Who is married to a spender?

[flygirl]

It’s been awhile since I posted about this but I need some commiseration.  

PDQ
Poof

[ohgillian]

The fact that the relationship has a feature that would be a red flag now if you were dating -- this seems like something that needs said aloud.

[scm1011]

ohgillian, she said PDQ

[ohgillian]

Jan 4, 2021 9:12:28 GMT -5 scm1011 said:

ohgillian , she said PDQ

Argh thank you! I'll fix it.

[formerlyak]

My ex was a spender. At one point we were at 20k in credit card debt because of his spending. I knew he was bad with money when we were dating but I didn’t know how bad until we moved in together and I had to sign for everything. It was a huge problem in our marriage. If I were you, I’d sit down and hash it all out. The longer you aren’t on the same page about this, the more problems it will cause.

[wanderingback]

I'm not married, but my partner and I have been together for many years and we're planning to stay together "for life." Anyway, yes he definitely spends more than me and I've come to terms with it at this point.
Most of his spending is on 2 things - precovid it was on food while hanging out with friends. He doesn't work a "traditional" job so he would hang out with friends 3-5 times a week and that usually involved being at a restaurant.
The other thing was equipment for his career - like instruments and other stuff. Those things were often pricey. The most expensive item I own is probably my mac laptop, while he definitely owns hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment and spending $300 on a new microphone is no big deal.

So anyway, what has now worked for us...
We have 1 account for all bills and joint stuff like groceries.
Once a month we go over where our spending is, what the plan for the month is, etc.
We transfer X amount to savings and X amount to pay off debt, this is non-negotiable and we had a discussion about goals together that has helped with this.
Otherwise the rest of the money he brings in is his to spend. Sure deep down inside I wish he didn't spend so much money on equipment and food, but that's who he is and as long as we're meeting our financial goals that we came up with together then I'm fine with it. I give myself way less in fun money than he spends. I don't look at his account to see if he spent $500 on some piece of equipment.

Do you all have "extra" money in the budget for him to have more fun money?

I do think you're kind of setting yourself up for failure to ask him to dig in to the budget, when you already know he's not good at it. I think in a couple some people have their strength and weaknesses, I know my partner likely isn't going to be the one leading the finance conversations, so I don't mind taking the lead and saying we have X money, I don't think we can adjust the budget, what do you think? If I waited around for him to take the lead on that it likely wouldn't happen and I'd just get frustrated. There are other things that he takes the lead on that I suck at or have no interest in being the point person for. That's definitely one of the benefits of being in a relationship to be able to delegate tasks like that. At least that's how I look at it.

[flygirl]

I will say this post stems mostly from recent conflict and we can go for a long time (years) without any issues with me handling the money and him just taking his “fun money.” I think the latest crabbiness about not having enough fun money stems from his friend wanting him to go on a snowmobile trip (this is the 2nd year they’ve done it) which his share would be $1K. H has never/could never save a portion of his fun money for things like this. He has 2 other guys trips during the year that he does but they don’t cost as much and our budget partially pays for the more expensive one.
On having him look at the budget-this is a recent thing to have him look at the budget so that he can see where everything goes. He needs to take ownership in it vs the blame game.

[purplepenguin7]

deleted for privacy

[flygirl]

purplepenguin7, thanks for that, it made me laugh due to the parallels. My H grew up poor also, and his dad was a spender (even worse-like 10x) and his mom divorced him as a result. He never helped her so it was a constant struggle. I definitely think as our income has grown, Hs idea of what he wants to spend on toys grows too. He never wants something that’s $20, it’s always $150+. You did make me think of something in terms of the way his mom is with money now so thank you for sharing!

[dr.girlfriend]

I'm sorry, that all sounds very stressful. I wouldn't say I'm married to a "spender" so much as a "dreamer." When I met DH, he had $14 in his bank account, was working at a record store, and said he wouldn't get married until he had his "three picture deal" (he wanted to make movies).

He also grew up VERY poor, whereas I grew up solidly upper middle class, and you would think that would have switched our roles, but I'm definitely the one who needs security and a big efund and a steady income, etc. His general philosophy was, "Well, I always got by, so..."  If he could afford stuff when he was broke, he should definitely be able to afford it now that we are "rich," right?

The bright side is I have a high and steady income, and he's had an income equally high at times once he sucked it up and went into an aspect of business that still played to his strengths and creativity. My steady income also gave him the flexibility to let him "follow his dreams" to some extent, at least in terms of taking jobs that paid less but he liked a hell of a lot more, and ultimately moving to part-time so he could pursue his side interests. It is a trade that works for us, because he is also in the role of "trailing spouse," moving with me for my career.

He is legitimately very successful in his side interest (currently he has a book out and plenty of highly-paid speaking gigs). But part of my hesitation in him going fully freelance is he is NOT good with the business parts -- I do our taxes and am always chasing down his invoices from side gigs. I told him for years he had to file taxes for his business even if he wasn't making money, and he kind of shrugged it off and then was shocked when the state told him he needed to file five years' worth of taxes. That kind of thing. Similarly, he has several vacations a year that he takes with college friends and has every year since college (so close to 20 years now) and these have gotten increasingly extravagant over time as his friends are mostly lawyers, etc. and have also spread out across the country and internationally. I told him I am *not* going to put myself in the position of saying he can't do a trip because we can't afford it, so he needs to figure that out on his own.

I think the big difference is that my DH tries to help, and does what I tell him to without complaining even if he's never going to be the one that's like, "Hey, my income went down so I need to adjust the withholding on my 401k to compensate..." Your husband sounds more like he's just abdicating all responsibility for finances but then throwing a tantrum when he doesn't have money at his disposal.

Boy, this was a long post with not much little help for you except to sympathize. Is your DH in a position where he could make side income that is his to spend on frivolities? Like, if he can't save up the $1k, could he at least earn it?

[flygirl]

dr.girlfriend , Hs siblings are all the “we’ve always gotten by” types. I’m not sure how that’s going to work out for retirement (but not my problem)

And I’d have no problem with a side gig as long as it doesn’t impact my job or DS

[sadlebred]

I think for the OP that increasing her H's spending money will only lead to him buying more expensive things and needing more money.

[Stan]

My XH was like this. We got counseling for it and were good until he had a stressful job and I left for extended periods for work. It's not the only reason we got divorced, but it's a huge reason. My H now and I are on the same page and it's so refreshing. My net worth is much higher than it would've been if I were still married to XH. He always guilted me about the way he grew up and how hard he worked to the point I would use my fun money to pay his cc bills.

[arehopsveggies]

What we do maybe isn’t ideal, but after many years together I’ve realized it just is what it is?

He has a checking account of his own. His paycheck (we are a one income family currently so that’s all our money) goes into my account. His name is on it but he doesn’t have a card to access it. I give him $50 ish a week for gas and beer and maybe a lunch out. If he needs anything else he calls me and I tell him if I can afford to move the money or not.

At the end of the week whatever is left gets moved to savings automatically.

He gets $300 a year for a fun shopping budget.

Idk what we will change when I go back to work. I’ll probably loosen up a little but also know he will spend whatver I put in his account

[dr.girlfriend]

Jan 4, 2021 16:28:23 GMT -5 flygirl said:

dr.girlfriend , Hs siblings are all the “we’ve always gotten by” types. I’m not sure how that’s going to work out for retirement (but not my problem)

Not to be grim, but it's not your problem YET...

[wildrice]

You have my sympathy, because I do know exactly what that is like. My XH was a spender without the income to support it, and it was super stressful and a huge cause of strife. We split for a multitude of reasons, but if this wasn't always prompting arguments, it's possible some of the other stuff would not have happened or been as big of a problem.

My best advice that if you can't get on the same page, at least find a middle ground that you both can respect. Maybe you'll never save as much as you'd like, and he'll never spend as much as he'd like, but if you can find something in the middle where you both can live it with, that's reasonable too. A big part of my issue with my XH is that he never really cared much what I thought or how I felt about it. He'd agree to whatever he had to to get me to shut up, but never actually bought into the idea that he needed to follow through in order to make me feel safe/secure/happy. If your H can at least do that (and likewise, if you can let go enough that he feels like he's getting some of what he needs) then I think you'd be in good shape.

[flygirl]

Jan 5, 2021 0:50:37 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

Jan 4, 2021 16:28:23 GMT -5 flygirl said:

dr.girlfriend , Hs siblings are all the “we’ve always gotten by” types. I’m not sure how that’s going to work out for retirement (but not my problem)

Not to be grim, but it's not your problem YET...

No-even H agrees that their money problems are not ours.  They used to borrow money (using the term loosely) from H and even he realized he was just screwing himself.  They all have adult children they can harass and/or move in with.