Why You Need to Be Honest with Your Spouse About Family Finances
The purpose of this article is to stress the importance of sharing in a relationship, both the good and the bad.
I write this on the heals of a heated argument with my spouse about money. Apparently it turns out that, according to WomenOf.com, "Money is the number one culprit in marital misunderstandings." Don't we know it.
I dug a little deeper on this topic and found that according to Bellaonline.com, "When you and your spouse fight nine chances out of ten the fight has something to do with money. More fights in marriage are caused by money disputes than by any other issues." Money is at the heart of so many problems.
So how do you and your spouse step away from this never ending battle of financial wits? Honesty. You need to have complete and total honesty when it comes to money plain and simple.
First thing you want to do to establish this new relationship about money is to figure out how much you actually have, or more then likely don't have. You need to add up all of your assets as well as all of your debits. Do not hide anything. if you have a credit card that just has your name on it, now is the time to disclose that.
Once you have a firm grasp on what your financial situation is now is the time to talk openly and honestly about how you feel about it. does one partner feel the other spends to much? Are you shocked that your spouse has a credit card which he owes $1000 or so on that you didn't know about. Are you wonder how your joint checking account never seems to stay in the positive.
So you have a record of all of your credits and debits, and you have talked about how you feel when it comes to each others spending habits, not what?
I recommend that at this point you take the time to put together a budget. there are a lot of great resources that can help you get started. You can check out www.budget101.com and print out one of there sample budgets for starters. The important thing in budgeting is that you do this together. You talk with each other and decide how much per month you are both comfortable with for your monthly grocery bills? How much are you comfortable with spending on haircuts? Go over everything with a fine tooth comb.
Once this process is done commit to sticking together on the budget and commit to having a family meeting about it once a month to see where you stand on everything. Are you doing what you need to do in order to get your spending where it needs to be. Is everything still out in the open. Do you know where you are accruing debt from?
You might not look forward to these monthly talks, but they are very important in keeping the lines of communication open when it comes to money. Again, I am not an expert, but I have learned that when everything is out on the table, your spouse can't come back to you and yell at you for a decision he was already aware that you made.
Published by Robin Neorr
I'm a tree hugging stay at home mom with an extensive career in Advertising and Marketing that is on hiatus while I enjoy raising my two children. View profile
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9 Comments
Post a CommentThis is really good advice. Honesty is so important. I take care of the finances in our marriage, bills get paid on time and we do what we can to make our money stretch just that little bit further.
Sophie
Such great advice. Thanks for sharing.
Excellent.
This is great advise although it doesn't always work. My DIL is pretty good with the money and my son is not. She shows him what in the the bank and what bills they have and all he sees is what is in the bank.
Great information! It is so important to keep the lines of communication, especially in a marriage! I wrote about this article too - it is so important!
Thanks, hubby forgot to tell me about some credit card debt and I wrote the article in order to vent!
Great article...so true! :)
This is a great article, and so true, and important that spouses work together on finances.
This is very true and great advice. My husband has been surprised when we're low on money before payday, but like most people, our account isn't a bottomless pit. When we're spending it faster than we earn it, it's going to disappear. I don't want to tell him we're about out of money, but at the same time we can't keep on spending. The complaint I have is when he gets upset about it. I may balance the checkbook and bring in some of the money, but I can't magically make it appear.