The first part of this is a response to GoodSteward.
No these are my views, whether she was reading my posts or not. I was leaning towards adopting her plan to begin with and with the encouragement of some here, I went along with it. I did not take too well to what seemed like posters ganging up on my wife. Admittedly they don’t know us, but some of her reactions were within our “norm”.
When some of the early postings here made me realize the impact my spending was having on my wife and our marriage I understood better where she was coming from and I do understand that while what happened recently is not of a large scale, it is the principle of the matter. Yes, it was my money spend, but I started out being conservative and then went back to my “old ways”, my wife was like what the? My reaction to this is more due to the past stress I had put on my wife. Maybe it is overreacting, but it is how I feel currently.
We put the current plan in place so that she would be in a place to clean up our finances and so that I could not possibly mess things up. That part is going very well. She has been able to make a decent dent in our credit card debt, and my little mess up had absolutely no effect on her plans. Once I realized the impact I had been having previously on her and our marriage, yes, I built up a lot of guilt and still have it. That is why I suggested my accountability, and while she listened to posters and let me have some allowance, my level of built up guilt is still such that of the $40 she gave me over the last month I returned $38 to her. I am still working on changing my thoughts about money, but I was happy with myself to be able to return $38 to her because I spent so little. I am thinking of going to financial counseling to understand my issues first and then maybe both of us go, but right now we like things as they are.
As mentioned in earlier posts we meet and discuss the finances each month, we go over my spending as a learning exercise for me, and she goes over what she is doing with the money she has control over. Over and above monthly expenses most goes to the credit card and some goes to savings. She has as yet not spent any on herself, but I will actually encourage this once the credit card debt is gone, I want her to enjoy what is essentially financial independence for her.
We initially agreed on the amount of money I get weekly, it was my suggestion to limit it to a $20 allowance plus money for gas (which has now gone up to $25 with the recent gas increases). I wanted the amount to be low enough to make me think about my spending. I do NOT feel it is “underfunded”. After the “relapse” we have talked and it is clear that it is my money to with what I want, the shock the last time was that after starting out saving an average of $7 per week to blowing it all (allowances and the previously saved) in a couple of weeks. She said she wouldn’t chastise me for something like that in the future, but would encourage me if I saved any.
I wrote the above in response to GoodSteward, before we met for the month. My wife tried to make me keep the $38, but I wouldn’t have it. We are going back to the regular allowance so I don’t want or need that money. She reluctantly accepted it, but thanked me for my gesture. There was nothing to discuss about my spending, obviously. She continued to pay down the credit card she is now estimating 5 more months.
We had two more topics of discussion. Both of which based on GoodSteward’s comments, may cause a reaction here, but this is where we are at and while my posts are now more updates than requests for advice, any input is helpful to us as we work through all this.
The first topic was regarding my comment above about her essentially having financial independence. She said that while she loves the current set up, she hadn’t thought of it that way, but after reading that, she realized that is exactly what we have set up, and she LOVES that description. I have my money and how we have set it up, it does not interfere with her money, which is essentially all of our money for which she is in charge. She updates me monthly, after the fact, about what she has done with the money so I know what has gone on, but she is in charge of those routine month to month finances and free to do as she feels appropriate. This is what we want and why we did this. She has told me what she is going do when something out of ordinary comes up. In addition, I am free to question what she has done and why but have not felt the need so far. I trust her explicitly since from the beginning she has always been better and more careful with money. Like I said she has not gone off and spent on things for herself, so far, she is just trying to clean things up, which was the whole idea of this in the first place. Also, when it comes to big ticket items we discuss what to do first. I have to admit that I am very happy that she likes the idea that she is essentially financially independent and basically has full control of our money. (If there wasn't fundamentally total trust in her by me to be charge in of our finances, this wouldn’t be working or likely to be able to work out in the long run!)
The second topic was that we should have a written agreement regarding our financial set up. She thought it would be very useful for us to have this written down so the impact is clearer and more apparent and much less likely to lead to misunderstandings like a month ago. This also let us discuss, renegotiate, and set up a longer term plan. I am not going to go over the discussion in any depth, just will clarify things (in parentheses), and provide what we agreed to and both literally signed up for. To make it more formal, I suggested we have her sister witness it, she agreed and we did. Please read the whole next paragraph before reacting to it.
We agreed to keep the separate accounts in place for at least 5 years (yes we extended it again, as we like how things are going so far). My allowance will stay at $20/week for at least 2 years (my suggestion though I had to persuade her to keep it at this lower amount, she agreed in part due to the next item). After that time my wife will determine my allowance (based on everything likely to go up and likely a fair amount). With the current gas price issue, my money for gas will be evaluated every 2 weeks. She promised no more negative reactions to what I do with my money. At the end of the at least 5 year period of separate accounts, we will discuss how to handle things in the future. Barring serious unforeseen circumstances, we decided that there would no changes to the agreement for 1 year (we want a nice long period of stability to see if this keeps working). After that time, the agreement can opened up for discussion by either of us.
While this may not be what others here would do, we like how it is going so far and are actually glad we decided to put it in a written agreement, as it makes it clear what we both want to do.
With some of the extra money, my wife has put together a little getaway for us for the Memorial weekend and no discussions of money, she says she budgeted for the whole thing to be fun and enjoyable. We are looking forward to it!
No these are my views, whether she was reading my posts or not. I was leaning towards adopting her plan to begin with and with the encouragement of some here, I went along with it. I did not take too well to what seemed like posters ganging up on my wife. Admittedly they don’t know us, but some of her reactions were within our “norm”.
When some of the early postings here made me realize the impact my spending was having on my wife and our marriage I understood better where she was coming from and I do understand that while what happened recently is not of a large scale, it is the principle of the matter. Yes, it was my money spend, but I started out being conservative and then went back to my “old ways”, my wife was like what the? My reaction to this is more due to the past stress I had put on my wife. Maybe it is overreacting, but it is how I feel currently.
We put the current plan in place so that she would be in a place to clean up our finances and so that I could not possibly mess things up. That part is going very well. She has been able to make a decent dent in our credit card debt, and my little mess up had absolutely no effect on her plans. Once I realized the impact I had been having previously on her and our marriage, yes, I built up a lot of guilt and still have it. That is why I suggested my accountability, and while she listened to posters and let me have some allowance, my level of built up guilt is still such that of the $40 she gave me over the last month I returned $38 to her. I am still working on changing my thoughts about money, but I was happy with myself to be able to return $38 to her because I spent so little. I am thinking of going to financial counseling to understand my issues first and then maybe both of us go, but right now we like things as they are.
As mentioned in earlier posts we meet and discuss the finances each month, we go over my spending as a learning exercise for me, and she goes over what she is doing with the money she has control over. Over and above monthly expenses most goes to the credit card and some goes to savings. She has as yet not spent any on herself, but I will actually encourage this once the credit card debt is gone, I want her to enjoy what is essentially financial independence for her.
We initially agreed on the amount of money I get weekly, it was my suggestion to limit it to a $20 allowance plus money for gas (which has now gone up to $25 with the recent gas increases). I wanted the amount to be low enough to make me think about my spending. I do NOT feel it is “underfunded”. After the “relapse” we have talked and it is clear that it is my money to with what I want, the shock the last time was that after starting out saving an average of $7 per week to blowing it all (allowances and the previously saved) in a couple of weeks. She said she wouldn’t chastise me for something like that in the future, but would encourage me if I saved any.
I wrote the above in response to GoodSteward, before we met for the month. My wife tried to make me keep the $38, but I wouldn’t have it. We are going back to the regular allowance so I don’t want or need that money. She reluctantly accepted it, but thanked me for my gesture. There was nothing to discuss about my spending, obviously. She continued to pay down the credit card she is now estimating 5 more months.
We had two more topics of discussion. Both of which based on GoodSteward’s comments, may cause a reaction here, but this is where we are at and while my posts are now more updates than requests for advice, any input is helpful to us as we work through all this.
The first topic was regarding my comment above about her essentially having financial independence. She said that while she loves the current set up, she hadn’t thought of it that way, but after reading that, she realized that is exactly what we have set up, and she LOVES that description. I have my money and how we have set it up, it does not interfere with her money, which is essentially all of our money for which she is in charge. She updates me monthly, after the fact, about what she has done with the money so I know what has gone on, but she is in charge of those routine month to month finances and free to do as she feels appropriate. This is what we want and why we did this. She has told me what she is going do when something out of ordinary comes up. In addition, I am free to question what she has done and why but have not felt the need so far. I trust her explicitly since from the beginning she has always been better and more careful with money. Like I said she has not gone off and spent on things for herself, so far, she is just trying to clean things up, which was the whole idea of this in the first place. Also, when it comes to big ticket items we discuss what to do first. I have to admit that I am very happy that she likes the idea that she is essentially financially independent and basically has full control of our money. (If there wasn't fundamentally total trust in her by me to be charge in of our finances, this wouldn’t be working or likely to be able to work out in the long run!)
The second topic was that we should have a written agreement regarding our financial set up. She thought it would be very useful for us to have this written down so the impact is clearer and more apparent and much less likely to lead to misunderstandings like a month ago. This also let us discuss, renegotiate, and set up a longer term plan. I am not going to go over the discussion in any depth, just will clarify things (in parentheses), and provide what we agreed to and both literally signed up for. To make it more formal, I suggested we have her sister witness it, she agreed and we did. Please read the whole next paragraph before reacting to it.
We agreed to keep the separate accounts in place for at least 5 years (yes we extended it again, as we like how things are going so far). My allowance will stay at $20/week for at least 2 years (my suggestion though I had to persuade her to keep it at this lower amount, she agreed in part due to the next item). After that time my wife will determine my allowance (based on everything likely to go up and likely a fair amount). With the current gas price issue, my money for gas will be evaluated every 2 weeks. She promised no more negative reactions to what I do with my money. At the end of the at least 5 year period of separate accounts, we will discuss how to handle things in the future. Barring serious unforeseen circumstances, we decided that there would no changes to the agreement for 1 year (we want a nice long period of stability to see if this keeps working). After that time, the agreement can opened up for discussion by either of us.
While this may not be what others here would do, we like how it is going so far and are actually glad we decided to put it in a written agreement, as it makes it clear what we both want to do.
With some of the extra money, my wife has put together a little getaway for us for the Memorial weekend and no discussions of money, she says she budgeted for the whole thing to be fun and enjoyable. We are looking forward to it!
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