Three years into our marriage I started working with the MLM cosmetics company, and as I shared in chapter 1, it didn’t go well. Mark and I still had never really sat down and made a budget or talked about our money personalities. Arguing about my spending had become sort of a habit. I thought Mark was too cheap and never felt I was doing anything wrong.
Spending habits can be a reflection of so many other personality traits. Impulsive people tend to spend more money, whereas hesitant people tend to be tightwads. The tightwad typically spends less than he would like to, because he just can’t make up his mind. Spenders enjoy spending money, but have none left over because they spend it all. When the two types come together in a marriage, it seems as though the “opposites attract” theory should make it work, but it does not. The tightwad likes to save money, but gets frustrated because the Spender is always spending their savings. The Spender gets mad at the tightwad because he “never likes to have fun” and spends the money despite the partner’s wishes. It continues as a source of contention. This is exactly where Mark and I were stuck, in the endless cycle of spending, saving, spending, saving. Then it turned into anger, resentment, ignoring, fighting… and on and on.
If your significant other is a Spender, you can help her, but you have to be careful with what you say. I recently sent out a survey to over 70,000 people on the e-mail list of my website, laurengreutman.com. I got over 2,200 responses in twenty-four hours. These 2,200 Spenders say that among the reasons they spend money are depression, anxiety, and lack of self-control. I can tell you from experience: When you are talking with a Spender, she may already feel terrible about her spending, but she may have no idea how to control it. Start by offering to sit down and pay your bills and budget together. When Mark and I finally did so, it took such a heavy weight off of me.
One thing that a Spender will need every month is a budget meeting. Why? Spenders usually have a good pulse on the household monthly needs. When you are a Spender, it’s not as if you can just quit buying things. You need things like food, gas, and toilet paper. It is very important that the Spender has support, encouragement, and a sense of responsibility to the process. Taking away her money, giving her an allowance, or changing all the passwords on your computer will not cure the problem. She needs to feel a sense of entitlement and participation in the process. A Spender will often feel like a teenager if you take the budget away and give her an allowance. She will not feel empowered, which may turn into resentment and then into more spending.
At our monthly budget meeting we sit down with an agenda. Our goal is to work together to plan out the month before it happens. Mark is the one taking care of the monthly bills and organizing the month using a budgeting program that we created. I am the one who has my finger on the pulse of what is going on with the family. I typically know what birthday parties we have to attend, how much I need for groceries, and other family needs. When we work together, we actually budget successfully. If one piece is missing, the budget falls apart for the month. In this instance, our differences with money are actually a blessing, because they complement each other. Because I am a Spender, I know where I have to spend money. Since Mark is a tightwad, he prefers spreadsheets and numbers. It works amazingly well, but only because we are both on board.
When I have my monthly budget meeting with Mark, I feel as if I have only one job for the month—to stay within the boundaries of our budget.
I like the challenge of getting our budget as low as possible. If we need sneakers for our kids, I love to research the best deals and find them for less. I learned how to negotiate our phone bills, save money on gas, and so much more. There are many ways that I learned how to scrimp and save over the years, and I thoroughly enjoy the challenge. Being a part of the budget gives me a sense of ownership over the process, because I helped create the plan. I was given a voice, instead of just being given an allowance (which is a common way people try to deal with Spenders). I now have myself to blame if I overspend, because we discussed everything before it even happened. I had my opportunity to provide insight on how I wanted to spend our money that month, so I have to take responsibility for my overspending, which was very hard for me at first. I know that I have the opportunity at the beginning of every month to decide how much I want to spend on clothing. If I exceed my budget, it is because of my lack of self-control and discipline.
Did the ability to take responsibility come easily? Heck no! It took many months of screwing up, and going to Mark to confess my overspending so he could rearrange the budget without any bounced checks. I would come to him with my head hanging low, feeling ashamed that I couldn’t stay within our budget.
There were many times when I would spend our grocery budget on clothing purchases or activities out with my moms’ group with the kids. It was hard for me to say no to time spent shopping at the mall with friends, and lunch and play dates at expensive kids’ museums. Instead of saying no, I would use our grocery money on these activities and try to eat from the pantry instead. This would leave us with nothing to eat, forcing us to eat out at a restaurant and go over our budget.
I started to doubt my ability to stop spending money and stick to a budget. I felt as if I could never get it together. You may have felt the same way, that you’ve tried many, many times to get your spending under control but it just never stuck. There is hope for you, and it comes during the monthly budget meeting.
An important part of this budget meeting is that the tightwad doesn’t freak out on the Spender. You must realize it is a process and that it will take a few months to get the right numbers and ability to make it come together. If you are a Saver, be patient, continue to work together to get the budget back on track, and continue to encourage the Spender.
Spenders typically feel bad about how they spend their money. Telling them how horrible they are with money doesn’t help the situation—it only makes it worse. By giving them a set amount of money as a punishment, or changing all of your Internet passwords around Christmastime, you are just delaying the inevitable crash of the Spender. You need to work together, even though you don’t understand each other’s spending habits, and learn how to complement each other. That being said, you need to find any opportunity to praise the Spender when she makes a good financial decision. You need to encourage, offer forgiveness when mistakes occur, and give praise when there is a job well done. Just to clarify, we are talking about someone who wants to get better and stop spending money, not a person who has a total disregard for how you feel. A Spender who doesn’t want to stop spending money has a different story from mine, and I assume that because you picked up this book, you are ready for a change.
When I first sat down and blurted out to Mark that we were in $40,000 worth of debt, I expected him to yell, cry, or just walk out of the room. His reaction was exactly what I needed in order to start the recovery process. He said, “I forgive you. Let’s get out of this together.” I cried tears of joy that day, tears of relief. My secret was out, and it didn’t ruin me as I thought it would. Those words allowed me to have the confidence to heal and move forward. I shudder to think what would have happened if he had said, “Yeah, right, you’ve been like this forever, and I don’t know how you are going to fix this.” I look back on his reaction, and believe his support was the main reason I was able to have the confidence to start on my path to recovery.
His forgiveness gave me confidence that I could change, just like he gave me the confidence that I was smart earlier in our relationship. It helped me get started on the right path. Give your Spender the confidence that she can do this, too! You are on the same team.
As a Spender, you need to allow the tightwad in your life to have some say in the way you spend your money. That conversation should come up every month in your monthly budget meeting. As a Spender, you may need to stretch yourself and think about how the tightwad may be feeling. Mark always felt he had no control over our money, because I would spend it before he could even touch it. He had dreams and visions of what he wanted our retirement and lifestyle to look like, but they were crushed when I got us into so much debt. To make matters worse, I wouldn’t tell him and he wouldn’t ask about my spending, and when he did ask there was always an argument. I would feel as if he was trying to control my money (even though I felt out of control).
You may feel defensive at first, but remember that the tightwad in your life really wants the best for you and your future. I know that for me it helps to check things over with Mark, because that keeps me from being impulsive.
Being impulsive is a character trait that Spenders in my survey reported also feeling. It is something that I am constantly having to deal with. There were many times when I didn’t check with Mark before making a purchase and acted on impulse. I once came home with a pug puppy because I impulsively bought her. These impulse purchases would cost me thousands of dollars. If I had checked it over with Mark, I wouldn’t have made those mistakes.
When we first started learning how to work together with our money, I went to him even though I didn’t want to. Why? Because I made a commitment to him and to our future. With every purchase decision I made, I checked it over with Mark. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t acting rashly and that he agreed with the purchase. This meant I had to learn to stay out of certain stores, because they were a huge temptation for me to overspend.
In one conversation after that fateful evening talking about our credit card bills, I remember giving him permission to tell me when I was making a bad financial decision. If you are a Spender and you want to change, you need to give one person the power to say something to you about it. It is not comfortable, but Mark’s willingness to tell me when I am making a bad decision has helped me realize what my triggers are and how to stop my spending in its tracks.
Just stop fighting about it and everything will be fixed. Seems like an easy solution, right? I am not sure anything could be further from the truth. A recent study by Jeffrey Dew and colleagues, “Examining the Relationships Between Financial Issues and Divorce,” published in the journal Family Relations in 2012, found that people associate money with deeply held meanings, feelings of self-sufficiency and autonomy. And because people associate their views about money with these feelings, fights about money aren’t really about money at all. They are often about those deeply held meanings, and therefore they last longer and are more intense when money is the topic of discussion.
Our marriage was in trouble. From the outside it could have looked as though it was all because of our financial struggles. The truth was, we were broke, but in a real way, not a monetary way. A way that could have led to divorce down the road. But because we learned how to communicate about our money in a way that was healthy, we saved our marriage.