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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?
Perhaps therapy for her? Especially if she is spending for social reasons to fit in.
Does she have a specific category where she spends the most? Eating out? Fancy clothes? Etc? Possibly find a way to cut down on specific categories of spending, by not being a miser in the category and spending to be a little fancier, but avoiding the most expensive options. For example rent the runway for clothes, or blue apron for fancier meals. Both are more expensive than the miserly options, but both are cheaper than careless spending.
I probably spend 500-1k a month. My wife probably spends 1k a month. But she also tends to buy all the kids stuff. Our dual incomes are higher than yours so that is still a net positive income. Would it be possible for y'all to earn more money while keeping the spending stable?
Depending on which category of spending your wife is engaged in having kids might actually lower her spending. If it's going out ... She won't be able to for a while. If it's shopping ... Then it might get worse.
She is in therapy. Not specifially about that, but she talks about this too.
It's mostly online shopping, so clothes and handbags. Makeup and getting nails and hair done as well. Coffee and going out with friends.
We've both received small pay increases recently. I've been keeping my eyes out for new jobs, but I'm not finding anything that pays more so far.
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