Yours, Mine, and Ours, part 1

Posted on August 26, 2008
Filed Under Couples | Leave a Comment

My wife and I have a fundamental difference of opinion regarding money. My wife’s opinion is that we should spend as little as possible, saving as much as we can (with a twist – money invested doesn’t count as “savings” in her view), and buying extras only when our savings is built up to a level that she is comfortable with. If we have unexpected expenses, discretionary spending should be curtailed until the savings can be built back up.
On the other hand, I have always been a “you can’t take it with you when you go” type of person. I usually had my paycheck spent before the next one came in – too much month left at the end of the money. If I wanted something, I bought it, and if I didn’t have the money I’d just put it on a credit card. As a result, I incurred quite a bit of credit card debt over time.
When I got married, things obviously had to change. I stopped my reckless spending, but kept the debt hidden from my wife – didn’t want her to know what a loser I was. She eventually found out anyway. We got the debt paid off fairly quickly, and things were OK for a few years. It was pretty easy to stop my casual spending because we wanted to save for a new car, which we bought in 2002. After that, we were saving for a house, which we bought in 2003. Then, we built up our savings to about $10,000.
This is when our money problem surfaced again – I felt that since we had a new car (paid for), a house of our own, and $10K in the bank (not counting my retirement plan at work), it was OK to start spending money again on things I like. Not a lot, maybe $100 to $300 per month, and my wife could spend the same amount on herself. This amount of personal spending would still allow us to save something like 10% of our net income each month. My wife felt differently – she thought we should be saving much more of our income, more like around 25% (or more).
Any time I spent money that she felt was unnecessary, she would question me about why I was spending money on myself that rightfully belonged to the family. From her perspective, any money not spent on household bills belonged to the family, and required a family (at least husband and wife) consensus on how it should be spent. I felt (and still feel) that 1. I’m an adult, 2. I work hard for the money I earn, and 3. As long as we are making reasonable contributions towards our savings, we should be able to spend some money individually without having to ask permission or otherwise justify the expense.
Since we were unable to compromise on this issue, I just started buying things I wanted again and putting them on the credit card. I didn’t have the money to pay off the balance every month (my wife would wonder where the money went), so the balance just kept building. (Before you email me to tell me how stupid this was, I already know how stupid I was). Over time, and with some medical bills, interest, etc., it eventually grew to over $17,000. When she found out last October, I thought she was going to divorce me, but she didn’t. We got paid off in only a few months by wiping out our savings and applying my wife’s entire income against the debt. We were also able to build up our savings to almost what it was before.
So, no problem, right? Uhmm, there is still a problem. To make sure I don’t slip back to my old bad habits, I showed my wife how to get online access to all our accounts. There is absolutely no way for me to hide any spending from her. I still believe, though, that I don’t need her permission for every single purchase I make. She still believes differently, to her it is “family money” and can’t be spent without family consensus. So we’re back to having stupid arguments about money – for now. I have an idea to fix it. I’ve run it by my wife, she is thinking it over.

Cheers,
Ken

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