Getting Spouse on Board to Save More Money
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Anonymous
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We have credit card debt that I've been trying hard to pay down. We also have increased expenses. Yet I can't get my DH to cut down on the "little things" that will make a big difference, e.g., starbucks, eating lunch out, going out to dinner every Friday/Saturday, and for whatever reason, the almost daily grocery shopping. He isn't a big spender in any other way (I can't remember the last time he bought himself clothing or electronics). The problem is that if he sees the money in the bank account, he will spend it on the little things, which, by the end of the weekend, seem to add up to $400 -- $400 that I could have put in the bank or paid to the credit cards.
I've tried opening up a second account, but this doesn't help. I also don't want to "pay ourself first" completely each month, and then have there be an emergency and need money. So what I need to do is to get my DH on board to spend less money and to stick with the budget. He made it with me; he just can't stick to it. Suggestions? |
Anonymous
| Give him a weekly allowance and once it is gone it is gone. Take away his ATM card so he can't just get more. |
Anonymous
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Get him a preloaded Starbucks card (or the Starbucks iPhone app) with a fixed amount per week.
Make him lunch to take to work. Go to a cheap hole in the wall for dinner (makes for a fun date night) Make a weekly meal plan and grocery shop once a week with a list I went through the same thing with my husband a few years ago. We didn't do all these things all at once but a tweak here and there and he finally got on board and now is obsessed with saving money! |
Anonymous
Do not treat him like a small child. He can make his own lunch, why don't you both make your lunches at the same time? Or have a container out after you're done with dinner so it's easy. Sit down with bills and credit card statements. Show him how much extra you are spending to carry the credit card debt and how the small grocery trips really add up. He needs to agree that you should be saving money, not treated like a kid with an allowance. |
Anonymous
Love how people fixate on semantics and don't offer any concrete advice other than "make him agree". |
Anonymous
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How much do YOU spend on those things?
Is this essential, or is this one of those things that will save six months in becoming debt-free (but it'll seem like 2 years). |
Anonymous
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I am your husband in this scenario. I thought that my husband was overreacting to my spending, so with the intention of proving to him that I was not the problem I wrote down every single thing that I spent money on in a notebook, and then at the end of the week added up and broke into categories. I was shocked at how much my going to Starbucks, Panera, the smoothie place, etc. added up. Try this with him.
I agree though, don't treat him like a child. My husband threatened to put me on an allowance and I believe that my response was something like "I'll show you a fucking allowance...". |
Anonymous
In other words, you acted like the very child you didn't want him to treat you like . . . (Wow, that grammar is awful. But you get the point.) |
Anonymous
I don't go to starbucks, and I eat lunch out once a week. I take cash out each time I get paid for discretionary items (like starbucks, vending machine, eating out, the small stuff) and when it's gone, it's gone. If there is money left, I put it in a piggy bank, and then I deposit it back into the bank when it builds up into a sizeable amount, and then immediately make an extra credit card payment, even if it is $25. Is it essential? No, we can pay our bills, but we have a mountain of cc debt. We finally got to a point where we are paying it down, and not using the credit cards at all (two months without a single charge, which is a milestone for us), and every bit we save is more that can go to our credit cards/emergency fund. But carrying the debt is very stressful for me (and him), and the sooner we pay it down, the better. I just don't know how to get him on board without treating him like a child. I like the idea of sitting down with him and showing what we are spending. I ran a report and told him, but I didn't show him. The challenge is that our incomes are pretty good and he feels like he should be able to treat himself to starbucks. I think if we could get in this mindset for even six months to pay a huge chunk of our debt down, then I'd be a little bit more flexible. But my goal is to get all of the debt gone in three years, and it won't happen unless we buckle down. |
Anonymous
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I'm in the same bind. What I hope will help this year is that we looked at the cumulative total we spent in interest last year, which is enough for two brand new bikes (his love). If we can kill the debt, we can recapture all that thrown away interest money. Two months in, he's getting better. A little.
What REALLY helps is that we use You need A Budget software for budgeting. That gets us both to stop looking at our checking account balance (which includes budgeted funds for long term expenses like property tax and car insurance) but instead look at our monthly category balances for restaurants, beverages, entertainment, etc. yNAB has iPhone apps that sync with out main budget, so er can see all this on the go. |
Anonymous
| This is a long shot, but is there any way he could get a part-time job (from home maybe) or sell things on eBay or Craigslist, with the idea that he could use that money for all his "treats"? |
Anonymous
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If he loves his Starbucks treat, see if you can help replicate that at home. I bought a used espresso machine from Craigslist and now make my morning latte instead of buying it. My husband likes chai and started buying the cartons from the store which he heats at home (lately we've even been making his chai concentrate from scratch at home, and it's really delicious!)
The point is not to necessarily do without something, but to figure out how to have it in your life in a sustainable way. Letting him see the numbers is probably going to be very helpful. Also, having a frank conversation explaining how debt makes you feel, should hopefully make for some changes. If I told my husband something was stressing me out and there was something he could do to help reduce that, he'd for sure start helping. Then try to come up with a game plan yourselves (save this much extra the first month, go to starbucks only on Tues and Fri, Start bringing a sandwich 3 days a week, etc) |
Anonymous
| If he's seeing money in the account and then just spending, try setting up another checking account that your income gets routed through first. Set a weekly or biweekly budget for discretionary spending, and set up an automatic transfer from your new clearinghouse acct into your discretionary spending acct. Pay bills, pay "yourself" (ie savings), etc. out of the clearinghouse acct without your husband ever touching it. If he sees less money in the acct with the debit/ATM card, it sounds like he's the kind of guy that will adjust his spending automatically. |
Anonymous
| $400 a week seems like a lot for "little things" have you really added it up? Just ask him if he is willing to set a firm budget in cash and keep to it. How did you guys get in debt if he isn't a big spender? Honestly though I think most men eat out lunch and can't see that changing without him not having lunch with his co-workers anymore. It is more often the women I see sitting alone at their desks eating. |
Anonymous
Yes, that is correct. Have you ever treated someone like a child and had them respond in a mature manner? |