jon4pres
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| Financial Motivation |
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First this looks like a great site from everything I have read.
How do I get my wife excited about finances? She has not had the best financial mentors in the past and I am finding it very difficult to get her motivated or excited about our finances.
The Bad - We have about $7000 in consumer debt between my truck and a couple of credit cards (both at 0%). She also has $17,000 in student loans that we will have to start paying back at the end of January. At this time we are living paycheck to paycheck with very little savings partly due to the fact that she has not found a full time teaching job.
The Good - We have about $16,000 between my 401k and a Roth IRA that my wife's grandmother started for her. We are 25 and 22 so we have lots of time.
With us living paycheck to paycheck I am worried that if something bad happens we are going to be in major trouble and I can not get my wife to understand this concept. Before we got married her mother and father took care of everything. She has never had to figure out how to pay for anything necessary. She has great work ethic. She works hard but seems to live by the harder you work the harder you play saying.
I have tried budgets and showing her on paper how much money we are spending. My most recent attempt was to giver an allowance but found that retarded, she is not a child.
My next attempt is the cash budget. I am going to have 4 envelopes Food/household, gas, my money, and her money and explain to her that once this money is gone it is gone. I have figured a budget that allows for us to 1. not add any more debt. 2. pay down what we already have and 3. Start saving a little bit of money.
How do I get her excited about this concept?
Sorry that was longer than I intended.
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Thu Nov 15, 2007 4:59 pm |
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coaster
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Experience is the best teacher and the best motivator. She needs to feel the pain of not having the money to buy what she wants. I think your idea of a cash budget is fine, but it's not going to work if you have joint accounts. The only way it'll work is for all the accounts to be in your name only, and you controlling all the cash AND all the credit, and frankly, unless she's in favor of that concept, this isn't going to be good for your relationship.
Maybe another member will have a good idea; we have several members with professional experience in that area. If you don't get another reply within a couple days, bump the thread and I'll pm one or another of them. 
~Tim~
Eye Candy : Why Whimsy
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Thu Nov 15, 2007 5:42 pm |
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rockhound
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| Handling Money |
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That is a tough situation, and it's tough to get through to somebody when you add up the numbers and they come out negative, and they still don't understand what that means. Coaster is probably right in that she won't "get it" until the day she is denied what she wants for lack of money. Then of course you have to watch out for switching from spending cash to living on credit.
I like the idea of restricting cash access. You might find a subtle way to rearrange your checking accounts in order to closely monitor spending. Something like this:
1st) open a new checking account in both your names. This account will only have enough money in it to cover your calculated monthly expenses. Your wife gets a debit car on the account to demonstrate that you are willing to entrust her with the finances.
2nd) find a "nice" way to cut off her access to other sources of money in any other existing accounts, especially that you have jointly. Maybe you can just stop depositing your paycheck into the existing joint account by saying you would rather put more directly into retirement, or you need to put it into a CD in order to build up an emergency fund--that's a good idea, anyway. I know CD's aren't the usual method of choice for making the best interest, but the idea is to put the money somewhere where it can't be easily withdrawn--out of sight, out of mind, hopefully.
Maybe when she's in line somewhere making a purchase with the debit card, and it's rejected for lack of funds, she'll understand what "no money" means, although that will be painful, and you'll hear about it.
Also try talking to her about common, long-term goals. It might be hard to get excited about mundane things like paying the water bill, but explain it in terms of something she likes. Maybe she likes going on vacations, so explain that people in debt, with no money, can't afford to go on vacation. Or maybe she has a goal that you can share, and if it's a dream that requires money (as most do in some way), put it in terms of "WE will never have that house/car/boat/cruise/etc. if WE keep bleeding money now." Emphasize the WE, so that it doesn't seem like she is the cause of all of your problems and you are talking down to her, because then your life will be miserable. Or perhaps put it in terms of 'You need her to help you' save money. Maybe she is more interested in doing something for you, than in trying to address something for herself that she may not even think is a problem.
Good luck.
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Thu Nov 15, 2007 10:45 pm |
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oldguy
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Jon, I would never try to restrict my wife's access to our accounts, it is OUR money, not my money.
We did a long-term plan (updated many times over a 40 year period) and we set our wealth-building goals (such as X $M Net Worth at age 60, etc). Then we implemented the plan by first buying rental houses and then having a fixed amount auto-deposited from our paychecks (before we got them). With the PLAN in place and comfortable in the knowledge that we would one day be wealthy, we were able to enjoy spending everything else on our family. But no revolving debt. We carried near-max loans on the houses, kept them fully leveraged, and we borrowed for cars - we still finance cars 100%, any time I can borrow 5.5% capital from a credit union, I leave our own money in the SP500 Index where it doubles every 6 years, (on average).
quote:
How do I get her excited about this concept?
It involves sitting in the back yard in the evening, full moon, wine, an Adirondack double-rocker chair, and long discussions. There is a book, The Automatic Millionaire that I read 2 or 3 years ago, we found it funny, it was absolutely US - except that we had a few more houses.
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Fri Nov 16, 2007 3:58 am |
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jon4pres
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My goal here is to get her more involved. Resticting her access to any accounts will do the opposite. I am not trying to do anything behind her back or hide anything from her. We are in this together. We got where we are together and we will have to figure out the future together. She is a smart girl, if I started hiding money she would notice. I would rather be broke than lying and hiding money from my wife.
I want her to know what is going on with our finances. Recently, my grandfather died and left my grandma to take care of the money. He always did everything, she has no idea about money. If I die tomorrow I don't want my wife to be in that position.
Oldguy, We actually had a nice talk about it. I think I underestimated her in some ways. I printed out the budget and told her how much money she would have to spend. She asked me where the rest of her paycheck would go. She was very happy to know that most of her check was going to paying off any of our debt and basic living expenses.
How would you guys asses my situation?
The debt sucks but like I said the student loans are at 6.8% and tax deductable. The truck is at 7% and the rest is at 0%.
I think we are in pretty good shape as far as the retirement savings. My wife is also a teacher and when it comes time to retire she will receive a pension for that.
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Fri Nov 16, 2007 4:48 pm |
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coaster
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quote:
Originally posted by jon4pres
How would you guys asses my situation?
It sounds much better than what I read from your first post. Perhaps together the two of you can take a personal finances class. Many community colleges offer them. Best wishes & good luck.
~Tim~
Eye Candy : Why Whimsy
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Fri Nov 16, 2007 5:52 pm |
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rockhound
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quote:
Originally posted by coaster
It sounds much better than what I read from your first post.
Yeah, the first post had a note of desperation, and now everything sounds fine. Well, that's great.
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Fri Nov 16, 2007 10:07 pm |
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ukey
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looks like she's very happy about being able to clear debts. may signal she's a person who likes to move away from things....
so try sounding her out on:
how about putting 10% into an emergency fund/ anti poverty fund, and if she agrees keep this account untouchable.
calculate how much u need to pay ur bills..even if its the min its ok...
credit cards.....even at 0%, its a temptation to spend to ur limit......its ur choice however....I dun curtail expenses on my girl's side, and luckily she does not like to overspend as well.
so the rest, go head and spend for ur utilities and other personal expenses.
p.s. I'd do my best to convince her the emergency/ anti proverty fund.
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Sat Nov 24, 2007 3:57 am |
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wringle
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Good communication is what separates the men from the boys in the world of staff motivation. Employees who feel that they are being listened to and who enjoy a positive working relationship with their managers will be more willing to go the extra mile for the company. It is also usually the case that those lower down in the company tend to be the ones on the front line and no one will have more hands on experience of how the company is working than they will, so good communication may reveal key areas for improvement in the business that could help the company run more efficiently. The TV trend of sending CEO's "back to the floor" has shown how important that can be.
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Sat Nov 13, 2010 4:04 am |
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MrCashFlow
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With some couples one party may not want to deal with finances and rather the other did. If that is the case just keep her in mind with everything you do and keep her posted on what's going on. Make sure she knows where important paper and information is if she needs it.
I know of a couple where the husband just comes home and hand over the paycheck. He just dosen't want to deal with finances and trust her to take care of things. Which is not too smart because both need to know what to do incase of emergencies.
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Sat Nov 13, 2010 6:13 am |
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sweetums
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Like I always say communication is key and if you don't have that then you have nothing.
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Sun Nov 14, 2010 4:34 am |
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jeffreyrayenz
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Tue Dec 14, 2010 11:35 am |
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jarniviabroune
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Sat Dec 18, 2010 10:01 am |
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josht
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It's really difficult, in my experience, to get people excited about budgeting. It usually comes out of necessity.
The best way I have found is to give yourself little victories along the way towards getting out of debt. Small goals with small rewards to keep yourself excited and on track.
Or, in your particular situation, just give her a bigger reward when she finds a job. This will encourage her, and solve your problem much quicker.
Josh Thompson
Infinite Banking
You Be the Bank
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Mon Dec 27, 2010 7:24 am |
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