Does anyone in a couple budget alone?
I'm just wondering if there are other situations like mine out there. I'm a stay-at-home mom, and I've used YNAB for 10 years to manage our finances. My husband works. We have 3 kids. All of our accounts are joint. Hubs doesn't even have the login to the checking account which I've had since before we were married. Occasionally I've showed him the YNAB screen, but he just gives a quick glance.
There have been times where I've resented the entire burden falling on me, but for the most part I've made peace with it. I just refinanced our mortgage without even consulting him and just checked if his calendar was clear for the closing.
I don't think he has the YNAB app on his phone, but he might. I can't remember him ever entering a transaction, though. Before direct import, and when we were living day-to-day I had him put all receipts on a spindle/spike thing and it was super helpful. I'd collect them every day and enter. Now I just check for pending transactions online if I think he spent something, or ask for the Costco receipt immediately. And I have a receipt dropbox hanging of my office door too that he uses.
He grew up in a family with horrid money attitudes and habits, and in the first 5 years we were together I was totally unsuccessful in re-training him and we nearly broke up. He has never been able to move on from his crippling psychological anxiety when it comes to finances, so the solution seemed to be to exclude him completely. He DOES wash dishes, do laundry, cook dinner, so there's less resentment all around :). It's just sad when I hear all the couples discuss their regular "budget meetings" and I can't even imagine what something like that even looks like.
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Annieland said:
There have been times where I've resented the entire burden falling on me, but for the most part I've made peace with it.This is all that matters, in my humble opinion. If its working and you are both happy with it, then no reason to change. Only thing I would add is that you should do up a "Legacy box" which is a file box (or drawer) where you list all the accounts, all the billing companies and account numbers, and where to find wills, passwords, powers of attorney, etc. In case something happens to you, he will have no clue where to start. This gives him that.
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MXMOM A very, very smart piece of advice, and one I've often thought about. I will confess something... this is where my teeny bit of resentment creeps out because he seems to think he can "figure it all out" no problem if something happens to me. So I'll get pissy sometimes if I'm feeling underappreciated, and it's like yeah sure, you go right ahead. But my mom died a few months ago while I was in CUBA and had next to no ability to travel or communicate. He was able to hit the database I keep on my computer and with a few keywords grab a whole bunch of medical records for her and he handled the whole nightmare on his own. After all of this we did go to a lawyer together and start redoing all the estate plan stuff, trust, etc. But yeah, the password stuff is gonna be important. Thanks for the reminder to quit being so immature :).
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Annieland you're not being immature. I just listened to Marc Maron podcast with Jeannie Gaffigan (Jim Gaffigan's wife and business partner). They have 5 (five!) kids. Long story short, she was diagnosed with a brain tumour, swept off to surgery, and into recovery. Spoiler alert - she lives (LOL that's her line). Anyway, she wrote a book about it "When Life Gives You Pears: The Healing Power of Family, Faith, and Funny People" and she talks about being controlling etc. and during recovery having to watch her family take care of themselves. Anyway, she says it all much better than I do. I have not read the book but it sounds good. Or if you are interested, the podcast is available online. If you want you can skip a bunch of time up front before the interview starts. I found her story fascinating.
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MXMOM MXMOM I agree. Focus on each others strengths. One might be the book keeper and the other isn't. However, both should have full access to seeing if credit card payments are being made, bank accounts, etc. Also, you could set up decision meetings on larger items, allow input, but sounds like the daily work isn't his cup of tea.
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Khaki Storm what if neither of you are book keepers? We are two artistic types--authors. He is smarter than I am, but I keep the numbers (years in 12-step money programs). I would be broke if I didn't. He is broke. I have a hard enough time keeping my finances straight though. Numbers don't make a lot of sense to me. Words do! :P
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Navy Blue Mare Then maybe it's time to hire someone to do it. I know it seems extreme, but as I've posts here before, I've know people that decide it's best for someone they really trust (one was a elder of their church, the other was a paid service) to handle all the bills. It's up to you.
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Yep, this is me. My husband doesn't know logins to any of the accounts. We just moved and he can't even remember to enter the correct zip code when using his credit card. He gets annoyed when I tell him we can't do something right away, or plan his next big trip, but I tell him the reasons why and explain I'll go over it in detail, but he doesn't want to. This works better for us.
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Heatskitchen I'm still waiting for the day my husband understands the difference between the HSA, FSA, and LPFSA card when he picks up a prescription for me. I did offer to put little post-its on them, but he scoffed. I can admittedly get REALLY angry when he pulls that crap, but a b**ch session with my girlfriends works it all out.
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Heatskitchen This is us too, but I hate always being the bad guy, having to say no or not now when his big plans don't fit into the budget (and we are fortunate to have a pretty generous budget!) 95% of the time, this arrangement works well for both of us. 5% of the time it is a problem, but my husband wants no part of seeing the details.
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A little bit.
I do all the actual budgeting work with the hubs entering his transactions. That is the one point where I make him do work, and he really doesn't mind it since the app is so easy to use. But I put our paychecks in and budget according to the plan. I set the plan, although I do consult with him on some big picture things. I'll show him how I have things set up in YNAB and he'll glance but doesn't really worry himself with the details. He just knows that he needs to keep spending within the category balances (I forbid him from moving money. If we need to adjust a balance I'll include him in the convo about what gets cut but I do the actual moving and make final decisions on that regard).
I also need to make sure I ask him when he has some needs coming up that I may not have accounted for and maybe pivot my plans a little bit. But at the end of the day it is a lot of me telling him what I want to do and he'll just go "yes, dear" and trust I have things under control.
It works for us, honestly. I wouldn't really want it any other way since this is one area where I prefer to have the control. I'm the planner and the analyzer. He is much more of an "in the moment" person and can lose the big picture easily. It's my contribution to our relationship and I know he is very grateful to me for doing it. He takes on much more of the care of our home and meal planning as his contribution since he is much better at planning for concrete concepts, whereas I am more abstract.
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Tobias Yeah, we're probably the most like you guys. I do like having the control, and in all honesty, I don't really need him seeing how much I spent on QVC last month even though I budgeted for it. There have been times when he goes to the supermarket on the last day of the month and even when I tell him there's $30 left in there, that goes way out the window because yes, the kids do need lunch food for the week and I can't say go tomorrow. And there have been times where I'm like, "You can spend that, just PULEEEZE give me a heads up!" And then yeah, I gotta start adjusting, but eh, rolling with the punches.
It was really sad a couple months ago, when we had a little talk about maybe splitting up some money as a "no questions asked" thing like other couples have, and he said there are indeed things he really wishes he could have. So I said, what? Thinking some big computer gear or A/V equipment or car thing. He said, "I've always wanted to have all the John Wick movies on blu-ray." I was like, Good Lord, so buy them! What the heck?? I always give you at least $50-$100 in recreation money.
And like you, I consider it a big contribution to our relationship (as of course I also handle all investing, planning, taxes, etc.) even though it's really no skin off my nose. Dishwashing on the other hand.... blech.
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Yeah, my wife has little to no interest. She'll enter transactions sometimes if I bother her enough about it but that hasn't been working lately and I think I'll have to put the receipt bowl back on the foyer table. She'll do that at least.
Monthly "meetings" mostly involve her aggressively shrugging at me over her budget meeting pizza. With one notable exception (the morning of July 28. 2019, she asked how much was left in Groceries) I just try to overshoot everything in hopes I don't have to rearrange during the last week of the month. Anything left over makes the next month easier.
It's not that bad. I have almost everything on autopay, we do virtually all spending on credit cards so I just reconcile about weekly and pay them manually once a month when the statement comes out. It's pretty mindless at this point. And she does the kids' laundry so I just make YNAB sound like way more work than it is and we call it even.
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FreshStart The receipt depositories were an easier habit for him to get into than entering transactions. Plus, if he enters something in the wrong category or changes a memorized payee or something, I'll probably go nuts. He does the big Costco shopping trips and those usually end up as at least 5 split categories in the transaction. The thought of him doing that makes me *shudder*. It's also annoying for me to spend 15 minutes "discussing" the budget with him all for him to say "Yep, looks good." I'd rather watch a tv show.
Better to just sit with a pile of receipts, look like I'm sweating it out, and then tell him to go clean out the garage. :D
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FreshStart said:
I just make YNAB sound like way more work than it is and we call it even.😂
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I think that it's completely fine to handle your finances the way you do. My mom always handled the finances for similar reasons that you do. She grew up with less than my dad did so she's very conscious of their spending where he is not. They're on the same page with most things now. I would say that it might be good to discuss big things like refinancing your house. If he doesn't care, then it's not as urgent of a matter.
On the other hand, my partner and I can't talk about budgeting together because it becomes a huge argument. We're in that odd phase of splitting pretty much every bill, but no joint accounts yet. It's something that I want for us in the future but just isn't in the picture of our stressful lives now. You are not alone when it comes to budgeting alone!
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Sounds like us!
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I'm single, but in my last relationship (pre-ynab but the budget was tight so I kept a really tight grasp) I handled all the finances too. Frankly, I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to that...
In fact, I get why it irritates you that you spend your time going over things with him just to see him shrug and say "okay, looks good to me..." It used to irritate me when the ex did that...until I realized in a stunning moment of clarity that I found it even MORE irritating on the rare times that he DID express an opinion.
Because then I'd spend time explaining why I did it this way instead of another way and we'd end up doing it my way anyway. LOL.
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My husband is like this. I used to hate it that he didn't/wouldn't share the burden with me, because he "trusted me" to handle it. We're in a ton of debt, and sometimes it pissed me off that I was the only one that lost sleep over it.
Now, I don't care as much. I'm just stronger than he is, what can I say? 🤷♀️
HOWEVER, being the sole budget-er only works because he is not materialistic and doesn't have a lot of monetary needs, he's fine with me giving him a cash allowance and never spends more than that, and when I go on budget kicks of any sort, he's totally down with coming along for the ride.
If any of those statements weren't true, it never would work.
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I have tried to budget alone in my previous relationship but that was a complete fail. My current partner and I are budgeting together but I do most of the work, he wants to be involved though and if I want him to be involved we need to do some things his way, which is hard for me... I think I might be a little controlling where money comes in because in my previous relationship we always had $0 to our name unless I and I alone put it aside and as soon as he found out about any money that was set aside it was spent.
I'm trying really really hard to include my partner in this whole budgeting concept, we just need to larn to budget together :) and tbh its going to take baby steps as long as we keep moving forward, we've already had a few small successes and we will just keep trying.
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Just to add about the passwords and URLs to site etc., just use a password manager app. I know that means recording your password "out there" (although not really), but it was the advice of a policeman presenting on Online Safety.
Your partner needs to be ok with opening an account with the same software. But then you can simply share the passwords and sites you want with them, and give them a nickname. So you could have one called "bank" and they just click launch and they can access.
This way my husband and I are sharing a Paypal account. He didn't have one, but now when he pays, he selects Paypal and can select to fill in with my credentials. That makes it much easier for me to figure out what the paypal charges were for.
We use LastPass and it has an Emergency Access feature. You can nominate someone else who can get access to your whole password vault in case of Emergency. I think the access is only for 24 hours or something like that but still good to have.
And it can store and share more than passwords.
We are typically the same. I can discuss large goals, net worth or cash flow positions with him, but not "do we want to spend X or Y in category A?" I've tried to get him to enter transactions but we are still at the point where he tells me he will install the app (this has been going for several years now...).
The major issue I find is sometimes I wonder if I shortchange myself. Because I'm doing the budgeting it sometimes feels I try to enable everyone else to get what they want and it's my categories that get WAM for it. It's not completely true but that's one of the reasons I feel I'd like to be able to discuss with someone at times.
The other reason is we have decided to be cash-flow negative for 2 years (paying part of childcare from the savings of selling a house), but then there was never a good discussion of how much negative are we going to allow ourselves to be?
Finally, the difference is we are both working full time with 3 small kids (oldest is in year 1 at school). So it sometimes feels like a lot to manage and remember.
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Ceeses I can identify with so much of this. I did remember later on that we do both use the same password manager (but separate accounts) and he could get into mine if he had to. Plus pulling up my stored Chrome passwords wouldn't be too difficult. I do wish we shared an Amazon account though, because that's one area I end up chasing him down when I need a charge explained.
Ceeses said:
We are typically the same. I can discuss large goals, net worth or cash flow positions with him, but not "do we want to spend X or Y in category A?"Every so often we discuss the same, and he says "Okay, great" so yeah, total waste of time to do a routine budget session every month. Especially since I make adjustments constantly :).
Ceeses said:
Because I'm doing the budgeting it sometimes feels I try to enable everyone else to get what they want and it's my categories that get WAM for itThis is where I'm the total opposite! I'm more apt to make sure my categories are generously funded and then I tell everyone else what they can't afford :). I'm getting better at it, though. I do end up feeling guilty, but hey, I'm doing all the work, my shoes and makeup are naturally gonna get funded before someone's dumb video game. That's the tradeoff in making the spender do the budgeting. :D
Ceeses said:
The other reason is we have decided to be cash-flow negative for 2 years (paying part of childcare from the savings of selling a house), but then there was never a good discussion of how much negative are we going to allow ourselves to be?We're going cash flow negative too right now, for a similar amount of time. I got some inherited cash I need to use to cover new fixed expenses (rental house and private school tuition are the main ones). This is where making a cash flow spreadsheet has really helped me. I don't use it to make budgeting decisions, but rather forecast based on averages and expected expenditures and income. It shows a negative income vs. expense number for most months going forward, but I can compare what the cash net worth will be from one month to another. So by the end of 2020 I can see what the "slow burn" is gonna look like. And it's actually not as bad as I thought. I update with actual expenditures at the end of the month, but keep the forward looking months in worst case scenario mode. Consider trying something like this, at least so you don't fall too deep into that hole before you expect to, and at best you might see you can stretch the cash longer than you thought. Good luck!!
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Annieland Ceeses for the cash flow negative scenario, in YNAB I would put that cash in a separate off budget bank account and then when you transfer money to cover expenses, categorize to TBB and budget as normal. And if you do come to the agreement of how low to go, I would put just that amount in a separate account and then you will be able to see how much you’ve used and how much is left. It goes against the YNAB philosophy of where the money is not mattering but then you have a clear view on it. I did this with my sons contribution to university living expenses. He transferred the whole amount for the year to me and I transfer an amount to him every 2 weeks like a paycheque so he will learn how to stay within budget and also to not burn through the whole amount before the school year finishes.
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MXMOM I took the specific inheritance amount and distributed it mostly to the immediate obligations for the coming year, i.e. tuition, legal fees (for estate settling), head start on rental property taxes, etc. Other than that, I do a lot of income smoothing, calculating a set amount to release from certain categories each month based on a simple formula. So that's kind of my brand of transferring to TBB from an outside account. And I write notes as to exactly how that money can and cannot be allocated. If I put it in writing then I mean it :).
For my Ally account where I am paying tuition from and now a large property tax bill, and covering cash flow in my checking account, I made an account note of how low that account should generally go. After paying the property taxes next month it looks like I'm going to be at about that minimum amount, but thankfully in January my husband gets a decent stock bonus, therefore that money will all go back into that on-budget Ally account, vs. off to some investments somewhere. But then that stock bonus goes into its own category where I release 1/6th of it each month, no cheating.
So that's how I manage to keep this stuff on budget for now. I know I have cash balances in brokerage accounts that I can tap if the SHTF, but being meticulous about deferring and smoothing income, and using the toolkit balances is keeping things under control... for now at least :).
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Annieland for us, we budgeted for the mortgage payments for 2 years. That frees enough cash flow for the rest. The issue is more when we want to make improvements on our new house: should we wait to save extra or use our current savings? But that's the same for everyone: your priorities around your money constantly change. I guess our main issue was we were always saving, it's the first time we have to really spend from our savings. It's a strange feeling. 😉
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My wife managed the money for the first 35 years of marriage. At some point, I realized we were in credit sink (like credit float, but increasing debt) and I took over. She trusts me, and otherwise doesn't care. I do get receipts, usually same day, but sometimes next week, or next month...
I tried to get her to enter receipts, but that never happened and I didn't get the receipts either, so not a win. Now we use the credit card for virtually everything, so I don't miss purchases even without the receipt, though it sometimes starts discussions. As many bills as possible are on autopay, and I have them entered as recurrent transactions in YNAB, so the work is a LOT less than when I started years ago. No debt now, credit card paid in full each month, and a decent buffer.
I use LastPass for all my and shared passwords. She won't consider that, either. The master password is in the safe deposit box, so she can get everything if I check out.
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casner That's really close to where my wife and I are with a similar history, just not as long.
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casner you should verify if she can get into the safety deposit box when you “check out”. Or what happens if you both die together (car accident for example). The executor can’t get into the safety deposit box right away. So anything urgent (last wishes, funeral prearrangement details, Wills, banking) needs to be kept outside of the safety deposit box because once you go the bank locks everything down until they verify everything at least five times.
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MXMOM It was pretty straightforward when my Dad died a few years ago. My brother was the executor, but he didn't have a problem with the bank. OTOH, both of us carry our safe deposit keys with us for convenience, so if we died together that might be a problem!
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I'm a stay-at-home mom, YNAB user for 10 years, and my husband wants nothing to do with a budget. I've tried too many times to get him onboard and honestly, at this point, I'm thankful that he knows next to nothing about our finances.
Over the years, I've tried on my own to get us to where we're living the 4 (original) rules. I've gotten close but something always sets us back. Usually it's him. As long as I don't tell him we're past due and unable to pay a bill or that we're too broke to buy groceries, he's good.
He gets a specific amount to spend on what he wishes each month. The problem is that he always finds a way to go over that amount. I've tried increasing it several times, doesn't matter. It's not important to him to stay within that amount. I doubt he even keeps a running balance of what he's spent and he certainly doesn't ask me how much he has left.
At this point, we're not paycheck to paycheck but neither are we a full month ahead. I don't like it but in the last year, I've taken to telling him we have less money than we do, more bills than we do, and that I'm close to timing bills to paychecks. Why? Because otherwise I'm not able to save for non-monthly bills, Christmas and such or even an emergency fund. I wouldn't be able to pay more than minimum on credit card bills. By not being honest with him, I saved enough money in rainy day funds to cover an unexpected medical bill that is several hundred dollars, I've paid off our new appliances early, and our last credit card with a balance will be PIF by January. If he knew the difference between his income and our monthly outflow, he'd spend even more money than he does. None of this would've been possible.
He's told me several times that he doesn't want to know about our finances because he doesn't want that stress. That I have to deal with the stress has never been a concern to him. He makes decent money so there's no reason we couldn't be better off. I don't like the dishonesty but I don't want to stress about finances when I don't have to.
Would I prefer to budget with him, compromising along the way? Yes. Since that hasn't/won't happen, I'll continue to lie and be thankful he doesn't know where we really stand. While I don't like the lies, I don't feel guilty about it. I'm working on getting my family closer and closer to a better financial future.
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Mina I've met a few people like that. Two were single. They had a 3rd party managing all their financials and got a small amount of fun money every week. Seriously, all income, bills, insurance, etc. was given over to someone else.
I've also had close family talk me into spending my emergency funds on non emergency things because I shared with then how much I had. No more sharing that info to extended family.
I hope you find a way to communicate without losing the progress on the budget.
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Khaki Storm Seems there's always somebody to help us convince ourselves to take a few steps back on that forward path we're on. Especially if where we are is where they'd like to see themselves.
I've given up on communication as far as budgets/finances. He knows I'm working on paying off debt. He doesn't know how fast it's actually going. Someday, if I can keep us out of debt (or at least keep it low), I'll tell him we're better off than we've been. That's as good as I can hope for, I think.
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Mina Thanks so much for this, that's an awesome post. I definitely feel less alone now! I've been a full month ahead for less than a year, and mine isn't really a big spender. When he does insist he needs to buy something I sigh heavily and then figure it out. But yeah, as long as the lights are on he feels we're good.
Personally, I think you're doing all the right things. I know financial advisors always recommend all that "financial fidelity" stuff, and while I'm sorry you're put in the position you're in, you're doing the best you can with what you know. It's his choice to be in the dark, and thank goodness he has you to keep the lights on. But yeah, the resentment can really creep up sometimes, and just me mentioning that we have some particular challenge sends him through the roof. He makes it all about himself, as if I'm blaming him for not making enough money, no matter how much I calmly assure him this is not about that at all. Then I just give up again and go back to keeping the lights on :). Good luck to you, hon. You'll get there.
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Mina I'm just trying to help avoid the resentment factor. I've seen it in friends and close relations. It's not good. The planner/savers is seen as hiding money (or having secret money) by the spur of the moment person, then the accusations follow.
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Annieland I appreciate your understanding of how I'm handling our finances. "Financial infidelity" was my last resort but the best option for getting us to where we are now. I've talked so much about YNAB, budgeting, saving for future expenses etc., over the years that he knows enough about how it works to recommend YNAB to others while telling them that he "nickel and dimes" us out of a better financial place. He has gotten better with his spending over the years and I make sure he knows how much I appreciate it. Thanks again.
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Khaki Storm Thank you. I probably gave the impression that we talk about our finances more than we actually do. He literally knows very little about our money. He knows roughly what our mortgage and car payments are but not the balances owed. He doesn't know balances/minimums on credit cards, what our average utility bills look like, how much we spend on groceries, gas, insurance, etc. He knows what he wants to know. Would he resent me if he knew what I've been doing for the last year? Yeah, probably for a bit. But I also think he would understand why. Do I resent him for not helping and sometimes hindering? Briefly now and again. Not nearly as much as I used to before this last year.
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Mina Be very careful about the lies. Even though you are doing it for the the good of both of you, it is not a good foundation. (Just my opinion.)
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Jenni Thank you. I agree with your opinion. I'm generally an honest person and I don't like to lie so it's not something I would ever recommend to anyone regardless of how it turns out for us.
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Khaki Storm I have discovered that if I want to keep my efund for emergencies I can't tell my roommate how much is in there or emergencies will magically appear. Frustrating, but yeah.
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Mina Jenni I have a secret account. When my mother closed out the RESP account, she got the $30K original investment back. That was our deal. I just wanted to get the government grant portions. But my mom, being the way she is, insisted that I take the $30K. (She totally can't spare it in the long run because they have no pensions, are renting, and have a limited amount left in their retirement accounts. )
Anyway, for several reasons I don't want to get into, I did not want to put this money into our (mine and hubby) accounts. I discussed it with my closest and longest known (don't want to say oldest) girlfriends and they agreed with what I was doing. I really struggled with this in part because I know I would be upset if he did the same thing.
So I have sort of compromised. The whole amount is in a high interest savings account in another bank. I am going to hold onto it until both boys finish school to ensure we can get them through without debt. I am mentally still considering it to be my mom's money and I am holding it for the purpose it was originally intended.
There is one exception to this. I want to go to Germany for my uncle's 80th birthday. We really can't cashflow it right now especially since I want to have a real vacation out of it, instead of just the regular "hang out with family" type of trip. My husband has never been so I want to do a few touristy things with him and we want to rent a car so we can go where we want, when we want. All that will cost more than we can save. So (here's where one lie leads to another), I told my husband that my mom is paying for the trip since she can't go and she wants us to represent the family. I am going to pay for it out of the $30K. So in my mind, not really a lie since it is money she gave me. My mom agreed with not telling hubby about the lump sum when I got it so she is ok with my saying she is paying for the trip (because she actually is, just in advance).
Once the kids are done school and other things are settled down (possibly when we have finished paying off the debt - which is less than the $30K), I will figure out where to redirect this money.
So are secrets between spouses bad? Absolutely! Are they sometimes warranted? Yes. Is this secret causing harm to my family? No. So I am making my peace with my decision.
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MXMOM
I have an inheritance from my father. My husband knows it exists but he also knows its in my account, not a joint account, and he probably doesn't know how much is in it (although he could find out pretty quickly, I'm hiding nothing). It's our emergency fund. It's also my just in case fund because I am a SAHM and do not have a paying job nor would I ever make the kind of money my husband does. I don't expect my marriage to end but sometimes people are blind-sided. I love my spouse dearly but crappola happens.
That inheritance has been used to help plump up the kids' college funds so we hopefully get to the point where we can cover half to 3/4 of state school, which he does know about, so it's not like I'm hoarding it for me me me.
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Same situation here! I married him anyway--he looks good in an apron;) He lost his main source of income and that is now a stress, so I said if I have to help his expenses he needs to do YNAB. We started, but he isn't motivated.
When he first started doing his numbers--keeping track of his spending--he realized he had more money because he was more conscious of where he spent it. But there seems to be a weird psychological resistance to coping with finances and "being a grown up."
Maybe we should start a support group! I am just getting back into budgeting because I decided if he didn't do it I wouldn't--that's the jumping off the cliff mentality, if everyone is doing it it must be a good idea. This is a great thread and I look forward to hearing others experiences!
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Navy Blue Mare
Navy Blue Mare said:
I am just getting back into budgeting because I decided if he didn't do it I wouldn't--that's the jumping off the cliff mentality, if everyone is doing it it must be a good idea.I've done this a few times out of frustration and resentment. In the end, I was just causing more stress for myself since I was still the one dealing with everything financial. For my husband, it was like opening the doors of a candy store wide open to a kid with a serious sweet tooth. I'm not doing that again! LOL
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We were the same as Mina except I had a business I ran out off the house. Also I’m an accountant so it was normal that I would handle everything. Without going into all the details, we were seeing a counselor to help me through some major life transitions and I brought up the fact that my husband wouldn’t budget with me. God bless the counselor. He basically said to my husband - why don’t you just do it. That’ll shut her up (of course not really what he said). Anyway my passive aggressive husband said sure. How about Sunday morning at 8 am. Argggh. I am not a morning person. But I did it. Skip to today. We still have a monthly budget meeting every month on Sunday morning (but at 9 ). And as we commute together we will sometimes do a few WAM conversations on the drive. And I have even got him
entering transactions (although split transactions I do).
And he likes it. Not the meeting per se but we set up spending categories for him with more money than I thought we should spend in them but at least it was done once and we didn’t argue over every little transaction another important thing we did was use the envelope system for groceries clothes Home Depot entertainment and Christmas. That was about 6 years ago now.
Him entering transactions just recently started mainly due to improvements YNAB made to the android platform
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MXMOM It's great that you're budgeting together! I'm happy for you that your husband was willing to give it a go. :)
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K. B. said:
HOWEVER, being the sole budget-er only works because he is not materialistic and doesn't have a lot of monetary needs,That is my husband!
He has one debit card and one credit card that he uses. Because he travels extensively for work, his only real daily need is food. I budget money into his food category, but I don't tell him that and I will move money if I need to to cover it. Fuel and hotels are covered by his employer. He has always been very good about calling me to either ask if there is money to purchase something out of the ordinary or to let me know he used the credit card to purchase out of the ordinary which is usually work related. He does get a per diem check for food, but he uses that for his hobby money and since that is pretty much his only finance request, he gets it.
Last weekend I was entering transactions while he was watching tv, when out of the blue he asked, how many accounts do we have? Is my name on them? This is the most interactive he's been when it comes to our finances. He does not have the app, we do not meetings, and he has no clue what we have coming in or going out.
Because he does not know whats what, I made a list of all financial accounts, insurances, and bills. I included website addresses, passwords, payment due dates and how I pay the bills. I also included phone numbers and addresses. My husband does not like the electronic world and would rather pay by check, ugg!
I don't mind being the sole budget-er, for me I think its actually easier. But, more than likely it's only because my husband asks for very little.
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Bezona said:
Last weekend I was entering transactions while he was watching tv, when out of the blue he asked, how many accounts do we have? Is my name on them? This is the most interactive he's been when it comes to our finances.Bahahha sorry, but that's hilarious. Every so often I give my husband a quick quiz on what his paycheck is. Or what our mortgage payment is. Or how much he thinks he has in his 401(k). Sometimes he's so way off it cracks me up.
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At the moment I (we?) don’t have his accounts in the budget, only my own and the shares ones, to which he pays a monthly amount. The amount was agreed on years ago. Since then we both raised our monthly amount a bit (I think I did a lot). But both our income changed even more.
I do want to budget together so much.... but he hates it. Budgeting in general. The wellknown restrictive thing... We can talk about big goals and priorities. Luckily.
As my job is insecure at the moment I crave for the biggen picture and really want his accounts in the budget too. I’ve told myself we should play to both our strenghts and also that seduction would work best. But sometimes its hard.
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Powder Blue Pony Wow, that's really a tough one. At least all our spending/loan accounts are joint and I always have a handle on the big picture. Is it possible to compromise and use some financial software or aggregation site (Like Personal Capital, Mint, or a brokerage site) to at least see all of the accounts? It doesn't mean you have to budget beyond the accounts you have immediate control of or make spending decisions for him. But if these are savings for your mutual future, like retirement, it would be fair and wise for you to at least see the balances. Good luck!
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Annieland Thank you so much for that reply. Made me feel understood :-)
As we live in europe I don't think we can use import software. Luckily it only concerns his cash accounts. He doesn't use a creditcard and retirement savings/house downpayment things/even emergency fund and savings for next car are mutual.
Last week he gave me a receipt for the first time "because you said you wanted them, didn't you?" :-)
Spent from money that wasn't on the budget of course. Haha. Still wondering what step to take next.
Reading these threads teach me so much. Thanks for all your stories.
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This was a big reason for my divorce, honestly. My ex was like this.
Two differences:
I wasn't on YNAB so it was like trying to learn to juggle in the dark.
Also he wanted input on the big decisions even though he wanted nothing to do with the day to day and had no idea what the condition of our finances were. When I bought my car with my money from my paycheck he got super pissed off because I hadn't cleared it with him first. Yet he would make these horrible decisions that he thought were small but ended up costing thousands.
I say this to show you it could be worse. The fact that you at least have the kinks worked out enough to be at peace with it is HUGE.
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Cyan Cartridge Oh dear. That must have been so hard...!
Other thing which makes things easier in my case is him being sort of frugal; he does like buying tools, but uses them for things that otherwise would have cost lots more. And whenever buying food he actually buys just the things on the list he wrote (while I buy lots of "other stuff I forgot to put on the list" HAHA)
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Powder Blue Pony That's a big deal. My ex was the opposite. Very spendy, especially on food.
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Cyan Cartridge Your whole situation sounds very familiar to my experiences with my ex. Happily divorced now for 10 years.
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Powder Blue Pony said:
Last week he gave me a receipt for the first time "because you said you wanted them, didn't you?" :-)Love this! I am not sure whether to feel this is progress for him and you or not. But it certainly rang true.
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MXMOM
:-) I loved it too. It felt like progress. Can't blame him for not understanding the unlogic of recording spending money that is not on the budget, while he's not into it. I did suggest him giving me receipts a while ago, because I like that part of budgetting too, while he obviously doesn't.
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Powder Blue Pony for now I’ve just added everything he spends as income as well as spent. Think that works .
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I am drawn to this thread, and relate but in a weird way. I'm a SAHM (kind of retired, the twins just left for college). Hubby and I married at 30. I knew when I married him, that he did not do debt. He should have known I was not good at money, since he had to bail me out a few times while we were dating. When we first were married, he handled finances. Later in the marriage, for whatever reason, I ended up taking over. Where I promptly ran us $30,000 into credit card debt in about 5 years. Which he discovered when I didn't get to the mail in time. Talk about some stress!!! It was a relief when he found out. I still don't know why I felt I couldn't tell him, it's not like he would have yelled and screamed. That's not his way. Heck, he was angry when he discovered what I had done, but we worked through it and got a stronger marriage. We got a loan, cut out all things fun, stuck the CC in the freezer, and he took over again. The boys were at an age where they didn't notice much. It helps that we live in one of the poorest parts of the country, so their friends didn't have a lot of money either. About 5 years in, we had it mostly paid down, when a relative died and we received a nice inheritance. All was good.
By this time I had gotten really good and not overspending, so once again, I took over--but with him checking in. (which was my request) Time went on, the three boys turned into teenagers, and things got expensive. Once again I had overspent, but this time was able to bring it up with the hubby right away. (who was there the whole time, but is pretty clueless on how expensive everything is) I am a nickle and dimer. I'm good on not making large purchases, but the little stuff just doesn't add up in my mind until I see it on paper. And I'm always forgetting something. I don't know if I need to say it, but in all of this time, we never had a budget on paper. When I thought I overspent on the CC, I was more prone to not look at the balance. (because if I don't look, then it's not there, right?)
So, we take money out of the OS fund, back at zero. I was determined to do this right. Of course, then it was the summer before the twins went away to college, and my oldest was starting his final year (thank goodness! This 3 in school is a killer!) To say it was an expensive summer is an understatement! So I started with Mint. Only, all it was good for was for me to learn *WHERE* we were overspending. Which was helpful. Reinforced to the family that we have *GOT* to stop eating out so much!!! Hotels were a killer because of 2 kids in 2 different college towns, with two orientations. Hotels meant eating out. We didn't think this out. I knew there had to be a better way. Enter YNAB.
One of the things I gained with mint was having all the accounts in one place. As weird as it sounds, it actually helped me want to spend less because I was starting to see the fruit of my husbands labor. He had been socking away as much money as possible, (and I never touched the OS fund even, in my darkest days, without talking to him about it, even I had my standards and knew what the breaking point for my husband would have been). Our kids won't have to take out student loans. (although they have to pay us back. When they have a vested interest, it's amazing how they try to spend as little money as possible) But I wanted to to do better. I wanted to not have to eat sandwiches the last 3 days of the pay period.
I've had some struggles with YNAB. CC are driving me nuts. I think I've figured out how to transfer money from our account to the kids tracking fund without really messing things up. And with all the kids out of the house, our budget is totally different. I've gone from filling my car up with gas once a week, to filling it up once a month!
I know this is long and rambling, but I feel like I've been on both sides of the budget/spend/partner/myself coin. I have a little bit of understanding of the psychology of why I overspend, and it's taken decades for me to figure out how to fix it. Honestly, I think one of the biggest assets of YNAB is this forum. It brings me back, forces me to look at the budget, and prevents me from going into ostrich mode. And every night, when I'm on the computer looking at the money, we talk about it. What a concept. But I had to come to this myself. No amount of forcing was going to work.
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Me! You’re not alone. My wife and I have separate accounts. She has considerably more $ than me and doesn’t budget. I do YNAB and keep a close eye on the budget and she spends freely. It’s just the way it is for us.
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I do the majority of the budgeting work, he puts in most of his transactions. We share funds but each have our own accounts and fun money as well as joint accounts. I need to do the money, I have money security issues. OTOH, I'm open and honest about the finances. He doesn't generally care about the details, but it's all there if he's interested. I don't hide anything. We discuss bigger picture things, he runs purchases over a couple hundred bucks past me, he lets me know if there's a tool he wants and then we discuss where it goes on the wish list. I should get his retirement passwords and stuff, but he can get mine if he can get into my computer (which I know he can, he's our family's tech support). It works for us. If he'd been in charge of the money all these, we'd be in debt or more likely we'd be divorced because I couldn't handle the stress.
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Exactly what I'm going thru right now with my wife... she just don't give a fuc* about it... and it's really hard for me to keep up with her spending (she owns many credit cards) and we are currently living in different cities. How can I get her more involved in all this?
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Forest Green Commander That's tough. I feel for you guys. I would say that as long as you are in different cities, it is going to be hard to live a combined life. Not sure why you have that living arrangement and what the overall financial situation is, but I think that it would be almost impossible to do together. The only way I can see that working is if the decision to live in separate cities is required to move toward the goal of financial freedom. But in your case, it doesn't sound like that.
That aside, the best advice I have is that you have to have a reason to do this besides just being financially responsible. Example, wanting to pay off debt so you can travel, or wanting to pay off debt so you can buy a nicer house. Etc. The fact that you should act financially responsible just because its the grownup thing to do usually isn't enough.
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MXMOM said:
And I have even got him entering transactionsok, I just have to share this. My hubby puts comments in the memo field and sometimes they are so funny. I hardly ever use the memo field and when I do, it is very utilitarian. Here is a screenshot to show you a few.
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MXMOM
I love it. My memos say things like Cat fud. Honda. Present for E. and *Insert Store Name*
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MXMOM Thanks for sharing. Those memos made me laugh!
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I handle all of the money and budgeting in my marriage. All our accounts are joint but we have "his and her" checking accounts. A specific amount of his check gets deposited into my account to use for bills every week. Leaving just a little bit for him to spend and do what he wants with without feeling like I am micro managing him. I do not YNAB his checking account. When he works overtime we decide together what to put the extra towards, at that point I will move it into YNAB and my checking account to disperse to our goals.
