Divergent financial views with yours spouse?

[sv2007]

I tend to think having a spouse with different financial views is a good thing. I'm a conservative investor while wife is more aggressive. It's like a push-and-pull balanced investor when put together.

[Nutria]

I tend to think having a spouse with different financial views is a good thing. I'm a conservative investor while wife is more aggressive. It's like a push-and-pull balanced investor when put together.

Those are differing investment strategies. What about the rest of her financial views, like "spend or save"?

[sv2007]

Those are differing investment strategies. What about the rest of her financial views, like "spend or save"?

Good point.

We both are goal savers in that we realize the importance of saving money for the need to accomplish a goal (i.e. disciplined). I think this is very important sync.

However, what is reasonable spend for me doesn't seem reasonable to wife. The opposite is not true; I'm very open minded about whatever she spends. So there's some friction.

[Nutria]

Good point.

We both are goal savers in that we realize the importance of saving money for the need to accomplish a goal (i.e. disciplined). I think this is very important sync.

However, what is reasonable spend for me doesn't seem reasonable to wife. The opposite is not true; I'm very open minded about whatever she spends. So there's some friction.

If you saved for it, then by definition it can't be unreasonable. Or are your allegedly unreasonable expenditures coming out of a common short term fund that she wants for other things? For example, I'd be more than miffed if my wife wiped out our monthly Miscellaneous budget item with a $400 dress, but if we saved and bought it in September that would be ok.

[phantom]

My husband and I have had somewhat fluid financial views over the course of our relationship, so our financial views are usually at least a little out of sync with each other. But, we're both very thoughtful and deliberate when handling money, so we can talk through most of our differences and reach compromises.

[sv2007]

If you saved for it, then by definition it can't be unreasonable. Or are your allegedly unreasonable expenditures coming out of a common short term fund that she wants for other things? For example, I'd be more than miffed if my wife wiped out our monthly Miscellaneous budget item with a $400 dress, but if we saved and bought it in September that would be ok.

We don't have a common budget (we did away with that in 02).

We have annual budgets for activities, e.g. vacation A, B, C, hobby X, y, Z. Each person tracks his/her own spending so there's nobody to answer to The budget is not fixed, we'd agree on a general amounts (e.g. it'll be around $10k this year) so there's never any chance of "blowing" the budget.

We are very open to each other, she can read all my emails and I can hers (but neither cares to); this is not on purpose, it's just that we put our accounts a tablet that we pack for vacations. We answer each other's phones; and she used to bother my coworkers for driving directions. A coworker actually thanked me for buying a GPS in 04.

One time, when withdrawing money at ATM, I saw a balance of nearly $400k. I was surprised but didn't bother with it. Later that night, I asked if she's buying a house. Turns out it was a bank mistake.

We trust each other; and don't view money too importantly. So perhaps "friction" is too strong a word.

[Snydley]

I tend to think having a spouse with different financial views is a good thing.

In general I would say it is not a good thing, but when speaking of investment strategies it seems to work for you and your spouse.

DH and I had different views on how much money should be spent for a long time and it was pretty difficult (with me being the one feeling we should not worry about the future and spend more). Now we're pretty much on the same page and it helps the marriage considerably.

He pays all the bills and keeps track of our bottom lines as far as budget, savings, total costs for vacations, etc. and I manage our retirement accounts (investments and how much we need to contribute per year to reach our goals, etc) and I also did the research that led to the refi of our mortgage and move to a 15 year loan. So we share the $$ responsibility pretty evenly at this point.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

About 90% of my friends have money problems. This is probably why the divorce rate in the US is so high. Most would leave their husbands if they could afford to. MANY of them say that. I would leave if I could afford to.

They argue about spending. MANY again pretty much I am the only one in real life who doesn't hide money from my spouse or my spending. He knows about it all and we agree on it always.

So if you are hiding about what you spend from your spouse how can marriage work? Lying about anything is a bad precedent to set whether it be money or not.

[AJ444]

All I know is I divorced the spendthrift spouse and now am happily married to a wife that shares my financial mentality.

We each have our own entertainment account where the same amount of money is deposited with each paycheck that we can both spend on whatever we want. Everything else comes out of a third common account that I manage with a budget that we review together annually.

It has worked very well for us.

[GoodSteward]

"For better or worse, For Richer or poorer" doesn't seem to have any weight anymore I guess. While it does suck to have a spouse that works against the building up of your financial house, part of the reason for marriage is to expose your flaws to become a better person. We are selfish by nature, and marriage reveals this to help us change(hopefully). While I do understand some people are very hard to work/live with, we made a commitment to stick it out. The divorce rate is high not because of money, but because people are not willing to work things out anymore. Some trade spouses like appliances. If they think they are broken, they just get a new one. The thing is people like that normally end up finding problems in later marriages too because people are flawed. I believe the divorce rate goes up even more in second and third marriages. Why? You gave up once when you didn't like it...it's easy to do it again. I know a lot of people get upset about this stuff, so I am not here to judge anybody. Just remember you made the vow.

I am the spender and saver. Sounds funny, but I have a tendency to either spend too much, or save too much. My wife helps keep me pulled back to normal. She doesn't like dealing with the finances, but she also keeps me on track because I keep her involved. She has access to everything if she wants to know what is going on.

[Nutria]

We each have our own entertainment account where the same amount of money is deposited with each paycheck that we can both spend on whatever we want. Everything else comes out of a third common account that I manage with a budget that we review together annually.

Where does the money come from when you all get entertained together?

What about when she makes you bring her to a chick flick that you're completely not interested in, or you bring her to a monster truck rally that she's not interested in?

[rutgers07]

Wife and I are mostly in sync although I'm much more budget focused than she is. We both have the pay ourselves first mentality with a common goal of being retirement ready by 60ish. Ups and downs for sure, she was a huge spendthrift many years ago and just started cleaning up her messes when we started dating. She got that out of her system and hates debt just as much as I do.

[sv2007]

My initial post was to illustrate different investment mentality, but it wasn't well stated.

The financial compatibility of spouses is very important; to me, the financial compatibility follows compatibility in other areas such as general views on responsibility and ownership of actions. So in a way, financial compatibility of spouses is a natural consequence of being compatible on the more important things.

Another thing that I have notices is the differences in budgeting and family finance between 2 equal-income spouses vs single working (or 1 with significantly less income) spouses. In the latter case, things aren't generally very equal in terms of access to money and (perhaps as a consequence) decision making power in the family.

[dawnwes]

Another thing that I have notices is the differences in budgeting and family finance between 2 equal-income spouses vs single working (or 1 with significantly less income) spouses. In the latter case, things aren't generally very equal in terms of access to money and (perhaps as a consequence) decision making power in the family.

HUH?

Our money is OUR money. The first 2 years of our marriage, I was the breadwinner. He went to grad school. Then we both worked for the next 9 years. Then the next 10 years I have stayed home with the kids.

Our decision making "power" hasn't changed for either of us in any of the above scenarios.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Our money is my money hehe. No seriously it's always joint and has always been a joint effort. Never has it been more obvious than right now.