Among the topics that couples argue about the most, it’s safe to say that money makes it to the top of the list. We have worked hard to avoid arguments about money in our relationship.
We are far from being financial experts, but we do pride ourselves in dealing with our finances together as we navigate this married life thing. We’ve pulled together our tips for avoiding heated arguments over the bottom line in your bank account.
1. Make Money Small Talk
Start small by making money a part of your everyday conversation. Get in the habit of being honest about how you spend.
We’ve found that making our spending and saving a part of our normal dialog helps to lessen the feeling that talking about money has to be a quarterly conference-room-meeting-style analysis of our financial situation. This keeps us on track day-to-day, and we can focus on the Big Decisions as they come.
We suggest starting small, especially if money is a touchy subject for you. Here are some snippets from our conversations last week:
- “I only paid 1.89/gallon when I filled up my car with gas!” *high five
- “Check out these new ski gloves for our upcoming trip! They only cost $10 after a 30% off coupon, PLUS a $5 reward! And free shipping!” *fist bump
- “Shucks! That issue we had with our toilet? Our water bill is higher than last month!” *sad face
While these are just passing moments, they keep us in the habit of talking about money. It takes literally seconds to celebrate each other’s savvy skills and stay on the same page with the more unexpected expenses.
2. Set Goals
If you’re not both working toward the same thing financially, one of you will be more willing to spend than the other, and that’s a recipe for disaster.
Set long-term or short-term savings goals, spending goals, or financial planning goals. Do what makes most sense with your current situation.
Make sure your goals are manageable and realistic based on your budget and balance of wants/needs/agreeables.
Our Big Goal (capital B, capital G) for this year is to buy house, and down payments are real. So are interest rates, taxes, and all other expenses that go along with owning a home (insert every nervous tick here). Needless to say, our situation warrants a budget and goals that will help us boost our savings.
Discuss your goals and set them together. Most importantly, make sure that you are both willing to work toward them. If you’re not on the same page, you won’t be able to avoid arguments about money and savings goals.
3. Dedicate Time to Your Financial Planning
We think part of why couples argue about money is that they haven’t dedicated any solid time to sit down and plan. If one spouse tends to take the lead paying bills, tracking expenses, etc. from day-to-day, fine. Do what works best daily, but don’t forget to connect from time-to-time to look at the whole.
Couples argue because they’ll often wait to have a conversation until some big, unexpected expense comes up. Don’t wait until you’re in a bind to notice that you’re not comfortable with your cash flow. Make time to look at things when all is well and you’re not stressed about coming up with a lump sum to pay an unexpected bill.
Dedicated is the key word here. Be intentional about planning time to talk finances and be strategic about when are where the conversations will take place.
Avoid days when you’re stressed more than normal. Had a bad day at work? Bump the finance talk until tomorrow, put your feet up, and drink a cup of tea. Or wine.
Don’t rush. Give yourselves enough time to really discuss. If you’re rushing to finish up before This is Us, you might be pressured to make decisions. If you’re both not comfortable with the decisions made, you’re more likely to argue about them later.
Agree on a time. If the time isn’t right for one spouse, you’re setting yourself up for a potential disagreement. Be understanding when your partner is just not feeling it, and reschedule so you’re both accountable.
Add a fun, motivational element. Take a laptop to Starbucks and sip a Caramel Frappuccino while you crunch numbers. Plan a fun date night after your planning session!
We thrive on getting through adult life by incentivizing. As childish as it sounds, it works for us! Finding a way to sneak in some fun motivates us to get things done and helps lighten the mood.
4. Define your Needs, Wants, and “Agreeables”
The magic (and obvious) balance of financial bliss is spending less than what you make, plus being able to use your “extra” cash for fun things.
Potential problems come in when you have two people who have different tastes, opinions, and spending habits. When we combined our finances, one of the first things we did was discuss needs vs. wants for our household. To avoid arguments about money, we define our needs and wants
Needs: The absolute must-haves or unavoidable recurring expenses. Things like electricity, rent, car payments, groceries, etc.
Wants: The fun stuff, or the things we know we don’t really need. Things like eating out, concert tickets, electronics, etc.
The needs are easy to determine. These are predictable expenses each week/month adults can’t avoid.
Everything else that remained is technically a want, but we felt we needed a third category to help us prioritize. We created the “agreeables” category as a hybrid form of needs and wants.
Agreeables: The things we know we don’t need, but as a couple have determined we will set aside money for as long as it makes financial sense.
These are things we don’t need but have decided to make room for in our budget. Sometimes they are things we share, and sometimes they’re for just one of us. The key here is agreeing upon whatever falls into this category.
Your list of definitions of needs/wants/agreeables must always be open for discussion. Revisit this every now and then to make sure things are on track, discuss as new expenses pop up, and revise when life events alter your income.
5. Create a Budget
Defining your needs, wants, and “agreeables” is a great first step toward open conversations and fewer arguments. The next step is to create your budget that will help you meet your financial goals.
It took us longer than we like to admit to get this. At first we were simply using a spreadsheet to track our spending/saving month-by-month. Months went by and all we did was look at the numbers, comment how we were exactly happy with our saving/spending, and continue on without changing our habits.
The needs expenses come first. Make note of how much you need each month for your expected recurring expenses.
For wants and agreeables, look at what you’re already spending on each of these items each month (or the term of your choice). Are you both okay with the amount? Do you need to cut back? Make a decision about each item and assign it a number in your budget. If there’s hesitation, discuss a plan that meets in the middle and makes both of you comfortable. Keep tracking your expenses and adjust your budget accordingly.
6. Strategize How You’ll Spend
Arguments happen when you don’t have any guidelines for how you will physically (or electronically) spend your money.
Discuss what types of purchases will go on your rewards credit card. Figure out which purchases will be made with your debit card, checkbook (if you’re old school that way), automatic withdrawal, and cash.
We suggest to using your list of wants/needs/and agreeables to help determine your strategy.
For us, most of our needs are automatic withdrawals. It’s convenient and we avoid late payments. Most of our agreeables go on our individual cards because we like to make use of our rewards programs. Our (incentivized, duh) strategy for funding our individual wants is to take out a predetermined amount of cash (okay, it’s an allowance) each month to spend however we choose. When the cash is gone, that’s it until next month.
Work together to figure out the motives behind your “spendiest” moments and find a solution you can both live with. Discuss together how you’ll deal with things like using retail therapy to deal with stress, spending more online vs. in a store, or making impulsive purchases.
Your strategies are always fluid, so keep your conversations going and make changes as you need to!
7. Ask for Help
It’s okay to stop and ask for directions. Really. Whether your financial situation becomes too daunting, you don’t know where to start, or you can’t seem to agree on certain aspects, make use of resources that can help you both to avoid arguments about money and to plan your financial future.
Meet with a financial planner. This is our short-term goal for the coming month. If you want an expert’s opinion or find that you can’t agree on something, working with an advisor may help you avoid arguments about money.
Discuss with others you trust. Pick the brain of a family member or friend who has gone through a similar financial situation. If you’re lucky like us to have a friend who is King of the Spreadsheets, see if they can share any useful budgeting tools with you.
You’re certainly not alone when it comes to feeling lost in a sea of numbers. Use the resources and experts available to you to ease your mind.
You owe it to yourselves to make the most of and enjoy your hard-earned money, and it shouldn’t always be a point of contention in your relationship.
We’d love to hear your tried-and-true tips for working together to manage your finances in the comments section!
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