I'm a saver, investor, and generally frugal, and as seems to happen, I married a spender. Though we talked about money and seemed to understand each other, the reality has been that while we are otherwise pretty happily married, financially we are still single. Whenever we have had a joint account or assets, she eventually spent it all. Setting limits or budgets did not work.
She has worked corporate jobs, high-end consulting, and now a "fill-in" retail job, yet somehow when the job is over, she's broke with nothing to show for it. We had joint stocks as a wedding gift, but I had to sell them to pay off a tumbling house of credit cards.
Every year at Christmas my parents give each of us the max tax-free cash gift to reduce their estate. With my gift, I fund my Roth and put the rest into home improvement and repair. This year I got my wife to budget her gift, she opened a Roth, paid for interior house painting, and supposedly set aside money for expensive dental work and a dream trip to Italy.
I thought we had turned a corner on money problems. Now I find out her store manager boss is trying to fire her, she spent the money for our vacation, and has been spending 25% of her income on clothes at her store.
I pay all our joint expenses, bills, mortgage, etc. and feel like a chump, that rather than helping her get it together I'm enabling further irresponsibility. We're not kids, either- she's 50! I am afraid she is going to lose this job before finally finding another professional one, and I will be stuck paying for all her bills, too.
Does anyone have any constructive ideas on how to deal with this?
She has worked corporate jobs, high-end consulting, and now a "fill-in" retail job, yet somehow when the job is over, she's broke with nothing to show for it. We had joint stocks as a wedding gift, but I had to sell them to pay off a tumbling house of credit cards.
Every year at Christmas my parents give each of us the max tax-free cash gift to reduce their estate. With my gift, I fund my Roth and put the rest into home improvement and repair. This year I got my wife to budget her gift, she opened a Roth, paid for interior house painting, and supposedly set aside money for expensive dental work and a dream trip to Italy.
I thought we had turned a corner on money problems. Now I find out her store manager boss is trying to fire her, she spent the money for our vacation, and has been spending 25% of her income on clothes at her store.
I pay all our joint expenses, bills, mortgage, etc. and feel like a chump, that rather than helping her get it together I'm enabling further irresponsibility. We're not kids, either- she's 50! I am afraid she is going to lose this job before finally finding another professional one, and I will be stuck paying for all her bills, too.
Does anyone have any constructive ideas on how to deal with this?
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