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Marital differences on financial plan



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fbcmom




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Dec 03 2019, 1:53 pm
For those of you who dated before marriage, did you discuss or talk about finances? I keep on thinking about this. I’m chassidish and had a beshow basically for protocol purposes - no substantial talk. A decade down the line and the one major issue we grapple with on a day to day basis is finances. We just look at spending and saving sooo differently. My husbands philosophy is to pinch and save and limit all expenses so in 20 years he’ll be rich. ( he invests all his earned income basically) I under the importance of saving and having a plan for the future, but if he complains about grocery bills, tuition and basic household expenses I feel he’s out of line! Raising a family costs money! He blames all of life’s expenses for not being able to invest as much as he would want to. Which causes me to have tremendous resentment. I feel he doesn’t have the natural tendency to want to provide for his family. He has his vision and everything I shop for is extra... and hindering his rich dream.
I don’t have that dream... I feel like let’s live comfortably within our means.
I think emotionally I feel very guilty for spending and resentful that he doesn’t care to give/ provide.
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amother
Sapphire


 

Post Tue, Dec 03 2019, 2:34 pm
I did discuss finances a little. I made it clear that I needed to not have to second guess every little purchase. I don't remember if it was before or after engagement. I think before but not much before I told him about the savings... I had which were significant.

My dh is like yours. He likes to invest the money, has a dream of wanting to retire wealthy. I have no desire to be super wealthy but like to have savings for menuchas hanefesh. Basically I spend more then he does, he dreams bigger then I do but we are basically on the same page and he doesn't give me a hard time about spending ( nothing crazy) and I humor his dreams.
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amother
Aqua


 

Post Tue, Dec 03 2019, 2:52 pm
DH and I are very different financially. I am the saver, and he's the spender. I skimped and saved 10% of our income even when we had trouble paying the bills.

The only financial attitude we talked about before marriage was that I was shocked he didn't have health insurance, and that he had to get a job.

BH 12 years later we are sitting pretty.
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amother
Emerald


 

Post Tue, Dec 03 2019, 3:05 pm
we dated 10 dates and we didn’t talk much about finances . The only thing he said that his dream is to provide for his family well enough so his wife wouldn’t have to work.
8 years down the line I realize how different we are about finances. And how important is to talk about it while dating .
Basically the first 4 years of marriage he was super lazy ,spender and didn’t work properly . All the money we got from the wedding (which by the way was a lot ) he spent on stupid things. The only thing that I agreed to buy was our car . The rest he just spent without consulting me .
After 4 years of me working, being the responsible one and suffering from seeing how he was zero ambitious I gave up and said that I don’t care about what he is gonna do . But I would stop working bc I didn’t think it was fair for me being the only responsible ,while I worked he would be sleeping or playing those stupids computer games.
After that he started taking things seriously and started working .
so now that he is taking charge of money he doesn’t want to spend much ( the money from the wedding he spent all 😭) and I want to have some luxuries that he doesn’t agree
So basically yes for us it’s also the main reason of fights in our house .
And about me being a SAHM ? Hahaha only on my dreams
with my daughter I wanna makes sure that before she gets married she knows what she is getting into.
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tilot37354




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Dec 03 2019, 3:05 pm
OP, I'm confused. You argue about spending money on necessities (food, mortgage, tuition); about spending money on non necessities, that you feel that the surplus money on top of necessities can be allocated for and he feels is better off being saved ( ie he's a saver and you're a spender, which is common); or you argue about what is and isn't a necessity?

A second question- do you have a budget and a timeline of how much money you expect to need in 20 years? You say he wants to be rich- does that mean he wants to retire comfortably, or wants to have money for weddings? If you would say he wants to retire comfortably and you don't have such high standards I would be confused, because it sounds like currently you have higher standards than DH. You expect your standards to decrease over the years, and he expects his to increase? That sounds interesting.


As a practical aside, the most common solution utilized for the issues you're experiencing is sitting down together to make a budget, planning out each budget item (and what goes to savings and what that is being budgeted for), and having in the budget a set amount which is your discretionary spending fund. This was, he won't bother you when you spend your discretionary spending money, and you won't feel guilty.

Hatzlacha
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amother
Mint


 

Post Wed, Dec 04 2019, 12:20 am
We dated (we are MO) and discussed finances but he was previously married with children. So while we do have similar outlooks (with some differences), it would be easier to come to more of a balance if circumstances were different. In theory, DH does agree more with my outlook and he would like to save more but the children were raised a certain way and we can't take things away that they are used to, so it causes some financial difficulties.
Our housing expenses are higher than I am comfortable with, but none of them ever shared a room so we had to buy a house which accommodates that. I always planned on having my children share rooms because I grew up like that.
We have made it work and I know it's a big issue with blended families.
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amother
Lawngreen


 

Post Wed, Dec 04 2019, 4:32 am
We did discuss finances, but my DH wasn't completely transparent about his intentions, so we ended up with a lot of problems and disagreements that we will probably never completely solve. In the end, he is the one who makes most of the money, so he gets to decide what to do with it, and I just have to swallow.

We have BIG problems, related to his will and previous (already grown) kids, and what will happen to his money when he dies, which I can't do anything about.

We also have disagreements about what to spend money on - he buys the cheapest of everything when it's on sale, which is great. But I think it's worthwhile to spend a little more to eat a little healthier. Plus, sometimes you don't want to wait 3 months until grape juice goes on sale, because you need it to make kiddish because you are pregnant and can't do it with wine. I try to make some headway with these points.

So, I guess my point is that talking ahead of time doesn't always help as much as you would think:)
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amother
Purple


 

Post Wed, Dec 04 2019, 5:25 am
Quote:
So, I guess my point is that talking ahead of time doesn't always help as much as you would think:)


This, exactly.
I dated my DH for almost a year. I still didn't know he had mental issues that affect his money habits because he spent money normally while we were dating. After the wedding the truth emerged. I also suffer from a DH who doesn't understand that buying basic necessities isn't 'wasting money'.
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amother
Red


 

Post Wed, Dec 04 2019, 8:36 am
We half talked about it but it didn't really make much of a difference. We were young and stupid and made joint stupid financial decisions. Lol.

For the most part, we're on the same page. No money so not much to fight about. Both of us try to respect when the other deems something important. We both want to get rid of our credit card debt and we have slightly different views on how. But both have validity.
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amother
Lavender


 

Post Fri, Mar 20 2020, 12:39 pm
amother [ Purple ] wrote:
Quote:
So, I guess my point is that talking ahead of time doesn't always help as much as you would think:)


This, exactly.
I dated my DH for almost a year. I still didn't know he had mental issues that affect his money habits because he spent money normally while we were dating. After the wedding the truth emerged. I also suffer from a DH who doesn't understand that buying basic necessities isn't 'wasting money'.


is there any way to help someone in this position. I know of someone dating who has very unhealthy attitude towards spending money. scares me.
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