How do you and your spouse resolve "small" money disputes?

[manning]

She reaches for the gun and I start running. All I hear is run like heck sucker.

 

[patsal]

Married for 23 years, we have never had a fight like this. All money goes into one account, savings predetermined and pulled out before checks are deposited into checking. Next, bills are paid, whatever is left pays for other stuff. We have dedicated savings to retirement, vacation, Christmas and taxes. Now that you mention it, DH plays very little role in anything other than making the money, lol!

 

[Eureka]

The one thing that absolutely drives me crazy that my DW does is if I go out to a happy hour with friends or eat dinner while at school, she immediately looks for somewhere for DD and her to go out to dinner. Really, just because I am eating dinner out you also have to eat dinner out?

Funny you say that. When I go out with a friend (rarely) or for some reason am not available at dinner time, DH takes the boys out for wings, Five Guys, whatever. When he is late at work, I cook and life continues as usual. He does know how to cook, and I know if it was a regular occurrence, he'd be cooking. It doesn't bug me too much because it doesn't happen often, but it's just interesting how people operate.

 

[njmom47]

Separate checking accounts here too (although I now have access to his online bank accounts).
Whatever's left over can get spent however the other wants to spend it. I think we are both fairly frugal (although I had to change him to become like that).

 

[ToodlesRN]

Usually "small" extra money that is earned from a yard sale, eBay or Craig's list has an agenda for something that is needed or wanted and we apply it to that. Mostly its for our trip funds.

We both have separate acts. He pays mortgage and I pay bills. Whatever is left over in ones account is there business. I don't want to know how much he spends on new tools and he doesn't want to know how much I spend at the salon!!

I do balance the cb and in charge of overall spending. He has one of my debit cards and I have one of his so if we need to use each others its available.

 

[Lucille1963]

We've been married for 11 years (next week!) and haven't had any memorable ones, except for one incident earlier this year.

DH and I have sections of the budget that we are responsible for. He takes care of the house payment and bills, I cover all the food, clothing and entertainment.

What got us tripped up this year was when my engagement ring needed to be repaired. The insurance had always been covered by him as well as the repairs. Until this time, when he went to pick it up from the jewelers and paid for it with my debit card.
It surprised me, he'd always paid bill for it in the past and I was kind of surprised by it. Especially since he didn't tell me he took the money out of my account, I found out that the money was missing when I checked the balance, because it literally drained the account.

 

[leebee]

We don't have small money disputes, as we have a "system" that has been in place for 20+ years; we are so accustomed to this that it's just the way we live. We have one savings account and one checking account, and both our checks are automatically deposited on paydays. The only "debt" we carry is the mortgage and the car loan ($248 monthly for a used minivan, 4 year loan- only one year left, yahoo!). Because I am only paid 9.5 months of the year, health insurance comes from DH's check, and 10% of his check is auto-deposited into the savings. My check is set up so that a year's life insurance premiums come out of it over the 9.5 months that I am paid (DH has additional life insurance through work but that's free). Everything we purchase goes on the Disney VISA so we have about $1000 in rewards money every other year to spend on a Disney vacation (don't freak, monthly bills, medical bills, etc. are paid by VISA for the points- it's not all "fun" stuff!). I pay all the bills and "manage" the money; due dates are set so that I can sit down on the last day of the month and pay everything (as DH used to be paid once a month). I always know how much is on the VISA and if we can afford to spend more this month or if we have to wait until the next credit card cycle, because that credit card gets paid in full EVERY month. Monthly I withdraw cash and that's in a pile in the house; we each take from that as needed, so we have pocket money (it's maybe $200 a month, total).

DH is always careful to ask if this is a good time to buy X or Y, or should he wait until next month. I don't usually ask him about buying things because I know where we stand. However, if either of us wanted to spend more than $50-$75 on something, we'd check with the other, first. For example, I'm going to a family funeral this week, and don't think I have anything appropriate to wear (black capris? black wool dress pants are too hot). Asked what he thought about me buying a new outfit. We kicked it around and decided if the budget could afford it, I should... but I have very few clothes, nothing "dressy" that is summer weight. HE needs new pants (docker-like) for work... his are frayed at the bottoms. That's going to be $200, but this is a good time for him to spend this money, budgetarily, so he'll go shopping with me some day this week.

Neither of us has our "own" money (unless he's squirreling something away somewhere from the money he takes from the pile). At birthday/Christmas, we decide in advance how much we want to spend, in general, and who will spend how much of that. SO when my b-day rolled around and we were paying off the vacation charges, I said don't spend more than $50 on me, and he didn't.

We spent 10 years paying a mortgage and raising a child on ~$42K a year, so we are pretty frugal, and we set up this system when we had to watch every penny. While we earn more now and have more flexibility in what we spend (in the "old" days, we NEVER stopped at Dunkin Donuts for coffee, now it's an OK thing for each of us, weekly), the system still works for us, so we stick with it. The nice thing about not changing our spending habits is that we have had enough cash to pay for about half of DD's college costs; we never had the cash flow to set up a separate college fund when she was little, but are happy to be able to do so now.

 

[Jex]

Easy, for us. We each work and we have our own bank accounts. We put money into the joint account for mortgage and bills/house repairs, but after that neither one of us knows or cares what the other is using our money for.

This works for us as well.

 

[carrie1626]

This works for us as well.

I can't imagine any other way!!

I cringe every time I hear a friend say : " my *** asked me for $$ to buy xxx"

OR "I had to explain to *** why I needed $$ for xxx."

I think of Leave it to Beaver life style.

 

[Jex]

I can't imagine any other way!!

I cringe every time I hear a friend say : " my *** asked me for $$ to buy xxx"

OR "I had to explain to *** why I needed $$ for xxx."

I think of Leave it to Beaver life style.

Exactly, we don't even really discuss who is paying for dinner our or trips. We just seem to trade off.
I think the extent of our discussion is if one of us mentions buying something for the "house" such as, I think we need a new whatever it may be, such as picture/tv/paint and the other just replies to take it out of the joint account.

 

[AZMermaid]

I can't imagine any other way!!

I cringe every time I hear a friend say : " my *** asked me for $$ to buy xxx"

OR "I had to explain to *** why I needed $$ for xxx."

I think of Leave it to Beaver life style.

We have a joint account and have never ever had to ask permission for anything. I am a teacher so DH makes almost 3 times the money I do, but we just pool it all and spend it all as needed. We might discuss a purchase over like $200 but just to make sure we both aren't making one at once, but other than that, it isn't any debate at all. We have never had credit card debt, so it works for us! I can't imagine splitting, to me it would feel like we were still dating, but I also know different stuff works for different people!

 

[EagleScout]

I make literally all of the money in the house, but we are a team. Of course, we are also blessed that we make a fairly substantial income, but not so substantial that we don't have to pay any attention to our spending (but probably less than others).

 

[stargazer2892]

It depends on what the dispute is about. If it is extra cash and DH wanted to save it and I wanted to buy DS and DD clothes we would probably just put half in the bank and spend the other half. It's all about compromise. DH thinks I'm being "riduclas" because I want to buy a new crib for DD and not a used one. I'ts something I feel strongly about so I stood my ground and we bought her a new crib. I also wanted to buy a new infant seat for her but DH decided the one we used for 4 months with DS is perfectly safe ( it really is, no accidents and has been in the back of our closet so there's no heat damage or anything) and would rather not spend the money on an infant seat and just buy a convertible. After a little bit of foot stomping on my part I agreed the only reason I wanted a new car seat is because I wanted a girlier pattern.

Money and budget in our house is VERY much a shared task in my house. We both pay the bills, we both know pretty much down to a few dollars how much is in our account at all times. It amazes me that my mom has no clue how to pay ANY of their bills (besides HER credit card), and they are always fighting about money and the budget and can't understand (they've asked) why money isn't a huge issue and how we budget "so well". We communicate.

 

[cheshireqt]

I've been married over 30 years and I can't think of such a dispute.

In your garage sale scenario, the person who did the most work on the garage sale would decide how to spend the money. If one of us was griping about the money we spent eating out, the griper would be free to do more cooking or shut up about it.

Maybe I'm just lucky in that dh and I are on the same page about the big stuff and tend not to sweat the small stuff.

Ditto. --We've been married 20 years and with our personalities I can say we would not have made it very long at all if one of us had wanted to be that controlling.

although I will say that when $ were tight in our early years, we had an agreement of how much either should spend on a single item before seeking the others input, i.e., what qualified as a big purchase. But anything under that amount was never a discussion. We don't have a set dollar amount anymore, but have no issues knowing when the other persons input should be involved.

 

[lisaross]

married for 19 years..we always put our money together in the same checking/savings.

I handle all the bills budgting - he has no interest - i tell him to sit down with me so he knows where we are but he never does. That being said, i have different accounts to save for vacation, college, etc and i plan how much to each etc. We do however each get 200 a month allowance to use on whatever we want - who cares what we each spend it on.

 

[leeholmes1]

I am more of the saver in the family.. I used to be a spender years ago but learned my lesson! DH is the spender, although he's finally starting to come around!

Hubs will nickel and dime our money away without realizing it. I'll never forget an argument we had in the early years! We barely squeeked by most months and it seemed like we would never get ahead. Hubs said he couldn't understand where all our money was going and HE certainly wasn't spending it, so it must be me. He only spent a few dollars occasionally.. So, I got 3 months worth of statements and highlighted all of his small expenditures that were only a "few dollars" each. They added up to well over $500!! He was only spending maybe $8 or $10 but to do it several times a week just adds up over time faster then you would think!

So, in our instance, I had to actually show him PROOF! He had to see the numbers in order to get it! Well, temporarily at least!

We still kinda have that problem. We put money in savings and it will slowly dwindle away and he just can't figure out where it all goes.. He's gotten better though and wants to have a separate savings account that isn't easily accessible so it won't dwindle away. He's even starting to talk about getting debt free again!

I'm also the one who pays all the bills.. whenever Hubs gets irritable at our lack of funds and not understanding where our money goes.. I show him. Or let him take a stab at stretching out the dollars and paying everything for a month. He's usually ready to hand it back over to me and does better for awhile.

As for arguing over where money should go (school clothes or vacation) that is a tough one. Things he sees as important (Indy 500 tickets) aren't as important to me.. We try to compromise but there have been a few times where he's ended up in the doghouse!

This is EXACTLY our situation. I have started going to a cash only system and we each get $140 a month spending allowance, but he still goes over and I hate saying no to him.

 

[ssawka]

I can't imagine any other way!!

I cringe every time I hear a friend say : " my *** asked me for $$ to buy xxx"

OR "I had to explain to *** why I needed $$ for xxx."

I think of Leave it to Beaver life style.

We met in college and got married shortly after DW graduated. We started out with nothing and built from there. I have always made 80%+ of our income, but while I worked and earned the money, DW took care of DD and the house. In that sense, she is just as entitled to our "nest egg" as I am. That is why it is "our money" and not "her money" or "my money". We do not ask for permission from each other to buy things, however we do run big purchases past each other just to make sure there are no surprises and that it is something we really "need".

 

[Eureka]

We met in college and got married shortly after DW graduated. We started out with nothing and built from there. I have always made 80%+ of our income, but while I worked and earned the money, DW took care of DD and the house. In that sense, she is just as entitled to our "nest egg" as I am. That is why it is "our money" and not "her money" or "my money". We do not ask for permission from each other to buy things, however we do run big purchases past each other just to make sure there are no surprises and that it is something we really "need".

Same with us. Right now I freelance part time and DH works full time, but I take care of all the house stuff, groceries, laundry, getting the kids where they need to be. It's all "our" money even though he currently earns almost 10x what I do. We never ask permission but just keep each other informed.

 

[gray52]

Wife and I have been married for almost 20-years. She makes 100% of our income... i stay at home with our two great kids, DS9/DD6. I worked in constructions sales for many years until our daughter was born. When it comes to the big ticket items (homes, cars, campers, DISNEY), we discuss at length... and while I usually will defer to her opinion (because she has an MBA and knows much more about finance that i do), we both have equal veto power.
As far as the little things... which we consider anything under $500... we do not really discuss. As long as the money is there at the end of every month to pay our bills, it's all good. We both sacrifice for her income, so we both are entitled to spend where we want... and after all, we're a family UNIT. Singular.
It probably does help that both of us grew up with nothing... and take pride in being thrifty. For us, it comes down to respect and trust. We respect each other enough to trust that neither of us would be frivolous with our money.
I'm confused by married couples that keep all their finances separate (we know MANY)... like different bank accounts and the like. I understand if one was self employed... but those that aren't, it's just strange to me.

 

[Jex]

Why is it strange?