Are you one of those lucky couples always in sync with your spouse, never arguing or fighting about money and relationships?
Yeah, me either. My husband and I had countless arguments over spending, budgeting, and saving. We had good intentions to save money and pay off debt, but more often than not, our intentions fell by the wayside. Money and relationships struggles became a way of life. We both felt stressed and unhappy with how we were handling our money.
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I’m Frugal, But My Spouse Doesn’t Care
I was frugal – but my spouse wasn’t interested in ways to save money on a tight budget. He just didn’t think about how to save money, and sometimes, the things he did felt like sabotage to our financial future. On the other hand, I was being overly controlling about money and our finances. Having a controlling husband or wife isn’t a picnic for your partner either or a good idea in money and relationships.
Years later, my spouse is almost more frugal than I am – I have to convince him to buy needed items sometimes! We are almost always on the same page about our finances. Our money fights have dwindled significantly, and we’re debt free. Honestly, I can’t believe that we’re now both on the same page with frugal living and money and relationships.
The answer to peace and freedom with getting a spouse on board with frugal living and money and relationships came down to a few simple tactics.
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- 7 Debt Payoff Habits – Mindset Hacks for How to Pay Off Debt
#1 Embracing Your Natural Money Strength to Find Ways to Save Money on a Tight Budget
If your natural strengths are organization, planning, and you’re naturally frugal, it might make sense for you to take over the bill paying – or vice versa, if your spouse is that way. It helps if both spouses know what’s going on with money generally, but using your natural strengths only makes sense. (Despite this, it took us many years to figure it out!)
I’m the born saver, naturally frugal. At first, my husband handled the bill paying because I was in college and the time and not really earning money. It made sense at the time! But it caused a lot of fights when we’d draw the checking down to $0.11 and not have money left over for groceries. And he’d often forget to pay a bill because he was concerned with other things.
Once we embraced our natural personal strengths, it became a lot easier to manage our money together and improve our money and relationships.
#2 Talking a Lot about How Money Was Handled Growing Up
The roots of money insecurity or spending habits run deeply to our past. And showing compassion and understanding for your spouse’s money history is a key part of understanding how to get him or her on board with frugal living and ways to save money on a tight budget.
How and why do you spend money? In my case, I crave security – I want to pile up all my money and avoid spending it. Or when I do spend, it’s often for convenience – I’m mentally exhausted and don’t want to deal with food or DIY projects. That’s the way it was growing up – and I’ve co-opted those habits into my own life.
My husband, on the other hand, spends just like his parents. For him, there’s not much emotional reward in saving, and it’s better to spend money on food and toys – that’s the reward.
Before we could create a healthy environment where we both WANTED to save money, we had to address how money was handled in our youth and how that made us feel.
#3 Working on Your Money Goals Together
Do you want a fat savings account? Does your spouse want a motorcycle? Both of those goals can be positive and achievable. But you both have to agree on a plan to work toward them and find ways to save money on a tight budget. If you’re the one paying the bills and allocating funds to your goals, but your spouse has no hope of getting the motorcycle she wants, then resentment builds.
Read: 16 Best Personal Finance Audiobooks to Read about Money
The only way my spouse could get on board with frugal living was to include goals that included his desires. We had to budget for both savings goals AND spending goals. We had to figure out together ways to save money on a tight budget.
Working on our money goals together was the only way to achieve financial goals.
#4 Budgeting Your Cash and Income
Flying by the seat of your pants doesn’t work so well when you want to get your spouse on board with frugal living and ways to save money on a tight budget. Budgeting your income together is critical for creating a realistic budget. Even if one spouse pays most of the bills, both partners should review monthly expenses and savings goals.
We don’t do this together every month. But every few months or when income changes or money anxiety begin to creep in, reviewing the budget together is an extremely helpful exercise. My husband didn’t get on board with frugal living until he could see in black and white how much it cost to pay our bills every month.
Read: 10 Things I Quit Buying to Become Debt Free
Numbers often speak louder than actions or words. Adding a new car payment when the budget already is stretched becomes out of the question when you’re examining expenses on a spreadsheet.
For us, the numbers made our financial discussions less volatile and emotional.
#5 Separate Your Finances – a Little
What do you do when you want to pay off debt or save more money? You reduce your spending. But if you and your partner disagree on what a reasonable amount of personal spending is – for me, $0, for him, hundreds every month – you might try separating things a little.
We use a separate checking account for this. Paychecks and income get deposited in the main account, out of which bills and savings accounts are funded. But a certain predetermined amount goes into our individual accounts every month. These discretionary funds can be spent however the person wants, no need to tell your partner.
If you’re using a savings account, look for one that offers more interest – called a high yield savings account. Check out How to Find a High Yield Savings Account here.
Some people call this “blow money” and just take the amount for each spouse out in cash.
Either way, having designated money to spend is enormously useful for getting someone on board with frugal living. It doesn’t have to be accounted for – so they’re free to spend it however they want, on whatever they want. That freedom, rather than the exact amount, may be what your non-frugal spouse craves.
For the frugal spouse, there’s freedom, too. It’s his money, I don’t have to worry about accounting for small expenses in the overall budget, but our financial goals are still being met.
I really recommend the strategy if your spouse is not on board with frugal living.
Related Posts:
- How to Find a High Interest Savings Account
- 15 Ways to Find Money to Pay Off Debt Fast
- 7 Debt Payoff Habits – Mindset Hacks for How to Pay Off Debt
Agree with separating finances a little – we have somewhat separate money (probably the most separate out of all the different combos/methods we have done over the years) and its working out beautifully.
Yes, we are joint on most things but each having our own discretionary funds dispels a lot of fighting!