Anonymous
Post 03/03/2026 06:54     Subject: How best to budget under these circumstances?
Anonymous wrote:OP, especially since you and your spouse appear to have dramatically different approaches to money you're never going to get anywhere you're happy with so long as you have separate finances. If you can't agree to that at a minimum, you're wasting your time and energy. You can't budget and you can't plan without having full access to information.

If you could agree to fully open and shared finances, your next step should be to download an app that tracks income and expenses. We use the Empower app. Everything is connected to it. Literally on a daily basis with a push of a button we can see what's coming in, what's going out, and where it's all going. It has a budget feature as well, and we pay attention to it, but really the best thing about having all the info is that you know what can be cut if necessary and you have a great sense of exactly where you are financially.

But, again, with separate finances you're SOL.


I disagree. I am in a similar situation as the OP, and we have separate finances; couldn’t do it otherwise. We are open, though, so there are no secrets as to the big picture. It helps that I am the primary earner and essentially control the purse, because for my spouse not throwing money around is a deprivation. FWIW, I grew up less comfortable than the spouse.
Anonymous
Post 03/03/2026 06:45     Subject: How best to budget under these circumstances?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Call it a spending plan. Not a budget. Honestly, the narrative shift helped DH.



I like this one!


I'm a huge advocate of YNAB (which originally stood for You Need a Budget) and even they've given up using the word 'budget' because of all the baggage people bring to that word. Now it's "plan".
Anonymous
Post 03/03/2026 05:10     Subject: How best to budget under these circumstances?
Anonymous wrote:You married….poorly.


Eff off troll
Anonymous
Post 03/03/2026 00:46     Subject: How best to budget under these circumstances?
You married….poorly.
Anonymous
Post 03/02/2026 17:40     Subject: How best to budget under these circumstances?
OP you can just go into all of your accounts, export a CSV for all activity over the last six months, and dump those exports into a google sheet. Pay $9 or whatever it is to have Gemini on the side and ask it to summarize your income and spending and make a report. You don’t need to write any formulas yourself. Or upload the csvs into ChatGPT.
Anonymous
Post 03/02/2026 16:26     Subject: How best to budget under these circumstances?
Anonymous wrote:OP, especially since you and your spouse appear to have dramatically different approaches to money you're never going to get anywhere you're happy with so long as you have separate finances. If you can't agree to that at a minimum, you're wasting your time and energy. You can't budget and you can't plan without having full access to information.

If you could agree to fully open and shared finances, your next step should be to download an app that tracks income and expenses. We use the Empower app. Everything is connected to it. Literally on a daily basis with a push of a button we can see what's coming in, what's going out, and where it's all going. It has a budget feature as well, and we pay attention to it, but really the best thing about having all the info is that you know what can be cut if necessary and you have a great sense of exactly where you are financially.

But, again, with separate finances you're SOL.


Is the Empower app safe for your data, and does it connect multiple accounts? About the only thing I have figured out is we spend a lot of $$ on tolls. Much more than I realized. Is the answer combination finances? Or just getting all the data together?
Anonymous
Post 03/02/2026 16:25     Subject: How best to budget under these circumstances?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Since he doesn't want to save, do all the savings directly from your paycheck. You can set up direct deposits to 401 (k), brokerage, and 529 plans, with the remainder to a joint checking account. Then spend whatever is in the joint checking account on household expenses. My husband grew up poor and is not a saver - if he made $10m a year, he'd spend it all. It's just the reality of our situation. At some point, fighting it gets old. If you adopt this approach, you also need to monitor his credit and make sure he's not compensating by taking out debt, because that's another, much bigger problem.


It's not that the spouse doesn't want to save. I think neither of us has an overall picture, so we can't plan or realize savings potential. And we don't fight about it really, but it's very stupid, and not helping us in the future. So I'm trying to get together some basic options so we can sort of get a plan and then go from there. And we do have a financial planner, but they won't budget for us.



Automate savings and spend the rest. The principle is simple - pay yourself first. You can have savings buckets for things like retirement, college, vacation, home repairs, etc.
Anonymous
Post 03/02/2026 16:21     Subject: How best to budget under these circumstances?
Anonymous wrote:Since he doesn't want to save, do all the savings directly from your paycheck. You can set up direct deposits to 401 (k), brokerage, and 529 plans, with the remainder to a joint checking account. Then spend whatever is in the joint checking account on household expenses. My husband grew up poor and is not a saver - if he made $10m a year, he'd spend it all. It's just the reality of our situation. At some point, fighting it gets old. If you adopt this approach, you also need to monitor his credit and make sure he's not compensating by taking out debt, because that's another, much bigger problem.


It's not that the spouse doesn't want to save. I think neither of us has an overall picture, so we can't plan or realize savings potential. And we don't fight about it really, but it's very stupid, and not helping us in the future. So I'm trying to get together some basic options so we can sort of get a plan and then go from there. And we do have a financial planner, but they won't budget for us.

Anonymous
Post 03/02/2026 16:18     Subject: How best to budget under these circumstances?
Anonymous wrote:Need more information. How much is left over after paying bills, and what happens to it? Or do you carry credit card debt?


OP here - We don't have CC debt, but have no idea how much is left over after bills or where the money is generally going. We do max out 401K savings, but I'd like to have a better picture of everything. For our HHI, which is good, this is maddeningly stupid. Hesitant to use an app since they take all your data and try to sell you other stuff, but spreadsheets are impossible, so looking for some solutions that might help.
Anonymous
Post 03/02/2026 16:14     Subject: How best to budget under these circumstances?
Anonymous wrote:Call it a spending plan. Not a budget. Honestly, the narrative shift helped DH.



I like this one!
Anonymous
Post 03/02/2026 13:39     Subject: How best to budget under these circumstances?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We have separate finances, sort of, and it works fine. Like we have different checking, savings and retirement accounts. And two brokerage accounts. But there is full transparency and the accounts are really a function of inertia. They were all there before we got married. We have a joint estate plan.

OP imo you don’t need to be on the same page about money, but you do need transparency. If he doesn’t like to feel nickeled and dimed, maybe you can leave his spending to him and just have planned contributions to shared goals. Maybe you do the household purchasing, if you’re the one who cares more about grocery strategies and such, and he just pays half the bill for that card.

But I would definitely start with just transparency and data. When you have it, frame the conversation in terms of long term goals and target $$ saved or invested. Don’t hassle him about how he went to Starbucks three times on Tuesday. As long as he makes his monthly target for saving or investing or whatever, leave him alone.


Full transparency is the functional equivalence of shared finances.


No it’s not, because for a lot of people shared finances means monitoring and talking about really granular spending decisions. I don’t monitor what my spouse spends money on and he doesn’t monitor me. We only check in on our macro goals and progress.
Anonymous
Post 03/02/2026 13:13     Subject: How best to budget under these circumstances?
Since he doesn't want to save, do all the savings directly from your paycheck. You can set up direct deposits to 401 (k), brokerage, and 529 plans, with the remainder to a joint checking account. Then spend whatever is in the joint checking account on household expenses. My husband grew up poor and is not a saver - if he made $10m a year, he'd spend it all. It's just the reality of our situation. At some point, fighting it gets old. If you adopt this approach, you also need to monitor his credit and make sure he's not compensating by taking out debt, because that's another, much bigger problem.
Anonymous
Post 03/02/2026 12:29     Subject: How best to budget under these circumstances?
Call it a spending plan. Not a budget. Honestly, the narrative shift helped DH.