How transparent are you with your spouse on spending habits?

[hybrid]

The missus and I do not hide anything from one another, everything is in joint accounts. Each of us has our moments of weakness and makes the occasional dumb purchase. But in general it is several steps forward for each step back so I try not to pay too much attention to the steps back and look at the big picture. (Well, with one glaring exception, and she is working on that glaring exception today....)

Honestly, making good coin helps paper over much and occasionally still does. The down side for years was making good coin kept us in the relatively minor leagues of saving, we could live a pretty ridiculous lifestyle (by this websites standards) and still save for traditional retirement.

[retired?]

Don't discuss on a regular basis, but we use one main credit card and alerts are sent for all purchases.  When I was working, I used to joke that I can track her movements during the day and know what she's been up to.

Anyway, so discussion occurs "real time", but perhaps should be done before purchase sometimes.  We are still transitioning on our spending habits. 

The frustrating part was that I have been, since kids were born 12 years ago, the bread winner.  May sound like a recipe for disaster, but since I was in higher paying, but annoying jobs, that I felt like my vote counted more.  And, now that I am not working and she is bringing in a small amount with a part-time job, I still feel that way b/c our savings were generated by me.

Our stuff is all co-mingled.  Hasn't been too hard RE gifts.  Seems that's a small part of it.  I'd use a CC other than our main one if I really felt a need to keep the gift purchase a surprise.

As an aside, not surprised by the $300/month.  But, agree with another post that it is likely "shopping therapy".  I can think of 4 women in my immediate family (spouse, sister, mom.....tho reformed, and MIL) who each shop for the thrill.  It's almost seems like a hunter/gatherer instinct.  I note too that each of these ladies had the same situation as me......hubby earned and each was a SAHM for a long time.  I can't help but think that not have been the earner (while all worked raising kids) made it easier to spend freely without much thought.

[Thegoblinchief]

I can't help but think that not have been the earner (while all worked raising kids) made it easier to spend freely without much thought.

I don't understand this mentality at all. I gather it's pretty common, but as the SAHP (I work weekends still, but I am basically a homemaker except for those 14hrs/week) I'd feel guilty wasting money the other spouse had earned. Double that since we decided to push for becoming FI.

To use a sports analogy, the earner is offense, the homemaker is defense. Defense wins championships.

[Sylly]

We don't track spending and we don't have limits. 

...

I don't care what he spends money on because I've never had to worry about problem spending and vice versa.  I'm happy when he buys some clothes (invariably Eddie Bauer on sale) or goes out for beer with his friends and he doesn't care what I spend on.  Sometimes he encourages me to spend more on things that I get a lot of enjoyment from.

Ditto this. Looks like we're in the minority. We don't look at every line item on each other's CC bills. We discuss big ticket items, or joint use items and the cost gets split (in the 'I pay for A, you pay for B' sort). But both of us can pretty much buy whatever clothes, toys, random stuff we want with our own money. Thankfully we're not the spendy types.

From a practical point of view, ~300/mo on clothes is crazy. But I can see how one can rack up that kind of bill if the latest fashion or brand name matters.

[AJ]

We are 100% transparent also.

But for that to work, you have to give your spouse some leeway. My hubby knows I work really hard to get us to a financial place where we can FI. He knows it's important to me, so he makes an effort not to waste money. But the flip side to that is that I know certain things are important to him too. He just spent almost $2k to record and release a hobby folk/electronica album. It is powerfully meaningful to him, and I didn't even flinch at the price. Yes, I will have to work longer to accommodate it. But his happiness is worth it. If $300 a month in clothes is important to her, you might consider just conceding. Find what areas she is willing to tighten up and work on those instead.

People almost never value the exact same things. As long as she is working with you towards your goals, I would say cut her some slack.

[pachnik]

My husband and I keep our money separate.  For joint purchases, we consult almost always since we shop together.  Birthday presents for each other are usually in the $100 range - no consultation required.  :)  I know he is working on paying down his debts and he knows I save about 40% of my income for retirement.   Ours is very simple since we must keep our $ separate and neither one of us is crazy-spendy. 

[smalllife]

So my questions are:

• Do you review all of your spending with your spouse regularly?   How does that go?
  
• Do you keep a separate "none of your business how I spend it" portion or is it all wide open?
• If it's all wide open, how do you handle gifts bought for each other?

-We review category balances, any extra income, or unspent category balances regularly in YNAB.  Individual purchases not so much, although we don't buy much outside of food.  If a category seems abnormal at the end of the month we'll take a look.  Anything outside of the ordinary is review before it's spent, so going over spending after the fact is usually pretty pointless.  It's funny, because before we merged finances the SO was a compulsive bank account balance checker and a little more carefree with spending but now he is the one compulsively checking category balances and making sure we're on track for the month.  We talk through our joint goals whenever there is money to allocate (usually once a week as I'm paid weekly) so when it comes time to actually purchase, if there's money in the category it's already been discussed.   

-We have $100 "fun money" a month.  It covers all personal spending - clothes (me), haircuts (him), food with friends, video games (him), DIY experiments (me).  We share a sport hobby that is in joint spending.  I have a master category in YNAB and he has his old checking account.  Pretty much all spending in our "fun money" category is still "open", but it helps him to have some privacy on food spending/surprise me with flowers and it helps me to have some money that it's okay to spend on things that I want but don't need. 

-It comes from the "fun money" and we just don't tell the other person that we got it until it's in their hands.  I'm not big on gifts so I don't understand the desire to keep that secret . . . .

[Cyrano]

We have transparent books, but we don't question individual expenses except to ask, was that you or was that credit card fraud? And we review spending categories annually to help plan for the coming year. On a monthly basis, I would rather spend that time taking a walk together.

Transparent books are best used as an accurate reflection of what you're doing with money.

If you have significant value differences regarding what you should be doing with money, your bookkeeping system can't help you with that, except to accurately quantify the difference of opinion. It doesn't end well to try to make it do more.

[wtjbatman]

Just combined finances with my fiance! About two weeks ago.

Wish me luck ;)

[retired?]

I can't help but think that not have been the earner (while all worked raising kids) made it easier to spend freely without much thought.

I don't understand this mentality at all. I gather it's pretty common, but as the SAHP (I work weekends still, but I am basically a homemaker except for those 14hrs/week) I'd feel guilty wasting money the other spouse had earned. Double that since we decided to push for becoming FI.

To use a sports analogy, the earner is offense, the homemaker is defense. Defense wins championships.

I don't understand it either.  With all four couples (me included), it appeared everything was jointly managed.  The stash belongs to both, regardless of how generated, so both should care about it.  But, this is simply what I've observed.  Probably also the expectation that income will go on forever.  Both dads worked forever, and my bro-in-law (who has 60k pension) is probably expected to work a full second career.

I'd like to just play offense.  Playing defense (i.e. being the bad guy, or sane person) ain't always fun.

[Spiffsome]

My husband and I sort of work backwards on the math.

Each of us has our own salary and our own bank accounts. We have a mortgage with agreed payments. The bills and mortgage come out of his salary. Out of the remainder, we worked out our intended savings rate. Some of that comes out of his salary, but most of it comes out of mine. We show each other the account balances from time to time.

After that, the hundred or so per week that each of us has left over is ours to spend, no questions asked or answered. The intended savings have already come out. The arrangement is not optimised down to the dollar but it does avoid either of us feeling like the 'spending police' or like our choices are being constantly judged.

[HappierAtHome]

Just combined finances with my fiance! About two weeks ago.

Wish me luck ;)

I don't think you'll need luck, but I'll offer congratulations and best wishes :-)

So my questions are:

• Do you review all of your spending with your spouse regularly?   How does that go?
  
• Do you keep a separate "none of your business how I spend it" portion or is it all wide open?
• If it's all wide open, how do you handle gifts bought for each other?

We still have mostly-separate finances, as we're yet to marry, both high income earners, both relatively frugal, and both too lazy to organise joint accounts. Our system works well for our current situation but will undoubtedly need to change when circumstances do.

We do sit down and review all our joint expenditures roughly monthly (groceries, bills, etc). We have a notebook we use to keep track of joint spending, and we also find it useful to occasionally calculate our separate and combined net worth and to discuss that.

The BF isn't interested in tracking his spending and/or actually budgeting. He's the "spend what I want and save the rest" type, which works out fine because his natural spending pattern leads to saving 75% or more of his income.

In one sense, all our money is "secret" money as we don't have access to each other's accounts and I guess if he really wanted to, he could hide his spending habits. But we're both pretty open about what we've bought and why. We tend to support each other's choices as we sit at roughly the same point on the frugality/spendy scale and have very similar values. And because we don't judge each other's choices, we can calmly discuss money without it being an emotional or heavy conversation, which encourages us both to be open and honest.

[thepokercab]

Things are pretty transparent between the wife and me, although the wife isn't too interested in a budget, and to be honest, i think of what we have as less of a budget, and more of a spending log.  I maintain it, keep track of all the spending, etc.. Personally, i've found that life is pretty much easier all the way around when we talk about money as little as possible.  Sure, we'll talk about it occassionaly, or whenever there is a big ticket item to purchase, but I bet its brought up maybe once every couple of months. All of our accounts are jointly held, and she has access to all of it, but she never looks at it. 

I think my wife honestly hates talking budgets because it makes her feel "poor" or that she's being monitored or restricted.  So, its just easier to let her spend whatever she needs/wants and work around that.  This works well because she is pretty frugal, so its not like there are a bunch of expenses coming out of nowhere. When we stumbled into MMM, we already didn't have cable, (we don't even have Netflix) and had no problem going to cheaper cell phones, so our values lined up pretty well already.

Although, we do make compromises with each other.    When I first got a hold of MMM one of the things I tried to do was get aggressive on the grocery budget.  I'd recommend various things we could buy that were cheaper (or not buy at all).  After a while, i could tell that this was kind of annoying her; she just wanted to shop for groceries and not feel like she had to pinch pennies or feel like I was looking over her shoulder.  So, i let it go.  Sure, could we maybe save some money on groceries?  Probably..  But it just doesn't feel like its worth the battle. 

Similarly, I enjoy the occasional poker game with my buddies.  Could I save a couple hundred bucks a year by not playing poker?  Probably.  My wife would no doubt prefer it.  But she also knows, that looking over my shoulder on this expense will probably annoy me as well, so she lets it go. 

[Cheddar Stacker]

Just combined finances with my fiance! About two weeks ago.

Wish me luck ;)

Good luck. May the dividends be with you.

[wtjbatman]

Just combined finances with my fiance! About two weeks ago.

Wish me luck ;)

Good luck. May the dividends be with you.

+1 (yield)

[Cheddar Stacker]

To use a sports analogy, the earner is offense, the homemaker is defense. Defense wins championships.

I LOVE this. Now I understand your earlier response to my post today a bit better. GC for defensive player of the year.

[RichMoose]

So my questions are:

• Do you review all of your spending with your spouse regularly?   How does that go?
  
• Do you keep a separate "none of your business how I spend it" portion or is it all wide open?
• If it's all wide open, how do you handle gifts bought for each other?

I realize that it's up to us to figure out for ourselves and there's no right answer.  I'm looking for opinions though.  Am I being too anal - let me have it!

1. I talk about finances roughly once a week for 30 minutes or so. It generally comes up casually due to pay day, bills coming in, transfers to investment accounts, upcoming purchase decisions etc. It generally goes very well, my wife and I have a financial plan (that we did ourselves) so we are both like-minded in the finance department. It wasn't always this way... my wife comes from a high spending family and likes "things" and has expensive tastes. I find that a well-defined financial plan helped a lot, she has really come around to seeing that saving money results in a much better life over the long term than spending money on stupid shit.
2. All our finances are wide open. We have personal splurge moments like the occasional Second Cup Coffee (or Wendy's burger for me), but we don't feel too guilty about it because overall our savings are pretty good. We generally talk to each other about all spending and usually a small informal want/need analysis is done. At the end of the day, if you need it buy it, if you don't then don't. We have talked in the past about "none of your business spending", but ultimately decided that it's not a healthy part of family finance.
3. We rarely buy each other gifts. If she needs something she buys it, if I need something I buy it. That way we get exactly what we need and don't stress about messing up the purchase for the other person. Generally in our society I find gifts are just a form of useless, frivolous spending. My wife loves gifts, but she loves me doing chores around the house even more. So I cook, clean, do laundry, and just about everything else; very occasionally I'll buy her flowers from a local greenhouse but that's about it. It's so rare I don't take steps to hide the purchase in our accounts, I just tell her I bought her a gift and not to peek until she gets it.

To help in your situation, I would recommend drafting a complete financial plan together. It gets you talking about money and on the same page with the same goals. Worked for us.

[Rural]

We're transparent and fused, though weirdly. My entire salary goes into retirement funds and HSA since my fund options are better. We live on most of his, but all purchases are through a joint rewards credit card.


I do bills, taxes, and what tracking we do because once he got me started budgeting years ago, he was delighted to discover I don't hate it like he does. So he handed the finances over happily and hasn't looked back. We talk over broad strategy every once in a while and I ( try to ) make sure he has passwords, etc. in case something happens to me.


We do talk over big purchases, but we're both extremely frugal, so our big purchases tend to be things like building supplies because we're still finishing our house. Some things we both know we value and they just get spent without discussion - preventative veterinary falls into this category, because annual shots, flea treatment, and heartworm for our menagerie runs near $500, and we do it all at once.


A discussion lately was that we chose to pay someone else to do a repair on my vehicle that was a major, major PITA (who designed a car where you have to take off the timing belt to change out the water pump??) He has strained a back muscle, and the water pump couldn't wait, or rather, the cost for me to drive a less-efficient backup vehicle would rapidly equal the cost of having the repair done. I tried and discovered I could not break loose the machined-on bolts, so I couldn't do it myself. So we paid for it and had them change out the damn timing belt since it was off anyway.


I just buy gifts normally since he doesn't generally look at the accounts anyway. He takes out cash for his gift shopping, though since he tends to do it the night before my birthday, there's probably no need. :-)

[MsSindy]

We make roughly the same base salary, although he makes a ton of OT.  We have only 1 joint account, but I don't even think he knows how to access statements - I pay all bills, do all shopping, set all budgets, calculate all FIRE scenarios.  The only place he spends is on hobbies - so I let him know where he is at each month based on a yearly budget.  We don't review, but based on my budget I may say something like, "hey can we push out new tires until the Spring, because we had to spend more than we budgeted on a water heater".

We each get $80 cash in our wallets to spend on whatever - sometimes we'll spend it on eating out together (or ice cream!), or carry it over and take out less cash the next month - we don't save or accumulate it.  But then again, we have set budgets for stuff like clothes, hobbies, haircuts....because those are expenses that are going to happen anyway.

We don't buy gifts for each other.  We did for the first couple of years, but once we agreed to stop, holidays were less stressful and actually enjoyed more...besides, we're both terrible gift buyers.  On occassion, we may buy a "I was thinking of you" item, but it's small and usually cash.


How we handle OT/Bonuses:  All Bonuses go into Savings.  For OT some of it can be spent.  Earlier, DH thought he should be entitled to spend it all since he had to work 'extra' to earn it.  However, I pointed out that when he works the crazy hours, I now have 100% responsibility for the house, walking the dog, mowing the lawn, taking out the trash, etc., plus I don't get to have dinner with my hubby, have to cook separate meals, etc. - so it's also stressful on me, too.  Once we had this discussion, we agreed that we would discuss what purchase he wanted to make with the OT and then bank the rest - it's worked out much better for us both. 

I think if you're both 'shopping' (groceries, stuff, whatever), I think you probably should sit down and review/discuss so that you stay aligned.


Biggest take-away....talk things through and look for compromise and harmony.

[norabird]

I very much recognize her attitude to clothes buying because I had it myself. I certainly easily spent a hundred or more every month, mostly money I didn't have. But it made me happy! On the one hand I do love my clothes wardrobe but I have been aggressively paring it down and facing the fact that much of it is unnecessary. So why was I buying it all? The answer is for the little high, the tangible excitement of trying on nice things and acquiring them. Even though I was happy in my life I was relying on that consumerism to get some strange private happiness--at a cost of course! And it's been easier to stop since recognizing that it was a habit, a bell that was ringing me. Your wife might like the part on 'gazingus pins' in Your Money or You Life.  I would say don't try to limit he spending on this right now, but try to open a dialog that questions your own regular impulse buys and what you get out of it, and your awareness/ability to step back on your personal budget leaks (even if they are smaller) may help the lightbulb go off for her. The blog 'the minimalists' is also a good resource. I now find I get most of my clothes from clothing swaps with friends, and it's been really fun--cheap, social, and I still get the thrill of something new to me.

[epipenguin]

I'm not married (yet) so I can't comment on that aspect, but I HAVE worked my way down from that type of clothing expenditure. Shopping used to make me happy when I was down, and I always felt a bit dissatisfied in how I looked and dressed, that I kept thinking that the NEXT dress or whatever would be the one that fixed everything. My closet was also an overflowing disaster, and I'd keep clothing in multiple sizes because I might lose or gain weight. I'd never have said that I had a problem, but looking back from where I am now...I had a problem. It's been about 3 years of hard work, purging crap from my closet that doesn't work for me now, figuring out what I actually needed to have, being happy enough not to "need" to shop. I've read a lot of blogs on the subject - one of my favorites is recoveringshopaholic.com. Now, a word of caution, if someone ELSE had suggested to me that I might be a shopaholic I'd have been pissed, so perhaps approaching it from a minimalism aspect might be better. theproject333.com is a good place to start learning how to reduce your clothing "needs".

[VirginiaBob]

She does not work and has many excuses not to... <snip>

No offense, but your current trajectory screams divorce.

My wife didn't work for years and we had no kids (now we have them, but didn't for 9 years), and I always made snips about her making excuses not to work.  Guess what - we aren't divorced. 

Everything I see someone on this website saying anything remotely negative about thier spouse, everyone chimes in saying - looks like you are headed for divorce. 

[GuitarStv]

1. Do you review all of your spending with your spouse regularly?   How does that go?
2. Do you keep a separate "none of your business how I spend it" portion or is it all wide open?
3. If it's all wide open, how do you handle gifts bought for each other?

1.  Nope.  I'll check Mint occasionally, and we'll always discuss a big purchase (something more than 100$), but we're pretty much on the same page financially.
2.  Nope.  Everything is visible.
3.  Typically we don't do the "I am a Christmas/Birthday/Valentines Day/Insert Manufactured Consumption Event Here drone, therefore I must buy a gift for partner" thing.  We're pretty happy with what we have for the most part.

[Philociraptor]

So my questions are:

• Do you review all of your spending with your spouse regularly?   How does that go?
• Do you keep a separate "none of your business how I spend it" portion or is it all wide open?
• If it's all wide open, how do you handle gifts bought for each other?

Have some more input:
1) Yes. At the beginning of each month I'll let her know (or, as is happening more and more often, she will ask me about) how we did on our various spending categories for the previous month (auto, bills, groceries, etc.). I track everything in Mint and make sure the bills get paid, but she doesn't see it daily, so I like to keep her informed.
2) It's wide open, but we each get $100 in cash on the first of every month.  This is used for going out to lunch, buying fun things, gifts, etc.
3) If she wants to buy a gift she tells me how much cash to get out for her or she uses her monthly cash, I just buy outright since she doesn't see the daily transactions.

Something that's very important is to have joint goals. After mentioning in a conversation with friends that we could retire by 40, her interest was peaked and she asked "How could we do that?". Now, at the beginning of each month, I have her write down our remaining debt on a whiteboard in our kitchen, so she can see the number shrinking each month.  I also ask what she wants to do with any remaining money each month. I think non-discretionary spending should be agreed upon by all parties (auto, bills, groceries, etc.), while "fun money" that the other person doesn't control should also be used to give both partners freedom.

[justplucky]

• Do you review all of your spending with your spouse regularly?   How does that go?
  
• Do you keep a separate "none of your business how I spend it" portion or is it all wide open?
• If it's all wide open, how do you handle gifts bought for each other?

My spouse and I don't review our individual spending with each other, and neither of us want to at this point in time. However, he's obsessed with growing our net worth and isn't a spender, so my overanalyzing his spending would cause more pain than the $25-$50/month additional potential savings is worth. I'm the bigger spender, but I have a solid income and a savings rate he's impressed with, so he doesn't feel the need to closely analyze my spending.

Right now we're operating under the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy.

[MotoMM]

Been together 14 years and married 8.  All joint accounts since a little after we got married - seems to work for us.  The only time I ask about anything is if there's a chance it may be a fraudulent purchase.  Like when the CC statement shows dozens of charges of $2.99 from Amazon Video... oh, you're watching every episode of Game of Thrones online back to back?  OK, then...  :) 

I'd say we sit down and go over the general money situation once every couple of months or so.

[skunkfunk]

• Do you review all of your spending with your spouse regularly?   How does that go?
  
• Do you keep a separate "none of your business how I spend it" portion or is it all wide open?
• If it's all wide open, how do you handle gifts bought for each other?

I didn't read the whole thread (ain't nobody got time for that!) but I'll share with you what works great for myself and my wife.

We review spending continuously. Mint keeps track of everything, we adjust budgets and transactions and talk about what we find on there any time something comes up. We both keep an eye on it and for the most part don't talk about it more than a few times a month.

We each have $200 that we can spend that the other gets no say on. I spend mine for our satellite TV, my cell phone, beer brewing, bicycling, and whatever other miscellaneous stuff (occasional trombone grease or whatever.) She spends hers as she sees fit (usually massages, dog food, curtains, books, extra groceries, that kind of thing.) I know, $400 is a ton, but other things that we previously tried budgeting are wedged in there (such as our cell phones and tv) and we don't actually spend that entire amount. We may discuss what goes in this section, but ultimately I can't tell her what she spends it on. At the end of the month we zero out what hasn't been spent and it goes back in the pool for our FI plans. All other spending must be approved by BOTH parties.

For gifts, we have separate amazon accounts and whatnot if we want to keep something secret. It'll show up in mint, go under the miscellaneous section for the other persons undisputed cash, and be none the wiser.

[Emilyngh]

As an aside, not surprised by the $300/month.  But, agree with another post that it is likely "shopping therapy".  I can think of 4 women in my immediate family (spouse, sister, mom.....tho reformed, and MIL) who each shop for the thrill.  It's almost seems like a hunter/gatherer instinct.  I note too that each of these ladies had the same situation as me......hubby earned and each was a SAHM for a long time.  I can't help but think that not have been the earner (while all worked raising kids) made it easier to spend freely without much thought.

This does not hold true IME.   Eg., I actually have relied on shopping for therapy and still struggle with the urge to resort to it when bored or want some mindless activity that makes me feel productive (really there is an element that fulfills a gather-type instinct).   I am not only an earner in my household, but the sole earner.   DH is the SAHP but does not like shopping.   

[MoneyCat]

My wife and I have separate finances except for shared expenses which we pay out of a joint account that we both deposit into.  My wife's spending habits are pretty much identical to my own and since we live a minimalist lifestyle I am not too concerned about her spending.  We live on a tiny fraction of what we earn every month.

[Spartana]

My wife and I have separate finances except for shared expenses which we pay out of a joint account that we both deposit into.  My wife's spending habits are pretty much identical to my own and since we live a minimalist lifestyle I am not too concerned about her spending.  We live on a tiny fraction of what we earn every month.

This is exactly how ex-DH and I did things (and no we didn't divorce for reasons related to money or spending at all).  For big purchases we just pooled our money 50/50 as we earned about the same. If he wanted something his self he bought it out of his stash and I could care less what the cost was - or what the thing, activity was. Ditto for me. We each stashed about 80% of our income and lived a completely debt-free minimalist lifestyle so nothing was ever an issue. We never hide anything from the other but we never really discussed our spending/savings except our joint accounts and/or investments.

[VirginiaBob]

We are very transparent.  Every month, we each get 12,000 dollars allowance, 62,000 goes to the mortgage, and the other 88,000 goes to the minimum payments on our credit cards.  I always add an extra 10 dollars to the credit cards from my allowance so that we can pay them off in 73 years instead of 76.   It upsets me that my wife doesn't match my $10, but I guess I was always the responsible one.