First, I apologize if this is in the wrong location. I'm fairly new to the site, and am reading as much as my breaks at work allow, so I am sorry if it's already been answered (at length).
I think I need help with my wife. She grew up in the former soviet union and had it drilled into her brain that if you have money, you spend it. You don’t save for a rainy day. You don’t save for retirement. If you have the money, you spend it. Because of that, I’ve never known her to have more than a few hundred dollars in her bank account for the past 12 years. I’m different. I used to think I was a very good saver, at least until I found this site. Kinda is a reality check for me. I’m not perfect, and I have fat to trim. No doubt.
My wife and I used to share expenses briefly when we were first married. It didn’t work out. If I had money, she spent it. We needed a new system. We switched to a system where we have separate bank accounts. I paid all the joint expenses and food, and then she paid me a percentage, pro-rata equal to the difference in our income levels, at the end of the month.
For example (in today's income and expenses, not when we were first married):
My after tax monthly salary - $5,050.60 (or 73% of family income)
Wife’s after tax monthly income ~ $1,875.00 (or 27% of family income)
Joint Expenses
Mortgage - $1,100 ($401.57 Interest, $217.06 Prin, $119.78 Escrow, $134.96 PMI, $226.63 extra Prin) – (we’re paying extra in principal to get it down to 80% debt to eliminate PMI)
Netflix - $9.60
Security Syst. - $14.99
Home Maint - $100
Car Payment 1 - $303
Car Payment 2 - $283
Phone - $174.43
Cable - $115.41
Utilities - $140
Auto Ins. - $190
Gym - $75
Pet Expenses ~$50
Food - $600
Total - $3,155.43
My portion (73%) - $2,303.46
Wife’s portion (27%) - $851.97
From there each of us were responsible for our own gas expenses (mine $200), Student Loans (Mine $650), Retirement (mine $874), and savings (mine $748). The rest was ours to spend however we like (mine ~$275), plus unknown expenses like out of pocket medical, vehicle registration and maintenance, that sorta thing. In theory, she should have about $750 for her own savings and discretionary spending. I didn't monitor it or ask her about it, although I hoped she would take some suggestions and save some.
Under that system, at the end of the month my wife didn’t have the money to pay me back. For several months in a row. Meaning I paid all the fixed bills, plus my own expenses, while she went through ~$1,600 per month on who knows what. In order to make up for it, I couldn't save anything.
So when that didn’t work, we switched it. She paid for food, I paid everything else, and we trued it up at the end of the month. She typically paid me about $200-300 per month (depending on what we spent in food and electricity that month). That system appeared to work for a while (about a year). We ended up spending much more in food than budgeted, as my wife likes to eat out, and that usually was paid by me, but it worked so whatever. I don’t think she was actually saving anything, meaning she was spending all $750 per month, but I was working on it. I got her for 2 months to put $100 in a savings account per month. Which was a big win.
Then we found out we were expecting our first child. I talked things over with my wife, who would go out on maternity leave (unpaid, of which she originally wanted to take six months), and showed how I couldn’t support us totally and save for our future. She agreed to save her money for maternity leave (of which went down to 3 months).
Three months into the pregnancy, she stopped contributing to fixed expenses. She was still buying food though, and she was stressed and tired. I assumed she was saving it for maternity leave, so let it go. But I did get her to read “Rich Dad, Poor Dad.” A start.
When she goes out on maternity leave I find her crying in the nursery. I come to find out she has $4.00 in her bank account, racked up $7k+ in credit cards (on I don’t know what), owes $1k to a family friend who is threatening to sue her (has owed it for approx. 4 years), and doesn’t know what to do.
So shit. I can’t support everything (and save) myself, and now I need to pick up her expenses too.
So I sat her down, talked about budgeting with her (again), and set her up for a plan on how to get her debts repaid when she goes back to work in January. In the meantime, I’m biting the bullet and finding a way to get us through this, paying for all the fixed bills, my variable expenses, her variable expenses, giving her ~$350 per month to pay for the minimum credit card payments and student loan debts she has, and giving her $1,000 to pay her friend back (of which she wants to pay me back later, and I don’t see how that’s going to be possible).
Different conversation, I mention to her that I have ~$20k saved up as a rainy day fund, and I was thinking of either A) using ~$8-10k to pay down on the home, refi and eliminate PMI, B) pay off one of our cars ($15k each), or C) hold onto it and look at getting a rental home at some point to generate income. I preferred A. She preferred B. When I asked why, she said it would save the most money per month (true) and I’d need that savings in order to afford child care when she goes back to work. That’s when it became obvious to me that she expects me to pick up the full ~$500-600 per month of child care so she can go back to work.
So I don’t really know what to do. I’ve tried everything I can to teach her about budgeting, saving, investing, not spending too much, ect. I’ve tried to get her to do a budget, read a few books on personal finance, look at what she’s spending her money on, and she does try but nothing sticks. After a while she gets overwhelmed, her eyes roll in the back of her head, she says “whatever you tell me to do, I’ll do.” Then she forgets about the budget, sees she has money in the bank account, buys clothes, eats lunch out and goes to starbucks. It hasn’t worked. The best “joint expense” situation I can think of didn’t work (she stopped paying it, spent all ~$1,000 per month on I don’t know what, plus racked up $7k in debt, although I don’t know over what time period).
Her paycheck is bi-weekly, but isn't salary. It varies. So I suggested to her that rather than "true up" the expenses monthly, we do it bi-weekly. But I have a feeling I'm going to be in the same place as before. And with added expenses of child care and diapers and such, I'm going to start going broke rather quickly.
To anyone who has made it this far in, any thoughts or suggestions?
