding in oblivion. Once I realized it. I took over the finances and set a budget to get us out of debt,. While thankful that I took over the finances, he was not thankful that I did not leave him any money for hobbies.

Being the hard-nose that I am, I said--we have been playing long enough, now we have to buckle down and pay for it. Once it is paid for, then you can play again. So life was rough, financially and personally, b/c he was a total grump for a very long time. We weren't married at that time. He could have left, but 17 years later we are still together,(and married now).

#3 Yes. As we grew up, we grew together, and although we are totally different ppl, we are very much alike, so we have the same aspirations of where our life will go as we get older.

#4--see #2

#5 We don't budget now, but when we had to, and if I had to do it again, I wouldn't cut out money for his hobbies. While I can easily do without, he really needed his hobbies as an outlet for stress. While it is important to get out of debt, and we really had to make lifestyle changes to drop the credit card debt, he was absolutely miserable to live with without at least a little bit of golf etc. so I think giving both of us an allowance in our budget would have been a better way to go.

On the bright side, we were out of debt quick, and life got alot better from there.

 

[patandchickens]

1) Who is more "frugal", you or your spouse?

Hmm - we're probably about the same, just in different ways and for different reasons. DH does not have much in the way of hobbies or entertainment that it would occur to him to want to spend money on; and as far as spending money for other people he is, er, uninterested in the subject, ahem. He is not particularly interested either in saving money on general principle, although it entertains him no end to spend lots of time on the computer searching for somewhere with 1cent cheaper gasoline. I, OTOH, am a lot more apt than he is to want to spend money on hobbies, or home improvement, or experiences for the kids; but I am also much more apt than he is to want to SAVE money by making things ourselves, using secondhand, scrounging, being extra efficient, etc. On the whole I think it probably averages out about the same between us.

2) Has the unbalance caused any issues (small or big) in your relationship?

No, we are probably one of the few couples in the universe who do not argue about money. Everything else, just not money

3) Do you both have the same financial goals, e.g., retire young, live out in the country, be debt free, big vacations, or simple living?

Yes, fortunately!

4) Have you tried to budget? If yes or no, why?

Yes, because DH is totally unacquainted with coping with supporting oneself independantly on a finite budget (don't ask), and in the past I've been significantly in debt, through carelessness and just not caring, and really don't want to go there again. I'm the budget-er in the house; DH is sort of 'whatever' about it and just wanders around feeling vaguely deprived and oppressed by the idea that you have to keep an eye on finances <shrug>.

5) If you have tried to budget, what has and/or has not worked for you?

Spreadsheets for long-term ballpark projections (for retirement savings, for how much house we could afford, things like that); and trying to keep a couple thousand dollars' cushion in the checking account to cover errors of estimation Also just generally trying not to live too close to the limits of our means. Seems to be working ok so far. Ask me again when he retires and the kids are in college, or when he has been retired a while , then we'll see

Pat

 

[cjparker]

Who's more frugal? Hmmm, let me put it this way. When my husband and I got married, he had over 150 tee shirts, 500 cds (and I don't mean Certificates of Deposit), a checking account that he had never balanced, and a roomful of high end stereo equipment.

His folks spent money like water, because they had a nicer-than-average home in a very desirable community in Calif. They had middle-class jobs but took out every penny in equity on that home so that they could live $20,000 a year beyond their means. NOT FOR US!

It took some doing in the first few years, but hubby and I never have issues with money now. I'm tight with our money and get good value for the dollars we spend. Hubby gets an allowance. He doesn't even ask for an accounting of where the money went.....all our income is direct deposited and then his allowance money goes into his seperate account. I try to keep him informed of where we are financially so that if anything happens, he won't be lost.

We are working on getting our home paid off within 7-10 years. It looks like we will be able to make our goal, which hubby enthusiastically supports. As long as he gets his allowance........

I budget things out, mostly to keep track of spending. Also, he gets paid every other week which means that two months out of the year, he gets three paydays. I budget everything based on two paydays a month for his income, so that third check can go for unanticipated needs or to pay down the mortgage. My income varies from month to month, so I use the lowest reasonable dollar amount, and then if there is more, it's treat time or we dump it in savings, depending on the willpower of the moment.

 

[Homesteadmamma]

DH and I run all the finances together. We sit down weekly and figure out how much money we have and what bills need paid. I write the checks, and he pays the online stuff. The only inequality we have is that his hobby (guns) is more expensive than mine (peace and quiet).

 

[Homesteadmom]

I love this topic!! I could sit with another married couple and talk about if for ages.

1) Who is more "frugal", you or your spouse?
2) Has the unbalance caused any issues (small or big) in your relationship?
3) Do you both have the same financial goals, e.g., retire young, live out in the country, be debt free, big vacations, or simple living?
4) Have you tried to budget? If yes or no, why?
5) If you have tried to budget, what has and/or has not worked for you?

1. I am more frugal in our household(good thing I control the finances).

2. yes we have had some doesies of fights over finances. Just recently dh went on a spending spree using his debit card & did not give me receipts & I wrote a lot of checks to pay bills & all my checks bounced & we racked up over $300 in nsf fees & returned check fees. So everything is behind(slowly getting caught back up). He said he did not give me the reciepts because he did not want to get yelled at. LOL he got yelled at worse & is on a spending freeze unless he talks to me first now.

3. We plan to retire when he is 51. He will be fully vested in his retirement at work & I have an annunity from our accident that will kick in the next week & start paying me(nontaxable funds). We will be getting about 5k/mo then. We will be living on our property up in the mountains(40 acres) & be very self sufficent up there. Be debt free & be able to travel some too. So our goals are the same it is seeing how to get us there.

4.We are def on a budget(very tight) right now. We will probobly stay on one for a long time now too, as we bought a new house & the mortgage went up.

5. I write a list of what bills need to get paid each month & how much they are & after paying bills first, I then determine how much I have left over for groceries & gas for my van(dh's diesel is included in budget as he drives to work everyday) for the 2 week period. then I scour the ads to see what will give us the biggest bang for our buck. Plus throw in those coupons too. This also gives me a little leeway if something happens(like an alternator going out on a diesel motor, ouch) to be able to see what I can juggle till next payday.

Dh has really seen the need for us to become even more self sufficent now & is on board to plant more fruit trees & plants & a bigger garden. We are getting more chickens Weds(free). And he is seriously think about getting a milking goat too.