Ask the Readers: How Do I Motivate My Boyfriend to Save Money?

Before my husband and I got married, we were required to do an “engaged encounter” weekend. It’s literally an entire weekend talking and writing and sharing about yourselves, each other, your priorities and your future together.

One of the pages in the workbook we used had a list of items people tend to value in life. We were instructed to order them from most important to least important to us. The top three were to be things that we couldn’t live without. The bottom three were items that we could give up if we had to. We each ordered our lists privately, then compared.

It was a really illuminating exercise. Given that spending is all about priorities, I would consider trying a similar exercise yourselves. You could create a list with things that either of you enjoy spending money on: dinners out, new clothes, computers, vacations, real estate, etc, then take the time to order the list separately. The beauty of it is that there are no wrong answers. Since personal finance is all about priorities, you could use your lists to help create a budget that both of you can live with.

I haven’t read all the comments but I’d like to answer the question.

First of all, you have to decide if you can live with him EXACTLY AS HE IS. If the way he is NOW is going to be a problem LATER, you might need to rethink the wedding. People don’t change unless THEY want to.

And if he does want to change, you will still need patience, and you will need to appreciate what he has to offer other than money. My husband has been terribly irresponsible in the past; unpaid taxes, credit card debt, bankruptcy. He’s much better now but still a spender. He’s paying down IRS debt and he doesn’t have much left over, and he’s unwilling to give up fun. This is fine with me because I’m always quick to give up fun and that is no way to live either. I do the saving now – I am paying for our new roof and our trip to Scotland – and he pays for happy hours etc. He doesn’t like things they way they are, so he’s working on it. In the meantime we’re still able to have a happy relationship because I’m not hung up on whether he’s paying (or saving) his “share”.

I completely agree with Johanna and a lot of others comment’s that we might not have the whole picture and she may be trying to change him too much. If you have a fiancee who has gone from maybe living paycheck to paycheck and changed it so that he has now started saving for a wedding and possible down payment then I think that she needs to maybe back off of him a little bit. Had he done nothing that is one thing but to me if seems like she says we need to say 20% and he came up to 15%. Marriage etc is about compromise and I think she needs to compromise possibly a little as well. Again we don’t have the full story though.

This seems like a very good place where a budget will work out well. Who knows maybe she also has some spending habits that she did not outline and she does not consider wasteful because they are her priorities. If you setup a monthly allowance then this would handle the problem right away where he uses his allowance on whatever he wants no questions asked (barring illegal or incorrect activities). This has worked very well for my wife and I where we each save but we also spend on certain things and as long as its out of that money then we don’t care. We also discuss large purchases ahead of time.

I think we need more information overall and that judging one way or another based on only one point of view is unfair to the other party. She may just be looking for people to agree with her so that she can go back and say he is wrong because a bunch of random people on the internet said so.

You cannot change him.

He must want to change, see the benefits of change, see the pain of not changing and develop new habits based on his motivation.

I would also suspect that the more you push him to change and adopt frugality as a lifestyle, the more resentful he will become.

Money problems are a huge factor in marriages failing:

http://www.divorce.com/article/top-five-ways-money-problems-cause-divorce

I think if you are serious about getting married, you need to discuss your values. Money is just an expression of your values.

These types of questions might start the ball rolling into a deeper values discussion:

How should your kids be raised?
When do you want to retire?
How important is having a new car?
How much work (home improvements, yard work, financial planning) are each of you willing to do yourselves?

The bottom line: If your values are too out of whack, your financial decisions will be also.

-WR

I have an idea to help with the Starbucks gold card, but him a coffee maker that does one premium cup at a time. They are certainly more expensive than normal coffee, but not a daily or twice daily trip to Starbucks! Should start your “latte factor” savings right there with almost no change in lifestyle except for the feeling he gets being a ‘starbucks guy’

Just a thought

I used to date a girl that was a complete spender. She couldn’t save even if she tried. The only way to help them come over to the dark side is to help them realize what they are going to be missing out on in the future if they don’t save now. That’s the difference between our two sides, the now vs the future…

All I want to say is that saving up to spend a lot of money on a one-day wedding is not necessarily a better use of money than spending it on many gadgets and evenings out. Maybe he thinks of all that as “your spending” if you are the one that wants an expensive wedding.

There are a lot of great comments, and all I’m going to add is WHEN you sit down to talk about the future, try talking about what HE WANTS to save for. I guarantee you there is something – and it’s almost certainly not a wedding.

Most guys couldn’t care less about the wedding. Especially with what the stereotypical wedding has become, an overly-glamorized Princess Day with multiple locations, full media coverage, and hundreds of people he barely knows.

It’s hard for some people – especially men – to get excited about it; they would rather just go to Vegas or the JP, and then have a bitchin’ reception. So quit emphasizing the wedding. There are many other, much more important, aspects of planning a life together.

I am a reformed spender, my husband is still a spender. Like most people, ours came to a head with a big argument after he’d spent $400 in one month on a non-necessity, despite having little left over after all the bills were paid and zero savings.

Two years later, we have an emergency fund, paid for our last vacation with cash and are very close to paying off some student loans.

Our household duties even reflect our habits: I do the finances, he does all the shopping.
I didn’t even try to curb his spending. I simply took over control of the banking and asked him to check with me before buying anything over $50 or so. We simply discuss everything. You have to have a good relationship before being able to use this system, so it may not work for some people, but for us it gets the job done.

My boyfriend is the saver and I’m the spender. The way we worked it out is I pay ALL the bills (rent, utilities, cellphones, EVERYTHING) and we get to spend whatever is left over on whatever we feel like (vacations, restaurants, gadgets, etc).

He, on the other hand, puts about 80% of his paychecks into savings and retirement accounts.

This way we are saving a ton of money for early retirement, but I also get to somewhat maintain my “spender” personality.

Sidenote: I do contribute the max amount to my 401k, so I am saving a bit myself and getting the free employer matching contributions. Never pass up free money.

I’ve enjoyed reading the comments and suggestions (especially #59, 62, and 64), and hope to incorporate some of them into my own life with my Big Spender husband.

I’m amazed that it took 62 comments before someone mentioned the wedding! Seriously, hearing that someone is saving for a wedding, rather than a marriage, always sends the red flags up for me! I have to say that I doubt the sincerity of anyone who claims to be a saver, but also needs to “save for the wedding.” It would appear that the 1-day event is more important than everything that comes after. tsk-tsk!

That said, and speaking from my own experience, trying to change someone else’s spending habits and philosophy is futile. Those things come from within, and can’t be manipulated/nagged/guilted into existence.

Perhaps leading by example would help: “You know what, Honey? Our marriage is way more important than a fancy wedding. Let’s put that money aside for a house or retirement instead, and talk about how we want to handle our income and investments in the future. I’m sure we want the same things.”

The trick is not to think you have to first stop spending and then start saving. It didn’t work like that for me at all. I am in a cross-over period where I still have a lot of my bad spending habits, but luckily, thanks to GRS, I have added in some good saving habits and those will eventually dominate my finances. I used to smoke and then I started running, but guess what? When I was up to 4 miles I was down to one cigarette a day – sound ridiculous? Gradually running became more satisfying and smoking less so. Pretty soon I could feel the minimal buzz of my one cigarette and know my run could have felt that much better without it. It’s not a dichotomy or an exact science…maybe Linda’s boyfriend needs to take one thing at a time, save for something short-term, and see how satisfying it can be. That might be the best way to go from lattes to riches.

I also am concerned about the letter writer’s tone and wonder if there just may be a compatiblity problem. I really like and can relate to #4 Pamela’s entry.

My husband is much more of a spender than I am and he came to our marriage with six figures of debt, while I was debt free, after having spent the previous five years digging myself out of 40k of credit card and student loan debt. He’s still more of a spender than I am, but that’s not bad, it’s just different. We obviously don’t have all the details here, but it sure sounds like Linda’s boyfriend is compromising but she wants her way or the highway.

We do an adult allowance (smartest thing we ever did!) and we make accommodations for each other’s ways. I’ll pack his lunch because he doesn’t want to be bothered, but he won’t spend money on lunch if his lunch is already made for him. He was stopping every morning for caffeine, so we kept trying different travel mugs until we could find one that suited him and now he doesn’t stop anymore.

He’s typically the one who identifies the need for a big purchase while I determine how much we can spend. I handle all the finances and he’s glad I do. Dave Ramsey doesn’t approve but he’s not in our marriage. It works for us (going on 16 years). We expect to be MND’s at some point in the next 3 years, sooner if the stock market cooperates.

This is a tricky one, because of course people can’t be changed, they can only decide to change — and nagging definitely has the opposite effect as one intends.

My DH is responsible with money, but he also wants to have a certain level of fun and entertainment in the “now” rather than save everything for the uncertain “later” (and he has a valid point). I’m a saver through and through, and always will be – it’s just the way I’m wired. So for many years while I was at home eating KD for lunch with the kids so we could save money, he was out with friends or business associates eating in nice restaurants. This drove me crazy and made me resent him, but what was I supposed to do? Spend more money to punish him? Leave him??? Our income finally caught up with his lifestyle and now I don’t mind that he spends money because we’re saving a generous amount too, which was always my goal. Now we can both enjoy ourselves guilt free.

So the moral of my story is that, in the end if you want to make it work, sometimes you have to change your perception rather than change the other person.

He likes gadgets and eats out more then he should? Sounds like a typical bachelor to me.

Seriously though, this guy doesn’t sound like he’s a spendthrift. Cut him some slack. Unless theres worse spending habits we didn’t hear about then I tihnk maybe Linda may be the one who needs to lighten up here. She can’t expect her fiance to change entirely over night to suit her exact specifications. She says he has changed a ‘lot’ and she should be happy with that. Maybe Linda is a miser? How much has she changed her spending and financial habits to suit him? Should she lighten up and not get upset if he wants to eat out dinner once in a while or buy the new apple iThing?

What I think they should do is have a frank and positive discussion about spending. When Trent at Simple Dollar wrote about this nearly a month ago my suggestion was that she and her fiance should make lists of their individual spending priorities and then compare them. They should also make sure that they each now how important different financial goals are and what expecations are. Does she think they need to save 25% of their income while he thinks saving 5% is OK? Or are they closer to agreeing? Is having money in the bank very very important to her and maybe he doesn’t realize that?
Maybe he ‘gets’ that saving for a wedding is important but he just doesn’t ‘get’ that its super duper important and Linda can’t sleep at night since she obsesses about worrying over it.

My partner and I have been on a 2 year journey slowly addressing some of these same hurdles. Here are a few things that have really worked toward getting us on the same page:

-the first thing i did when we combined finances was to create our net worth calculation. it was negative! It was a powerful at first to show him the numbers to de-personalise the situation. For him there was a big difference between what he thought the situation was to the actual reality of it.

-we agreed on adult allowances, the money goes into both our personal accounts every Friday and i don’t really care (or check, or ask) how he spends his amount

-we’ve automated all bill paying, transfers to savings accounts, and 401k contributions to remove human error & emotions, we’ve mistake-proofed it against ourselves

-for the remaining money each week that actually gets into our hands (a very small amount) we use for food, gas and any incidentals, we have a quick chat once a week to allocate how we will spend it that week. Then we take it out in cash (so we can’t overspend at the grocery store, etc)

Hope this helps! We are still very different money personalities but both of us understand and accept where the other person is coming from and try to work together

Wow, I do see a lot of red flags here. Most notebly that Linda is presenting her way of life as the ‘the good and virtuous Saver’ and his as the ‘thoughtless Spender’. Really, as long as no one is racking up tons of debt that can’t be paid there is no good or bad here. BUT there defintely seems to be different. The amount of criticism that she has for her future husband is actually quite shocking to me. No, you shouldn’t get married expecting someone to change, that said a good marriage ALWAYS requires compromise of some kind. You have to believe that the WE is more important that the I most of the time. My husband and I are actually pretty similar in spending habits, of course he would never spend $3 to sit in a coffee shop and relax, or $100 for green shoes, but I dont’ understand spending as much as he does on motorcycles, the thing is that we each know what is important to the other, and put value on it because it makes our spouse happy. Likewise we work together to establish financial goals, that we’re both behind. We have seperate money, but combined goals. If you realyl feel that you are so far off, there is defintely some discussion that needs to be had before you get married. Maybe you’ll talk about things, and you’ll feel better about it, and have a stonger relationship for it. Maybe you’ll find out that he has no interest in giving up his latte habit despite how you feel about it, and it does just highlight a real imcompatability about goals and planning. If your that ticked off about latte’s (and haven’t told him) how are you going to approach things like, I want to take off 6mo to have a baby, or I really think we should get the smaller house, or I’m ready to retire – but you have to work till your dead and I have no one to spend my retirement with.

My husband is a spender. I’m the saver. I create the budget and pay the bills. He gets an “allowance” every pay period to spend (or save) anyway he likes (books, CDs, magazines, etc). He has to save up his allowance if he wants something more expense. I tell him how much goes into his 401k. Recently he learned he has an IRA and kids have 529 accounts. Wouldn’t work for everyone but he is okay giving up control. He has no interest in planning and saving.

You can motivate him by taking away things that he enjoys

I can completely relate to this, because just like you all, in our relationship, there’s a Spender and a Saver. I’m the Spender, but I’m also the really organized one, so I’ll provide what has helped within our household. First, I did make a lot of day-to-day changes based on the influence of my Saver boyfriend, and he has acknowledged that I’ve become a lot better about it since we started dating 6 years ago. Now, I’m the one obsessing about us saving for goals, although by nature he is still much more thrifty than I am. What we’ve been doing is basically putting a set amount of money into a shared account for our common goals – paying bills, buying groceries, and saving for big things like our future wedding, vacations, etc. The rest of our money from our paychecks is kept in our personal accounts for us to deal with – so if I want to buy a new pair of boots, that’s my choice, so long as I first paid into our shared goals account. So what might help Linda is to set very specific, concrete goals with her fiance, such as a fund for a house, and together decide how much it will take each month to get to that goal. Then, make depositing that amount into some account an absolute must, not an option! Once she’s more secure that even despite his spending, they’re still working together towards their shared goals, she may find that she cares less about what he spends the rest of his income on. Good luck!!

A lot of relationships have the dynamic of one person being the spender, and one person being the saver. I don’t know that this is reason to throw a fiance to wolves. The “trick” is how to communicate (with honesty to ourselves and others) about these differences. It sounds like they each value spending their money in different ways. NOTE: A LOT of couples do. The relationhip can go a long way when each person in the relationship begins to understand how they value spending/saving their money, and come to a mutual agreement about how they want to do this. If they aren’t able to come to an agreement in a healthy way, then they might have bigger problems. We are talking about difference in values and goals, but I don’t know any couple where these always line up perfectly. It’s how we navigate the difference that make the success or failure of the relationship…including how we spend/save money.

It is not clear if the spending is compulsive (something outside of his control). It does sound like she is experiencing some anxiety, and I’m not sure if it is warranted or not…non the less she is uncomfortable with his habits.

To examine if his spending behaviors are compulsive/addictive spending they each would want to look at how it is impacting his/her and their life. Does his spending prevent them from paying their bills on time? Does his spending prevent them from taking care of medical needs? Does his spending interfere with relationships with friends, family, etc. (i.e is borrowing from friends family and not being able to pay it back). Continuing to run up debt etc.

Likewise, He/She and they can evaluate where her feelings are coming from about him spending money. Does she tend to “hoard” money and have a difficult enjoying “letting go” of her money. In the scenario above, it is just not clear.

Exploring our own responsed to the above scenario can give us insights into our own values, beliefs, mindset, and “blindspots” about our own relationship with money.

I was a spender and what changed me was learning about investing. Now instead if getting my thrills buying a new toy I get that feeling buying stocks (index ETFs of course.) Investing is way more fun and rewarding than saving… I guess I am still a spender of sorts.

Automation, automation, automation. Have him direct a certain percentage of his paycheck to the down payment or whatever savings goal and then let him spend as much as he wants. Separate bank accounts help too.

I wish I’d paid more attention to those “red flag gut checks” when my husband and I were dating. I bailed him out of many $100-$500 financial emergencies, and we never really discussed financial goals or went to premarital counseling (we were both in our early 30s and thought “We know what we’re getting into”). Of course I love him, but thousands of dollars in overdraft fees, gallons of tears cried, and no house or car ownership to show for all these years of working have not done our marriage any favors. When he was laid off, he kept spending like he wasn’t, and I took a second job at a retail store to halfway make ends meet. When I told him, no, we can’t afford daily Starbucks/Chili’s/steak for dinner/a MacBook Pro/PS3/iTunes shows, he’d just go alone and get what he wanted, and pout or yell at me when I pointed out that we needed that money for other things like rent and electricity. I had (HAD) good credit, so he could get store credit cards and he had access to our checking account. The IRS came calling after we’d been married over a year–I had no idea he never filed income tax returns for the first 10 years of his work life. Talking about shared goals, setting budgets together, IRS calls, getting eviction notices…. none of this will necessarily cause someone to become internally motivated.

You need to decide, as other posters have stated, whether you can live with this man “AS IS.” If not, and you don’t want to go the his/hers/ours financial route (what we now do), LEAVE HIM. Do not put yourself through what I’ve gone through. It’s a miserable, frustrating, and very depressing situation. You may love other things about him, love them very much even, but you can’t live on love alone. As another poster said, spending habits are about shared values, and you need to figure out if your values are in line.

On a personal note about weddings: we got married in front of a few friends at the Justice of the Peace office, went on a European honeymoon, and returned home to throw ourselves a “Wedding Party”. It was awesome! Zero wasted dollars on wilting flowers, fancy outfits and rental fees, and just a few hundred spent on booze and food at our big party. No stress, plenty of time to hangout and share memories/pics, and we had a blast. Don’t feel pressured to throw a $25K wedding… weddings are for everyone else to enjoy.

#89 – You’re saving over 30% of your income – that’s great! And it’s exactly what I’m saying. If you can afford to have considerable savings and frequent Starbucks daily, then by all means caffeinate away! But if he isn’t saving, or is saving only a small amount of his no longer great salary, then it’s probably time to sacrifice the Starbucks and the iGadgets.

Wow, some great comments here. I’m not getting married anytime soon, but I’m bookmarking this post for reference. Key points I’ve gotten from this thread: A)you can’t expect your partner to change (at least not radically or quickly) and B) communication and compromise are the solution, if there is one.