Author Topic: How to talk about money with spouse??  (Read 5969 times)

austinnn

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How to talk about money with spouse??
« on: September 17, 2014, 09:30:38 AM »
How would you recommend talking about money with a spouse that doesn't want to (but needs to) talk about money?

I appreciate your insight into this important topic! :)

odput

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Re: How to talk about money with spouse??
« Reply #1 on: September 17, 2014, 09:36:26 AM »
MMM has a couple good articles on this topic:
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/03/22/selling-the-dream-how-to-make-your-spouse-love-frugality/
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/03/27/selling-the-dream-of-financial-independence-part-2/

I've had the most success with coming up with a goal we can both agree on, and start with small changes that will help get you there.

And also:
Quote from: MMM
STEP 1: REALIZE THAT YOUR GOOD NEWS WILL INITIALLY FEEL LIKE A PUNCH IN THE FACE

pichirino

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Re: How to talk about money with spouse??
« Reply #2 on: September 17, 2014, 09:54:15 AM »
My SO did not believe she could save a certain amount so what I did was sit down with her and
let her fill in all her expenses using this budgetcalculator :

http://loans.org/personal/calculators/budgeting

It was way easier to show her every decision within this context and how she could achieve a high savings rate
with minimal sacrifice to achieve big mutual goals.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2014, 09:56:21 AM by pichirino »

former player

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Re: How to talk about money with spouse??
« Reply #3 on: September 17, 2014, 10:41:10 AM »
There's some great advice from lentils5eva and ioseftavi on their journal -

http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/index.php?topic=8539.msg359500#msg359500

There are also various "how not to do it" examples which I will leave you to find...

wtjbatman

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Re: How to talk about money with spouse??
« Reply #4 on: September 17, 2014, 12:50:06 PM »
"Honey, we need to talk about our finances."

pachnik

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Re: How to talk about money with spouse??
« Reply #5 on: September 17, 2014, 01:14:07 PM »
There's some great advice from lentils5eva and ioseftavi on their journal -

http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/index.php?topic=8539.msg359500#msg359500

There are also various "how not to do it" examples which I will leave you to find...
+1 to the advice from Lentils5eva and ioseftavi on talking about MMM stuff with a spouse.   This is very good and reasonable advice.




DeepEllumStache

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Re: How to talk about money with spouse??
« Reply #6 on: September 17, 2014, 01:24:17 PM »
There's some great advice from lentils5eva and ioseftavi on their journal -

http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/index.php?topic=8539.msg359500#msg359500

There are also various "how not to do it" examples which I will leave you to find...
+1 to the advice from Lentils5eva and ioseftavi on talking about MMM stuff with a spouse.   This is very good and reasonable advice.

+1 to their advice.  There are some extremely good points to consider.

austinnn

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Re: How to talk about money with spouse??
« Reply #7 on: September 17, 2014, 02:26:03 PM »
Amazing! You guys rock. :)

Exflyboy

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Re: How to talk about money with spouse??
« Reply #8 on: September 17, 2014, 02:49:24 PM »
Yes this is tricky,

My Wife is fourtunately frugal by intent but not in action.

In other words she really is not interested in saving money, but boy if Skype drops a call to her mother its because Frank is trying to be cheap..:)

I finally went through our spending and got serious about getting the best deal on insurance, getting off Verizon (My Wife was really unaware that she spent $100 every time she hit the limit on her minutes)..

Took me 5 months of negotiating but finally I told Wifey.. "its the cell phone OR the landline.. I am sick and tired of paying for both"
Her argument was "I can't hear on the cell phone so I need the landline.. and I need a cellphone for when I'm out of the house, I need it for work".. Does work pay for your cell?.. NO.. well now you have a choice.


I had to spend some time to figure out what would allow me to make some changes.. To be blunt I had to point out that the only way she could be so wasteful (Wasteful is a good work to use to relatively frugal person) is because I earned a big fat salary and if she was on her own she couldn't afford to throw money away like that.

It took a while, she still doesn't really care about money, but she does realize that we are now FI and she can quit work whenever she wants.. That she likes..:)

The landline was the last hurdle.. $87 a month on average for duplicating what the cell already did.. So I signed up for Skype ($2.99 a month unlimited calls in the US) and cut the ties.

By the time I had finished I cut our monthly expenditure by nearly $600 a month!

I had to do all the work ad get her on my side, it took a while, different outlook on life I guess.


Frank

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Re: How to talk about money with spouse??
« Reply #9 on: September 17, 2014, 04:23:00 PM »
My husband and I spent the first 10 years of our marriage making good money, saving lots, and generally making good financial decisions (we are both fairly conservative fiscally) - but talking about money almost always led to a fight.

He wanted to put every dollar of savings into retirement. I wanted to put most in retirement and some in short term savings accounts for EF and things we knew we'd want to purchase or do. Oh the fights! We didn't listen to each other well, and each of us felt like we were right...and just thinking about it practically gives me anxiety.

What helped for us was taking Dave Ramsey's Total Money Make Over class. We learned a lot about finances, about saving for emergencies, the near future and the far future. It also took a lot of the emotion out of our discussions, we learned to ask questions, listen while the other talked, and look not only at our viewpoint, but why the other partner felt they way they did.

A lot of people think Dave Ramsey is only for people in debt, but I think it is good for anyone who wants to learn about finances, saving, investing, and how to talk about money with a partner. Yeah, folks on this site know a lot, but sometimes that makes them less than patient with people who are not on board with saving a large part of their income. We are now on what Dave Ramsey calls Baby Step Seven (Save and Invest and Live Like No One Else). We are building wealth. I feel like we now have more in common with the people here who are planning early retirement than we do with those who listen to Ramsey to get out of crippling debt...but I will always be grateful that the TMMO class taught us how to communicate about money and stopped all the fighting.


expatartist

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Re: How to talk about money with spouse??
« Reply #11 on: September 17, 2014, 08:29:23 PM »
Excellent links, GoblinChief!
I like BNL's posts as well:

http://www.bravenewlife.com/02/how-to-get-your-significant-to-embrace-a-brave-new-life/

http://www.bravenewlife.com/02/mrs-bnls-perspective-on-the-brave-new-life/

DH and I struggled when talking about $ for years. Eventually we got more on the same page, and in a way skirted the issue by keeping our finances separate. It works for us, doesn't work for many though.