The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I'm having marriage financial woes.
I come from a family of misers, my wife comes from a family which is nearing the bottom of the stairs with their silken slippers. Before we merged our finances, I was always wondering why she was never able to save, and introducing budgeting soon told me why. Our budgeting is virtual, which is to say we assign transactions to categories and there's nothing technically preventing one of us from overspending on a category. We still have our separate bank accounts.
Out combined income is about 175k (65% me). We each get a "personal" category which is funded by $1000 per month. This funds clothes, going out without the other person, gadgets, sports gear, whatever we want. To me, $1000 is overkill. I read other couples' budgets online and $250 is more typical. I save most of mine.
She managed to get into the negatives pretty quickly with hers. We kept on making exceptions for why we could recategorise her purchases, but soon she was -$1500. Eventually I agreed we would reset the balance, as long as she didn't overspend again. At half-way through July she was at $800 spent.
It's really having an impact on our marriage. She feels really bad about it, but can't seem to keep it under control. It's building resentment in me. We've still got a decent savings rate, but we're trying for kids at the moment, and we would go backwards financially if we had a child now. It's not just the personal fund, she consistently buys more expensive stuff in other categories. Even assuming perpetual DINK status, I'm pretty sure I would save more money being single.
She thinks she's doing well, and points out that her family would consider her a miser. I think even I'm doing poorly, and my family would consider me to be wasteful with my money.
I see frugality as a virtue, she sees it as a preference. She feels massive social pressure to not look poor. I'm quite happy to tell my colleagues that I can't afford to go to lunch with them.
She's not a feminist by any means, but does have a strong aversion to feeling controlled in any way, so I'm hesitant to suggest I have greater control over her finances.
Any ideas?
This makes me feel maybe you are overdoing it a bit. Unless your colleagues regularly lunch in Michelin star restaurants, you should be able to afford a lunch. You may choose not to go, still - though I always found it's good for team relationships - but you should be able to do it without having your budget ruined.
I think there are two issues at hand here. First is "keeping up with the Joneses", with the Joneses being your wife's family. I think it may be a good thing to talk about how comparing their lifestyle with yours is not a good idea - they do their thing, and your family does yours, and the only two persons that should have a say in it is yourself and your wife. If you both think something is ok, the others should not have a voice to call her a "miser" and she should not feel obliged to live by their standards.
The second question is what your wife wants. You should come to agreement about what are your goals, and you should talk about how wasteful spending makes it harder for your to achieve these goals. Don't make it "you bad, me good" conversation, make it "how we can make it happen" conversation. And yes, it may create some resentment, at least initially, and if it proves hard for your wife to follow through with what you agree - there might be a moment where you have to choose - either you risk a conflict by taking more control over it, or you find means to increase the budget so you don't have to do it. Only you can make this choice.
Lunch costs $40 here. I can afford it with my $1000 budget, but I prefer to spend on my hobby, when I do spend.
We're actually on the same page in principle, pretty much. It's just that she feels like she's already denying herself a lot, but somehow the numbers at the end of the month say otherwise, and she gets defensive about it.
This is a recurring theme. My upbringing shaped me, of course, but I don't care that much what my family thinks of my lifestyle. She was recently in her home country for her sister's wedding, and the amount spent on gifts and clothing was mind-boggling to me. She describes the lives of her sisters and mother as vicious social status seeking, but she can't help but be sucked into it to a milder extent on occasion.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link