What to Do When You're From Uranus and He's From Jupiter
My husband and I knew almost from the beginning that we had very different money management styles. After all, when we met, I was working at Consumer Credit Counseling Services and he joked that his personal tagline was “VISA, everywhere I used to be”.
While we don’t have all the answers, after ten years, we’ve learned a thing or two about melding two vastly different financial approaches.
I’m a tracker and he’s not.
I write down every single penny we spend. I check home banking daily. I have enormous spread sheets that track budget to actual. He doesn’t.
I get resentful when he doesn’t know our financial situation as readily and as thoroughly as I do. He gets annoyed that I seemingly call the shots when I declare when we can and cannot afford something.
Solution: Every Friday, I send him a quick update of the important highlights of our finances. The update has changed over the years. It might be as simple as how much cash we have in the checking account and the next big three expenditures we have coming up. It could be our credit card balances and how much they have shrunk / grown in the past week. My favorite is how much money has come into the household that week versus how much has left.
I’m a categorizer and he’s not.
When a paycheck comes in, I obsessively parcel out each cent into its proper category. When we are faced with the decision to buy something, I look at the category and see how much we can afford. He doesn’t.
I get deflated when he buys something without checking our budget first. He rolls his eyes when we have plenty of cash and I insist we can’t afford something.
Solution: We’ve agreed to chat first about any purchases that are not gas or groceries. It’s a quick chat, but a chat none-the-less. It isn’t that we are asking each other for permission, but we do give each other a heads up.
I’m a worrier and he’s not.
I spend a great deal of time agonizing over whether or not we will be able to afford braces, weddings, college and retirement. He trusts that it will all work out.
I get mad when he doesn’t fret as much as I do and he can’t understand why I waste energy when we are doing all that we can to make it work.
Solution: When we talk about money, we also talk about our emotions. First we talk about the nuts and bolts of the budget and then we check in on how each of us is feeling. It sounds silly, but it helps tremendously to know not only the numbers, but story too.
I guess in short, its all about communication, compromise and consideration.
Shari Storm worked at the debt counseling agency, Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Seattle for six years before coming to Verity Credit Union in 1998. Storm has her masters degree in business administration from Seattle University. She writes for Working Mother Magazine blog and MomLogic.
She is a mentor for Seattle University’s Albers School of Business graduate program and lectures at University of Washington’s Experimental College.
She is the author of Motherhood is the New MBA: Using Your Parenting Skills to be a Better Boss. She has three daughters.
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