DW and money - any tips

[WyclefJohn]

My DW isn't great with money, and it bothers me. She couldn't tell you what her salary was, and she has no idea how much we spend. We're in a fortunate position because we have quite well paid jobs, so we're never short, but it makes me anxious because it seems that we're wasting an opportunity when we are quite cash rich to be budgeting and putting money back for retirement, or a rainy day.

I just checked, and in the last month, we spent an exorbitant amount of money eating out (and it makes me anxious).

The difference to me is an attitude difference. I come from a family where we didn't have a lot of money, and so my parents count the pennies (maybe too much). On the other hand, her family has inherited wealth. Her father never had a pension (even though he was a partner at a law firm), he has built up a big cash reserve.

How do I talk to my wife and get on the same page financially?

Tell her exactly what you’ve said here?

Have you ever actually said to her ‘it is important for my own peace of mind that we save a certain amount each month and i would like us to start doing that’? What did she say?

Being on different pages re money is an absolute killer and it is at risk of wrecking your marriage if you don’t find a way to meet in the middle. When OH and I met I was the spendy one with no savings and he was pretty horrified. As our relationship progressed, within a year or so I’d got on the same page as him and started saving regularly, along with him. It took us talking about the future, what we wanted and when, and how much we’d need. It was a lot easier to save knowing it was for something meaningful to progress our lives.

If I hadn’t sorted out my attitude to money I don’t think we’d be together as we just wouldn’t be compatible.

It shouldn’t be difficult when you’re on good money, sit down and write what your incomings are, your mandatory outgoings, how much of the remainder you’d like to save per month and then a reasonable entertainment budget. So it’s still fine to eat out, but only what you can afford.

What did you spend on eating out last month? I’m curious, as £100 would be exorbitant to some!

Do you have a joint account or separate?

Do you have a savings account?

Thanks, we do have a combination of joint and separate accounts and savings (it's a bit tricky as we're currently expats, so we accounts at home and accounts in the country we live in), and we do have savings. We're in quite a good financial position, but because it's temporary, it seems we need to be really plan ahead.

It took us talking about the future, what we wanted and when, and how much we’d need. It was a lot easier to save knowing it was for something meaningful to progress our lives.

The conversation does keep on coming up and this is where I want to get to. My wife gets a bit flustered about money and tries to change the subject a lot. Often "not now" is not the right time to talk.

I'm only saying as you asked, but we spent 900 eating out last month.

Could you have a review with a financial planner? They would ask what your current spending vs predicted spending in retirement would be and might be easier to get agreement. A planner would also offer balance, perhaps you are over cautious and she is under cautious.

I've been suggesting a financial planner for a while, and actually we have agreed to book an appointment. I think that will help. Our bank is pretty good in that it has tools to give us an overview of our spending, and I also think we should honestly review it and see how much money we are spending. My wife, whom I love dearly, has a bit of the tendency to say that "well, last month was a bit of an exceptional month", but every month ends up becoming an exceptional month.

You need a budget, a generous one admittedly but we all need to plan expenditure. We have a bit of a rule that on a normal weekend we have one basic meal (eg pub lunch, breakfast out) and one nicer one (far more than many people can afford) and we take food from home at least days a week for lunch. Occasionally it's three days running but other weeks it's none.

I put 10% of our earnings aside each month in savings.

When you say 'we spent 900 eating out last month' do you mean you were also eating out or that it was just your wife using the joint account?

If you were there then it is time to lead by example. If you weren't there, and this spending makes you unhappy, then it is time to take your salary in to your own account and simply pay half the bills/basic overheads until you are both in agreement as to shared lifestyle.

I was there too, so I'm as guilty, but it does make me realise how I'm also guilty of spending too much money.

I think you need to have a plan that you make together. Maybe present it as that because if you start with " you are bad with money" anyone is going to go on the defence. Especially as the obvious response is "you were there too!" You are possibly both bad with money.

If you've got money to save why not have that come out first? Then it's not available to spend.

A financial planner sounds like a great idea. Maybe you could sit down and talk about your plans for the future, trips you would like to take, countries you want to visit, places you both want to go and then work all those into you financial future.

I like the idea of saving money first. My wife likes generally to save money what we have at the end of the month. I agree entirely that although it's what I've posted, I don't want it to be about my wife being bad with money and I shouldn't present it to her like that. It won't help. I think our biggest challenge is finding the time and sitting down to talk about money openly, and then setting a reasonable budget.

i think our biggest challenge is finding the time and sitting down to talk about money openly, and then setting a reasonable budget.

If you can find the time to sit and eat £225 of meals out in a week for four weeks running I guarantee you can find a half hour to sit down and discuss this and start making a prelimary plan for the future

Definitely agree with not phrasing it as she’s bad with money as you’re just the same if you were at all of those meals too. But I can see that it’s causing you anxiety and you want things to change whereas possibly she is quite happy with how things are.

That seems like a lot of money for eating out, can you suggest meal planning and limiting takeaways and meals out to once or twice a month.

Well the good news is that you could cut your eating out by 50%, still be able to have a really good meal out once a week and save a hefty monthly amount. Seems an obvious place to start by setting up a savings account for £400-500 per month.
Is your DW anticipating an inheritance- is that why she's not interested in saving?

I mainly think that my wife has never really had to worry about money in her family, and it affects how she sees money, never having had to count the pennies. I suspect there will be an inheritance, but that's not how we should plan.

I would like to be in the situation where have some short, medium and long-term saving goals, and build our budget around that, rather than starting from our income and spending, and saving what we have left.

Ah ok, short, medium and long term saving goals doesn't sound like a wildly exciting conversation so I can see why your DW is avoiding it .

Putting aside money at the start of the month isn't a bad place to start. I'd focus on filling any tax free savings allowances you can - not sure if they have ISAs where you are. You've got the meeting in with the financial advisor so that should give you the foundations of what you need to do.