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I recently encouraged a couple to see a financial advisor because the couple could not agree on family finance issues and one spouse would not even discuss the matter. She (in this case, but not gender unique) just wanted to spend and ignore the matters of future retirement and college costs or how income from one spouse was generated for the family.
I thought an independent third party could evaluate their finances and then explain the situation and make recommendations to the couple in an unemotional way.
Connie and I never had issues over money although she has little, if any, interest in investment matters which I wish was not the case. But when it comes to saving and spending we are and always have been in agreement- except on occasion discussing if it is better to buy on Amazon or go to the store. She occasionally agonizes over the relative cost per ounce of something. I’m saying “just put it in the cart.” The Amazon cart, not “those” carts.
I read about couples where one person just spends and the other saves or more likely stresses over the spending. One party worries about credit card debt and the other just uses the card.
I see financial compatibility as critical, but apparently not always easy. How can you know before marriage that it exists or can exist. I’m thinking that each party looking at the family situation of the other may provide a clue. That is the case in my example.
Unfortunately, love does not always conquer all especially when it comes to needs, wants, desires, the perception of necessity and money or the lack thereof….or budgeting 😎
My wife and are fairly well synchronized when it comes to spending habits, but she has no interest whatsoever in financial topics. My parents were “Silent Generation”-types, who lived on the installment debt treadmill and had practically no savings habits, while hers were slightly older, having endured the Great Depression as children, and were maniacal savers and nearly pathologically frugal. So, we’ve both reacted against our respective upbringings. She tends to spend more freely than I do, but we manage to make things work out. I can’t think of a single blow-out fight over money in our nearly 40 years of marriage, and we’re on track for a comfortable retirement in a couple more years. Thanks be to God!
Interesting topic. My daughter recently got married and is the primary breadwinner as her new husband is starting Physician Assistant school at Duke. During the bridal shower they played the newlywed game and it was quite enlightening when the question of “who spends more” was raised, they both pointed to each other but eventually it was agreed that my daughter spent more.However, upon further discussion what emerged was that she was likely to spend on small things regularly and often household items whereas his spending was not as often but much larger dollar amounts and usually unrelated to the home.
For Christmas we gifted our daughter and our brand new son-in-law a very practical and strategic gift-$3000 towards a fee only financial planner. The purpose of the gift was so that they could work on their financial goals, desires, and habits together and make money something they could easily talk about rather than it coming up when it became an issue. We did not want to interfere or have them perceive us as interfering so we wrote them a nice letter explaining the goal of the gift and that we would always be there to support and answer questions but wanted them to have a professional that was guiding them around money matters. We gave them the hello nectarine site where they could pick from any planner they wanted and I had also culled through and given them 6 planners that I thought might work well for them. They were pleased although in private they said, “my wise decision about money would to not spend $3000 on a financial planner”😉
What was a bit frustrating and eye-opening was the response I got when I originally posted on a Retirement Facebook Page asking for recommendations of fee only planners. The recommendations were few but the questioning of my parenting was plenty! I had posted anonymously and soon took it down as it was causing me quite a bit of frustration and making me second-guess myself, our relationship and my intentions! Luckily it was met with gratitude from the recipients, and our hope is that as they continue to make more money they will have a better understanding of how to manage it and ultimately amass wealth.
I think the idea of funding financial planning as a gift is a wonderful idea. Nicely done.
Thanks Greg, we will see how it goes. I am very wary of AUM advisors and neither one of them is overly interested in finances yet I know when we pass away, there will be a substantial sum that they will need to know how to manage. It was easy for us because neither of us had much to begin with when we got married and we were both savers:)