Actual Money Fights We’ve Had (and How We Solved Them)
Actual Money Fights We’ve Had (and How We Solved Them)
December 05, 2022 MST Category: Budgeting, Investing, Personal Finance, Spending
By Dr. Margaret Curtis, WCI Columnist (White Coat Investor)
My husband and I recently celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary (although, now that I think about it, we didn’t observe the occasion with anything more than a “nice job, babe.” We need to learn to live a little). Twenty years, two medical careers, three kids, six dogs, and many, many conversations about money later, we don’t just have shared financial goals: we have learned how to think about money in the same way.
I agree with the standard advice that you should talk about finances early in a relationship, but I don’t necessarily agree that this will set you up for success later on. Since you don’t know what curves life will throw at you, you might not even know what questions to ask. It would not have occurred to me to ask my husband how much money he would throw at a backyard hockey rink, when his answer would have been, “How much is a Zamboni?” And no, we don’t have a Zamboni. We have a hot-water hose and one of these.
You can certainly see red flags early in a relationship—for instance, someone who is comfortable with credit card debt—but the biggest intangibles are harder to identify. My husband and I checked pretty much every box on financial compatibility when we met: neither of us carried credit card debt, we maxed out our retirement accounts every year, and we felt comfortable talking about money (refusing to talk about money would have been a huge red flag for me). We had similar cheapskate/New England hippie lifestyles. But we still had plenty to learn about money, as I will explain.
Here are some of the misconceptions we had about money and how we have evolved in our thinking. You don’t have to agree with any of our ways of thinking about money—or your spouse’s. There is room in a healthy relationship for different approaches. You might find that looking at your attitudes toward money sheds some light on other conflicts you and your partner have. Or you can use these topics as a conversation opener on a date and watch ‘em swoon.
Since marriage is a collaboration and not a competition and since I am hoping to make it another 20 years, I am not going to identify which of us brought these incorrect concepts into the marriage. We all have room to learn.
Save on the Small Stuff So You Can Spend on the Big Stuff
This is also called “penny wise, pound foolish.” Some people swear by scrimping on little, day-to-day stuff and, at the same time, spending on big extravagances. We no longer take this approach because:
It doesn’t work.
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