He is constantly having to ask me for passwords and things, and he complains that he can’t do it himself, but when I sit down to show him, he picks his nails or stares off into space.

It was worked wonders for us. We both have a great understanding of where we are and where we want to go.

Humor does help when things get tense. The hard part is remembering that in a tense moment. Next time my husband gets all worked up about his taxes, I will see if I can remember to put some metaphorical bubbles on my head. Finances are important, but most of the time they’re not life and death.

Thank you for sharing that!

I keep track of our spending and savings in an Excel sheet that we both have access to and we both know all our account numbers and passwords. We set our goals together so we both know what we’re saving towards (early retirement, graduate school for him, vacations, etc). When one goal is reached, we discuss what to do with the money that is opened up.

For general “fun/luxury” purchases, we both get $75 a month…if we want something more expensive, we simply run it by the other person to make sure it doesn’t mess with any of our larger financial goals. If we know we want to buy something really expensive, like our 47″ LCD TV, we save up for it in advance.

We have a method that takes a lot of angst out of the process: we hold our financial discussions in the oversize bathtub. If my husband starts getting hardheaded about an issue, I splash him or put bubbles on my head, and the absurdity breaks the tension. There’s no “business attire” to give a subconscious sense of power-tripping, we’re privately sequestered and don’t need to worry about the kids overhearing, warm water helps the body to relax… It takes a bunch of stress out of the situation.

We have a pack of kiddie “tub crayons” to jot notes or run numbers on the tiles by the tub. It’s harder to feel threatened by numbers when they’re written in “bubble pink” or “bathtub blue” and the nearest financial consultant is a rubber duckie.

Dh has no experience with money management, because he grew up without any money (really, as in: 1 meal per day, 2 if he was lucky), so I have to take it slowly and make sure there are eye-openers, rewards, ‘unexpected’ (for him) windfalls, etc to show him money management is useful and can be fun!

Regarding allowances- theoretically I like the idea of us both getting a set amount of money per week or per month and we have tried to do that in the past, but I found that we needed to be a bit more flexible with our cashflow while we build savings/pay off debt so instead of a set number, we kind of play it by ear- I monitor how much money we have left, we check with each other on purchases over about £15-20 or so, and make adjustments to spending as necessary. I like this because it gives us flexibility, although it’s only possible because we both have similar attitudes towards money (we’re not super frugal people by nature, but neither of us are big spenders either.)

Btw, it’s nice to see another Aussie in here

We do meet in January to agree on our goals for savings and charitable giving for the year. Also, for the few “discretionary” budget categories we have (such as travel, home furnishings, car repairs, clothing), we set a budget for the year for each category. (About the closest we come to having “allowances” is for clothing – we each have a budget for the year). Neither of us likes to shop, so overspending is usually not a problem for us.

We will also meet twice a year to go over our net worth statement. We review the performance of our investments and decide how much to pay down on our line of credit for the next six months. Normally we prefer to be debt-free except for our mortgage, but because we can borrow money at low rates, we have decided borrow to buy stocks in companies with high dividend yields. So far this has worked out quite well, but we still try to pay off some of the line of credit each month, and our total borrowings are a fairly small fraction of our net worth.

We like to follow the KIS principle (keep it simple) in most areas of our life, including our finances. By focusing on a few key variables (savings, charitable giving, a small number of discretionary expenses) and trying to be content with what we have, we find that we are able to stay on track without a lot of effort.

JS

I’m from Malaysia. Have been following GRS since last year, but only as a silent reader. But this time, I would like to share my own experience

Eventhough we r geographically and culturally different, the bottom line of financial management still remain the same

I’ve been married for almost 2 years.

I agreed that any issue involving money is not very easy to handle, and for some reason, each couple may have a different point of view and also applicable to each individu

Personally, for my partner & me, we have a very contra appetite in money management, since both of us got our own pay. But we agreed and implementing the “Delay Gratification” concept moderately in our life, but still willing to burn some money for fun (this help minimizing our stress actually).

Considering this, we both agreed to manage our daily finance management separately but still share money for any joint-daily-expenses (expenses that will involve both of us).

Plus, we share our ideas when it is involving investment & Goals.

We use Boardgame “Cashflow 101″ as a tool to understand each other investing style.

2 heads is better than one. Normally, we will discuss our investment strategy together, to eliminate the greed factor and to minimize grey area. And also, we will discuss our strategy when we have something to buy, involving big money (this is what I meant by Goals).

Briefly, our financial management system involving:
a) tracking down our monthly expenses (not very detail to every pennies, just following budget set-up by ourself, separately).
b) Saving is our priority, before doing anything.
c) We apply envelope system for our savings & joint-daily-expenses.
d) We set-up our Goals together, not separately.
e) We discuss our investment strategy together. This is very important for us!
f) For investing, I will read and get some info, before sharing with my wife, since she’s too busy
g) My wife is an expert in finding bargain for our daily needs. This is a very big help.
h) We normally have a ad-hoc meeting in a leisure, but sometimes we still quarrelling, hehehe.
i) Delay Gratification is the best thing to describe our spending style and lifestyle

Hope you guys can understand my writing

Thanks.

If your differences are that great, it can have a serious effect on your marriage

It’s a great way for us to have some independence in what we’re spending and so that he in particular doesn’t have to answer for his personal spending when I’m reconciling the budget.

And it’s not at all degrading to either of us. He does joke to his friends that he only gets paid $300 a fortnight but really he feels very comfortable with our finances and the freedom he gets.

DH and I don’t do meetings either. We have mostly separate finances although each of us has access rights on the others’ bank accounts (this is “just in case”).

Basically we always divvied up the household expenses based on who is making more, with each of us responsible for our own debts. That wasn’t working so well after a while so we changed things around so that my smaller income all goes to “financial future” – insurance, paying off my debt, and retirement savings – and his (larger but variable) goes to “financial present” – rent & utilities, and his debt.

Once our debt is gone for good, I would like to handle ALL the regular payments, mostly because it’s easy for me (online billpay!) and I kind of get a kick out of it. He still writes checks (caveman!) and carries his bills around in his work bag, which makes me crazy but I don’t mention it.

We have never fought about anything, but the one time we came close it was about money, so we always know the possibility is there. Trust, the golden rule, and good will are essential.

Thankfully, we agreed that it would be best if I managed the money and he would help with investing (still working on that one) and he agreed that since he wasn’t going to pay attention to his spending the allowance system would work best. And for fairness I’m on the same allownace. I could care less what people think about us, and our financial quirks, as Dave Ramsey would say, I don’t want to be normal, normal is broke and stupid.

We’ve been married 16+ years, and have been out of debt for quite a while (aside from mortgages), so we don’t plan regular talks about money. Most of our discussions come up spontaneously during our limited time alone and awake together when:
– we notice a pattern that’s not working well
– we see an opportunity we want to talk about
– we make or endure a life change that affects our finances
– an unexpected windfall or expense comes up.

Given that we have two growing kids and foresee career changes coming, we talk about money pretty regularly right now whenever one of us starts worrying or just wants to get consensus.

I do give myself an allowance. Until I start bringing in regular income, it’s just easier that way.

This post kinda dovetails with a question I asked previously of those of you that have separate finances: What do you do with a spouse that is awful with money? Not just now to talk to them, but how do you structure your life so that the other person doesn’t endanger your financial well being? Do you do anything to be a safety net for your significant other?

The allowance system works pretty well for us and yes we call it an allowance.

Dave Ramsey calls this the “powdered butt syndrome” – you absolutely cannot talk about money with anyone who has powdered your butt.

I guess that can be applied to some spouses too.

All I can do is try to be a good financial role model, but she dismisses my financial gains as luck instead of strategy.