Marriage Milestone: We talked about money without fighting!
Image by Toban Black via Flickr
Tim and I had a conversation about money yesterday that didn’t involve yelling and screaming.
I know, right? Exciting stuff.
You may remember me writing about sharing money about a year and a half ago. In short, we decided to keep our own money and put enough in the joint account to pay bills and rent and all that good, joint responsibility stuff.
Well, that’s not really working anymore. When we moved in together, Tim and I were making pretty much the same amount of money. I mean, I made a little more per year, but with extra duties, etc., our biweekly paychecks were about the same. So it didn’t really matter if we shared money and gave ourselves allowances. It ended up working the same whether the money was filtered through a joint checking account or if it was filtered through our separate checking accounts.
Now, though, Tim’s facing his second year under a pay freeze, and I have other jobs and I’m writing other places. Sometimes that pays me money. I’ve also been doing some copywriting, which also pays me money. I guess you could say I am now the breadwinner. Which is great, because we don’t really care who wins the bread around here, as long as there is bread. So really, it just means we have more money to spend.
And, because we have more money to spend, we often spend it. Which means that I have been having to sign over more and more of what’s in my checking account because I’m the one earning the extra money. As you can imagine, that’s actually kind of difficult for me to do. I mean, it is my money, after all.
Sure, it’s my money, but I keep doing these extra jobs because I want to have money to do fun things with my husband. And we do fun things! Which means that this money I’m sending over to our joint account every month is going towards awesome meals and mini-vacations, which is exactly what I want out of life at this moment. It isn’t really a problem of parting with the money physically; it’s more of a psychological thing. Top all that off with the fact that we really would like to save enough money to buy some property in the near future, and we needed a new way to think about money.
After our wonderfully calm conversation, we decided a few things. First, we will now be depositing our checks directly into our joint account. From there, we will budget how much we can put on our separate credit cards each month (It’s an allowance, but I refuse to call it that because I’m not a teenager asking my parents for money.) This isn’t very “feminist,” I suppose, but it will make things easier for us to manage. From here, we set up a few stipulations:
- We need to sit down together twice a month and pay bills. Together. No one is allowed to move money any other time, unless it’s an emergency. This way, we both know where our money is going.
- I get to stipulate what my “extra” writing money is used for. And it will be fun.
- We will never, EVER get into a situation where the other has to ask permission to use money. This is why we have our separate credit card budgets – so we don’t have to ask.
I think it’s a good situation. I mean, we’ll probably have to revisit it in a few years when we buy a house or if anything else changes financially for us, but it’ll work for now. I’m just really, really impressed that we had this conversation without moving into a fight! Money always makes us super tense, so this is a huge milestone for us. I guess we’re growing up!
About asking for money. Apparently, lots of mothers in my neighborhood do that. I didn’t realize how common it was until I was in a conversation that felt totally awkward with the other mothers on my block. I’ve never asked for money from my husband. He trusts my judgement in spending (we’re on a tight budget) and basically I’m the one who handles the finances (even if he is technically the breadwinner). We’ve shared an account since we moved in together and it works for us. So I just kept my mouth shut instead of saying what I think they should say: “Hey, aren’t you going to pay me for cleaning up after you, cooking your dinner, and raising your children?”
http://practicingparenting.blogspot.com/
I do believe that the stay at home mom is totally undervalued, and by that I mean not paid. It’s so not right that women who do all the housework and child rearing still have to ask for money.
Your system sounds similar to the one my dad and stepmom came up with for their finances. All of their money goes into a communal account each month – out of this account they pay for all communal expenses, house related, heat, water, internet, etc. Also out of this account goes an “allowance” for each of them into separate private checking accounts. He wants to save up and buy himself some new dive gear he can, no questions asked. She wants to save up and treat herself to the expensive makeup she likes, no questions asked.
I think it’s ok to call it an allowance and it IS feminist, because everyone’s treated equally in this manner. Everyone gets the same allowance and gets to spend it on whatever they want. Any communal type purchases have to be discussed and agreed up and then are spent out of the joint account.
They split financial care duties by switching off every 3 years – bill paying, checkbook balancing, etc.
My husband and I don’t have quite this system yet as I am the only breadwinner in our family – but we do each have credit cards and bank cards. I usually only question him on his purchases when he doesn’t give me the receipt so I can balance the checkbook.
I have to admit I need to get better about not asking “why did you buy that” – but that’s coming from me, the wife, the feminist, the accountant of the family. He never questions any money I spend – yet I also try to check in with him on how he feels on various purchases and charitable contributions.
Really, I think the biggest thing is to discuss finances prior to marriage (or long-term committment) and hopefully coming to the same conclusion on how you’ll proceed. My husband and I in general have the same outlook on life – don’t need a LOT of stuff (we lived without a car for almost 5 years, buying one just after our daughter turned 2, we say its more for her than us!).
Thanks again for an interesting article – hopefully more people will see that these kinds of financial arrangements are the way to go. 🙂
Thanks for sharing, HayKeen! I think people need to do what works for them, financially, regardless of how they set it up. This is what works for us, but may not be for everyone!