Comments on: Day 4) How Much Should We Ask Our Spouses to Do?

By: mrsmicah

mrsmicah — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 17:25:27 +0000

Hi Nicole, that’s a difficult area indeed. Based on living with a grad student I think perhaps your husband is feeling like he’s not contributing so he doesn’t want to think about it at all to avoid feelings of guilt/stress. I know Micah sometimes feels unmanned by the fact that I’m supporting him, like he should be doing an equal part.

So he adopted the mindset that his student loans are his responsibility, not mine, and he’ll take care of them in the future. Talking about it, I was able to convince him that his future was going to be my future and I wanted to take an active role in shaping it.

I don’t know what approach will work with your husband. If he feels guilty and stressed, then outright confrontation is probably not a good plan. But I’d point out that this is your future together and getting deeper into debt will just cause you both way more stress in the future.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 03:42:28 +0000

I’m glad that you addressed this. I am trying to get very serious about digging out of debt. I started our financial turn around December 27th, 2008. I’ve been tracking my finances for years using Quicken, and my husband couldn’t care less. Right now we’re on one income because hubby is back in school. I try to talk to him about our finances, how much we earn, how much we owe, etc, and he’s just not interested. “Budget” is a dirty word to him, it seems. He doesn’t seem willing to cut any expenses at this point. Regarding our credit card/student loan debt, he figures “everyone has debt, we’ll pay it eventually.” But when I tell him that we’re spending more than we’re making, and that we will never get ahead that way, he tells me to stop stressing out about money, that I make him feel bad, and that he feels like he’s not allowed to spend any money. Any suggestions for getting your spouse/other person more involved in a debt elimination plan?

By: Kathryn

Kathryn — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:39:09 +0000

Your description of the relationship and how you handle it…well,I though you were writing about us. My favorite detail is how it works better to introduce small doses of financial information. I think it’s working well for us. He seems to trust me to handle the money. I manage the budgets well (in my humble opinion). No hassles! My biggest fear is that I don’t have everything documented well-enough should something happen to me. That’s moving up on my to-do list!

By: mrsmicah

mrsmicah — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 01:23:16 +0000

@ldub, exactly! Micah doesn’t get nearly as stressed as I do about paying bills, but he gets much more stressed about budgeting money. I don’t know why, but it works for him if I budget it (maybe too many decisions?). As you say, there’s so much we can learn.

@Jo, YNAB does a great job of encouraging spending tracking, especially if you can’t get transactions from your credit union. Not being able to set it and forget it online might even be a strength! Good luck, I hope you get a lot out of this month.

@Diane, I know many couples coming out of divorce who are less interested in combining finances. Another couple I know didn’t do it until their 10th anniversary. It sounds like you’ve got a great setup, what matters is that all shared expenses are covered and you know what affects you.

Otherwise, as long as the person doesn’t get themselves in the kind of debt that would affect your mutual lifestyle (because they’re unable to contribute anymore) then I’m sure it would be quite cozy.

By: Diane

Diane — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:57:41 +0000

This doesn’t much apply to us, although I’d like to hear how other handle it. We’re both divorced & have grown, college & high school kids.

We’re aware of each other’s debts and financial commitments, which I think is essential in any committed relationship.

After the financial disaster of my 1st marriage, I don’t know if I could ever marry again, much less totally mix our finances at this age.

I pay certain household expenses, he pays certain expenses and we deal with the rest of our money separately.

We’re both responsible and pay all bills on time, so that’s not a problem. I know he has more debt than I do, due to business & left over marital issues. I’m long past that as I’ve been divorced for longer.

For me, the main issue is that we’re both aware of each other’s debts that could impact us both.

By: Jo

Jo — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:59:37 +0000

Hi there! I just joined this forum/blog and read through today.

My guy writes me a check the first and middle of the month for set amounts, which I then add to what I bring in from my income. He keeps a chunk of his own [fixed] income as his spending allowance. I do the budgeting/spending plan.

I tried Mint, Wesabe and Gnu. The problem I have with those is that they don’t support my credit union where I do the majority of my spending. So, no downloading of my transactions. I didn’t, however, have trouble with Mvelopes, altho I gave up on them because of the monthly expenditure, which I don’t need. I do have YNAB Pro, which I truly like. Easy, not overly detailed and flexible.

I look forward for the next 24 days to see how I do, because I’ve always balked at tracking my spending. That’s definitely about to change.

By: ldub

ldub — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:23:44 +0000

i’m in the very shallow end of this pool, just starting to get my fella to dip his toes in the world of personal finance. or, umm, caring at all about money, expenses, etc. it’s always surprising to find which things he is interested in, which stress him out, which he wants to ignore, which he has an unexpected talent for, etc. it’s sort of awesome to realize there’s still so much to learn about our partners…