Do you rein in the spender in your family?

[Anonymous]

We make about the same— I make a little more, HHI is $500.

I am the budgeter, and have shown husband how we are on track to pay off our 30 year mortgage 15 years early if we keep our spending in check. That’s a very tangible goal.

We also sometimes talk about shorter term goals, spending splurges or vacation funds.

I do not police him, but I do the grocery shopping and meal planning even though he is the cook because he isn’t good at shopping on a budget. He has seen how much quicker our mortgage balance drops when we aren’t eating out as much, and that was the biggest budget lifestyle change for us.

Otherwise, if there’s a large purchase (car), I set the general guidelines and we make a decision together. For medium things (new tech, anything >$1000) we discuss together.

[Anonymous]

YNAB doesn’t make sense at that HHI. Focus on cash flow (which sounds like it is way in the positive).

Generally speaking, your view of spending sounds unreasonably restrictive at your income level. I get that you have savings goals. Why don’t you focus on making sure those are met instead of policing spending?

[Anonymous]

No matter how much or little you make, you and your partner need to get a handle on what you have coming in and going out as well as a plan for the next year and your future goals.

Do you meet regularly to discuss money? Do you have a retirement plan and college funding plan you both agreed to? Is his spending an actual barrier to meeting those goals or just something you don’t agree with?

[Anonymous]

A grill? You have a sickness.

[Anonymous]

OP, what are your monthly obligations? Mortgage, cars, etc. Makes a big difference in my response!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also I mean this kindly but if you are in your 40s, it is okay and probably necessary to spend on clothes, hair, skincare to look nice. If your DH is going to a $$$$ office every day, the other women are going to be put together. You probably will feel great to get some minor upgrades. Don't need to go crazy! Get some cute jeans and sweaters from quince.

Op - yes probably. If necessary I will dress up but I work from home every day and don’t really need to.

Skin and hair still are great - I am 40 and have long black hair and good skin. Being Asian helps!

If you WFH every day, you can (and should) still get dressed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op - I am an admitted spend thrift. DH has to insist I buy new clothes when mine are wearing out or I don’t have something appropriate for a given event (like no hiking shoes, running shoes are complete bare sole, etc.)

I just think little things add up to big things and we already have big things to pay for. So why spend more money on things we really don’t think (in my mind).

Cheap cheap cheap. Be careful he might divorce you. Your kids are probably mortified that you are wearing clothes and shoes with holes. Do you drive an ancient, broken down car too.

Don't be so mean. I've never met anyone who divorced someone because they were cheap. There's conflict when a couple doesn't agree on spending, but generally people divorce when one spouse really goes way overboard spending what they don't have.

My husband is the cheapiest cheapie person on earth, and he doesn't like it when I spend on normal things, but I'm not about to divorce him because of that! His attachment to a frugal lifestyle has allowed our investments to explode and we are on our way to building significant generational wealth. If we'd done things my way, we'd have a lot more fixed expenses, due to living in a larger house, driving more expensive cars, outsourcing a lot of chores, going on more vacations, etc. But DH has made me realize that living a frugal life doesn't make me less happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:YNAB doesn’t make sense at that HHI. Focus on cash flow (which sounds like it is way in the positive).

Generally speaking, your view of spending sounds unreasonably restrictive at your income level. I get that you have savings goals. Why don’t you focus on making sure those are met instead of policing spending?

We are higher income and use YNAB. Many people who are higher income have not always been this way. It’s really helpful to map out budget and saving priorities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:YNAB doesn’t make sense at that HHI. Focus on cash flow (which sounds like it is way in the positive).

Generally speaking, your view of spending sounds unreasonably restrictive at your income level. I get that you have savings goals. Why don’t you focus on making sure those are met instead of policing spending?

We are higher income and use YNAB. Many people who are higher income have not always been this way. It’s really helpful to map out budget and saving priorities.

I’m glad it works for you. I find it to be a total drag!

I prefer monarch just for insight into how our wealth is growing. It works better for high earners imo. It might be helpful to OP to see just how much more they are saving than spending each month (assuming her husband isn’t truly profligate).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What if the spender is also the main breadwinner in the family? Do you give them a budget of how much they can spend each month on extraneous items?

Our salary difference is extreme - DH makes $650,000 and I make $150,000. But DH is the spender of the two of us and I do our budget. I feel bad when I tell him to spend less because I know he works a lot and deserves to reap the benefits of his hard work. But I also have a budget and financial goals for us that we need to meet each year so think it’s silly to spend money on things like a new grill, workout equipment, sports events, etc.

FFS. I think you are silly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:YNAB doesn’t make sense at that HHI. Focus on cash flow (which sounds like it is way in the positive).

Generally speaking, your view of spending sounds unreasonably restrictive at your income level. I get that you have savings goals. Why don’t you focus on making sure those are met instead of policing spending?

We are close to that HHI and use YNAB.

I find that it is great for exactly the sort of issue that the OP is having. It allows you to decide as a team what your priorities are and how you want to spend your money. For my husband and I that very much includes money for fun and frivolous expenditures.

It also makes it clear when you overspend a budget category where you are taking the money from. So if you overspend in the "fun money" category you have to decide where to take the extra money from. And there is no wrong answer, but the answers do reflect your priorities. So taking it from "eating out" or "future vacations" or "paying down the mortgage" line items does tell you how you are prioritizing your spending. That is what is happening if you track in YNAB or not, but YNAB makes it clear and explicit, which is great for the communication issues that OP is having.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:YNAB doesn’t make sense at that HHI. Focus on cash flow (which sounds like it is way in the positive).

Generally speaking, your view of spending sounds unreasonably restrictive at your income level. I get that you have savings goals. Why don’t you focus on making sure those are met instead of policing spending?

We are close to that HHI and use YNAB.

I find that it is great for exactly the sort of issue that the OP is having. It allows you to decide as a team what your priorities are and how you want to spend your money. For my husband and I that very much includes money for fun and frivolous expenditures.

It also makes it clear when you overspend a budget category where you are taking the money from. So if you overspend in the "fun money" category you have to decide where to take the extra money from. And there is no wrong answer, but the answers do reflect your priorities. So taking it from "eating out" or "future vacations" or "paying down the mortgage" line items does tell you how you are prioritizing your spending. That is what is happening if you track in YNAB or not, but YNAB makes it clear and explicit, which is great for the communication issues that OP is having.

OP here - I have tried YNAB but I could not figure it out because a) my husband refused to download the app and actual track things every day/weekly and b) we have lots of reimbursements coming in each month from work travel so I find it hard to figure that out. Also we take out our own taxes each month and pay quarterly and I find that difficult to track as well. I am sure others have figured it out but it ended up being a nightmare for me so I quit. I did make my own excel sheet to track spending.

[Anonymous]

OP, we are very similar to your stats but my income is more than yours so that gap is smaller. DH is a much bigger spender, not on little things but big things. I fund all my investments (401k, $19k per kid per year into 529 plans, brokerage account) directly from my paycheck and the rest goes to our joint checking accounting for daily expenses. DH does something similar where he deposits much of his income to the joint checking account, but not all of it. We also file taxes seperately because one year his tax obligation was greatly than my annual income due to his underwittholdings. We won't be able to afford our current lifestyle in retirement because he's undersaved. Who knows if we'll even be married in retirement, though. Ultimately, the only way to "rein him in" was to adopt a 3 pot system (his/hers/ours) and we basically live paycheck to paycheck from our joint account. When we first married, I thought the problem would go away as we made more money, but that's not at all the case. He will always spend everything that he makes, even if he made $5m a year, he'd spend it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We make about the same— I make a little more, HHI is $500.

I am the budgeter, and have shown husband how we are on track to pay off our 30 year mortgage 15 years early if we keep our spending in check. That’s a very tangible goal.

We also sometimes talk about shorter term goals, spending splurges or vacation funds.

I do not police him, but I do the grocery shopping and meal planning even though he is the cook because he isn’t good at shopping on a budget. He has seen how much quicker our mortgage balance drops when we aren’t eating out as much, and that was the biggest budget lifestyle change for us.

Otherwise, if there’s a large purchase (car), I set the general guidelines and we make a decision together. For medium things (new tech, anything >$1000) we discuss together.

Why are you in such a rush to pay off your mortgage? What is the interest rate? That is often a foolish decision to take.

[Anonymous]

What does your balance sheet look like? Based on your current spending, how much are you saving per year?