This post is a part of Women’s Money Week 2012. For even more posts about budgeting, visit womensmoneyweek.com.
My husband and I have very different styles of managing money. I am the type who will spend an hour looking for missing pennies in our checkbook and he is the type who doesn’t even know where the checkbook is. I am the type who tracks our bills and he is the type who doesn’t even know how to login to our accounts. I am the type who knows exactly how much money we have and he is the type who can’t remember when he gets paid. In other words, we have completely different styles of handling money.
This makes for interesting discussions, particularly around our budget. Actually, our different styles are exactly why we avoided having a budget for so long. Every time we’d discuss money, he’d get upset that…well, I’m not sure what he’d get upset about, but he got mad. Then I’d get angry because I could not, for the life of me, understand how someone could know so little about their own finances. And we’d yell. Loudly. And a lot. For a long time. Then we’d have to go to our own corners and calm down. Unfortunately, the end result was two angry people and no budget.
It got to the point, though, that we needed a budget. Whatever we were doing wasn’t working for us and we had to make some radical changes. Which we did. But more than that, we had to figure out how to talk about money and creating a budget without fighting. To do that, we came up with some ground rules:
- Schedule a specific time. Rather than just spring talks about our budget on each other, we agreed that if we needed to talk about it, we’d have to call an official budget meeting. A specific date and time would be set, and we had to be sure to clear our schedule to do it. The only off limit times were Saturday nights (date night) and any day after 9:00 PM (I can’t get that stressed or worked up before I go to bed).
- Bring an agenda. Whoever calls the meeting must develop an agenda. Just saying “we need to talk about our budget” is not sufficient. This is what leads to fights. Now, we must detail which specific parts of our budget we need to discuss, revisit, refine or redo. It’s helped cut down on the fighting if we know exactly what we’re discussing instead of having an open conversation.
- Check the attitude at the door. My husband has a tendency to get…condescending when we talk about our budget. I’m not sure why since I’m the one that’s been handling it for the last 12 years. For some reason, he gets really rude at time which makes me furious. So we’ve come to an agreement that he will not behave that way and if he does, I can point it out without him getting pissy. On the other side of that, I promise not to get snippy if he asks stupid questions.
- Accept that we’re there for the same purpose. The point of a budget meeting is for us to discuss our finances and figure out how to create a budget that best fits our life. We both want to make our money work for us in the most effective manner possible. The only way to do that is for the both of us to (calmly) discuss how and on what we’re spending our money and where we need to make changes. If we come to the meeting wanting to “win” instead of resolve or build consensus, we might as well manage our finances separately.
- Don’t take anything personally. And don’t make it personal. It frustrates me to no end that my husband doesn’t take a more proactive role in our daily finances. Although I’m working to accept it, I sometimes may get a little upset if he innocently questions something that I do to manage our money or makes a suggestion that I know would never, ever work. I might take it as a slight to me or my abilities. I’ve had to learn that it’s not a personal attack on me; he really doesn’t understand what goes into keeping our budget intact.
With those ground rules in place, creating and maintaining our budget has been substantially less stressful. We now have a budget that works for our family which is essential for making sure we stay out of debt (it took approximately 5 years to get there. I have no desire to go back). And should we need to revise the budget, we can do it without screaming. Which is essential for everyone.
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[…] Rules for conducting a peaceful budget meeting | Daily Money Shot – I really enjoyed this post because I could totally relate! I am the one that handles the finances in our household. I have tried to get my husband more involved but he generally avoids it. He’s shown more interest over the last year though and this has been very encouraging to me. I know precisely what she means though when she talks about his ‘condescending attitude’! […]
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[…] Jana over at Daily Money Shot wrote, Rules For Conducting a Peaceful Budget Meeting […]
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[…] Rules for Conducting a Peaceful Budget Meeting […]
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[…] frustrated and broke. We had to get in same book, never mind the same page. So, one day, using my rules for a peaceful budget meeting, we sat down and figured things out. Here’s what we […]
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[…] frustrated and broke. We had to get in same book, never mind the same page. So, one day, using my rules for a peaceful budget meeting, we sat down and figured things out. Here’s what we […]
I do all the finance stuff in my house. My wife has no interest. I keep everything in a spreadsheet but when we want to talk, I’ll create a few slides in PowerPoint to summarize things. This works and leads to meaningful conversation where we both agree on long term strategies and such.
Money Beagle recently posted…Why You Should Always Have A Job While In College
That awesome that you guys have found what works for you. I wonder why there are so many couples where one person is responsible and the other one isn’t interested…
What a great post! My fiancée and I typically have trouble discussing our budget. He’s much more loose than me with his money, he gets his bills paid, but he doesn’t track expenses or divvy cash up with every pay cheque the way I do.
Our big problem though comes from his upbringing. His father was the sole bread winner in the house, and he NEVER, EVER talked about money. As such my fiancée becomes very uncomfortable whenever the topic comes up. He’s aware of this and we are working on it. But it makes for delicate budget negotiations.
I’ll definitely be using some of your tips!
Jordann recently posted…How to save 70% on Rent
I’m glad I could help. My husband and I have pretty different upbringings as well, which I’m sure led to a number of our problems. It takes a ton of trial and error (and screaming and crying) to find out what works. Good luck! I’m curious to know what you figure out.
My husband can get ‘pissy’ when we try to talk about money too. We have a similar money arrangement as you guys do (I do all the housekeeping in this area). I think this angry attitude comes because he feels a bit stupid about money because he wasn’t really taught anything about it growing up and I handle everything now and he’s only beginning to learn about it. I think he puts the angry front on as soon as he feels dumb. I’m aware of this and do my best to make sure that I don’t do anything that might contribute to what he’s feeling but a lot of it comes from his own insecurities. It’s getting a lot better than it used to be. I’ve always tried very hard to get him more involved in our finances and he’s always really resisted but he’s started to come on board a lot more over the last couple of years especially. When he starts up with this condescending attitude I usually point out that he would be very angry with me if I spoke to him in the same manner and recently he has been able to stop and realize what he’s doing and we can continue on peacefully. It is difficult though isn’t it?
Marianne recently posted…Frugal Food Tip: Freezing Bacon
This is the exact situation that I’m in as well. He gets a little flustered when I talk about money, but I believe it’s just because he doesn’t understand.
Michelle recently posted…Why I Budget
My husband just gets annoyed rather than flustered. I blame him, though. He’s never taken an active role in our day-to-day finances.
The condescention is what gets to me. I’m fine with the fact that he doesn’t understand or whatever. But to talk to me like I’m stupid makes me so angry! Especially knowing that if the roles were reversed, he’d be completely incensed.
I’m right there with you! my husband has gotten SO much better though in the past two years, and I’m really impressed with how much he’s improved and wanted to contribute to our savings. he still doesn’t care too much about the numbers and details like i do, but he isn’t spending $10 a day on starbucks anymore : )
Newlyweds on a Budget recently posted…His debt, Her debt, Our debt
That’s great that he’s made some changes. My husband has made a few changes but we still have a lot of hurdles to clear.
Our biggest rule is NOT talk about money after 9pm. There is nothing worst than trying to sleep when you are stressed out about how you are going to find the money to pay the bills.
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