Money Management for my husband who hates budgets

[Soror]

We've been total slackers as of late. Complete. I've tried to get us back on the same page but we are so different- I absolutely love spreadsheets and budgets, it makes my heart happy and is very motivating. My husband says they don't motivate him in the least, really his thought is it doesn't matter if you need something you need it and you can't plan for everything. As of late we just end up ignoring it all which means we've dwindled down our short term savings because we aren't paying too close attention. I end up feeling like the nag trying to do it because I'm the one keeping track and he is annoyed. 

 

We are not extravagant people, we're long term frugal/minimalist. Our bills are fairly small- phone, insurance, electricity, hulu and netflix. Right now we have some categories we need to trim but it is not the how to save money that is catching us, we know how to live on a shoestring BUT I need to find a way for us to do this together for the long term. I'm out of motivation and get up and go. After paying off the house we haven't had any major goals, although we've tried. The current pattern is that I get really upset about it then I push the conversation- he thinks its fine- we just need to do what we need to do. I say that is obviously not working- we need some sort of system and to check in with each other. Then it is on me as he never brings it up and I ain't got it in me. He works too many hrs so the bills have fallen to me and generally I'm ok w/ paying everything but I need us on the same page at least talking about it together. Like me I think his motivation is lacking. We live relatively comfortable, no debt and our retirement savings are growing nicely. We are nice and comfortable so the motivation to make a change is just not there. BUT if we need more short term savings. It isn't prudent as home owners and owners of older vehicles, not to mention life just sometimes throws you a curveball sometimes.

 

Please tell me about how you track your money and spending especially if you or your spouse is adverse to tracking down to the penny. (We've used Mint in the past and I like it but I'm thinking it is time to change things up- if for no other reason then learning a new way will keep my focus a little closer)

[Arcadia]

My hubby only want to look at the totals on my spreadsheet. Not the details. He just want the ballpark figure and I am okay with that.

 

For short term savings, could you maybe have accounts for

- home repairs e.g. needing to replace the roof

- car repair or replacement

- family vacation

- kids college funds if that is not in long term savings.

 

We might need a bigger car when my oldest boy need a full size cello so we do have to budget for a bigger sedan like a Camry or get a minivan or SUV. Our original budget was to replace our Corolla with another Corolla when repairs are no longer worth it.

 

I track expenses for fraud or banking errors. However it doesn't bother me if we spend $700 this month for groceries versus $500 last month as long as all credit card entries are correct on our bank account. If grocery exceed $700, I would be looking over receipts to see what have we bought that rack up such a high to us expense.

[StephanieZ]

Maybe you could just do the budget yourself and let dh know how much there is to spend. :) Perhaps set up a separate "spending" account and transfer $x there each month. Dh has access to that account, but not ready access to the other funds. Then, you put the bill/savings/investment funds in a separate account that isn't used for "regular" spending. 

 

Dh and I both are super budget averse, lol. If he was into budgeting, I'd be 100% groovy with him putting me on a budget that way. It's not that I don't like the idea of budgeting and planning. . .  I just don't like to do it. So, maybe your dh would be cool with that. Just don't make him talk about it or think about it. You can manage everything and give him/both of you a limited account for "spending". If that works for him, then do that and you'll be good. 

 

If you use credit cards, then limit "spending" to one card to keep easy track.

[hornblower]

omg, I just can't even imagine this way of living.

I'd give him a cash envelope at the beginning of the month & put everything possible on automatic payment/withdrawal that I would control & keep track of. 

 

:leaving: Also, I'd budget marriage counselling  :leaving:   (because this would be so seriously big for me that I would need to have an impartial person help us find a middle way) 
 

[Soror]

omg, I just can't even imagine this way of living.

 

I'd give him a cash envelope at the beginning of the month & put everything possible on automatic payment/withdrawal that I would control & keep track of. 

 

:leaving: Also, I'd budget marriage counselling  :leaving:   (because this would be so seriously big for me that I would need to have an impartial person help us find a middle way) 

 

Ha. We already have everything on auto draft that can be, we really hardly have any bills.

 

Actually I'm proud to be looking outside of my comfort zone for a different way of handling things. I can be a bit of a perfectionist control freak, which isn't the right tact either. Surely there is some sort of compromise rather than just saying my way is the right way. We do have to figure something out b/c it is stressing me- the issue is finding something that works for us both for the long term. 

[nd293]

Dh doesn't look at the spreadsheets at all and he gets irritated when I tell him "we're over budget and shouldn't spend this week" as he earns much more than we spend and we save a lot. But when I offer to rewrite the budget so there's more spending money and less savings, he backs off. In other words, he likes how I manage our finances, he just really doesn't like the nitty gritty of it, or to feel it affecting his behaviour.

 

We almost exclusively use our debit cards which makes it much easier for me to track spending without discussing it with him. He sends me a text if he spends cash - he's been on the same $33.15 for the past 2 months I think - almost everything goes on card.

 

I agree with separate 'envelopes' for potential expenses (this is all done on a spreadsheet) such as family vacations, birthdays, medical expenses, car repairs etc. I don't consider those issues as savings. They might be irregular expenses, but they're predictable - I treat them as a future expense, not a saving and we squirrel away for them with each salary. For savings we have a 'slush fund' which I keep at a set level, 'salary savings' to cover x weeks of expenses if dh is out of work and then another savings account where any extra might accumulate. This has reached a level where I have given dh the go-ahead to replace his very old car with an old car :-)

 

I track long term or 'official' expenses on a separate spreadsheet from our weekly expenses. Petrol goes on the official sheet, otherwise it's all the things you'd expect, insurance, school fees, savings for vacations, car licences, charitable contributions, car repairs, potential medical expenses.

 

What's left is for the other spreadsheet - groceries, his 'pocket money' and mine, family entertainment and an open 'miscellaneous' account which covers everything from clothes to christmas to birthday gifts outside the family to plants for the garden. For the most part we have a lot of discretion over what we spend here. I track these expenses and when we go too far over I issue an alert and dh is told to stop (or limit) spending in x category until further notice. I don't mind if we go into the red in individual categories for a week or so as overall we have money to cover it (from the other spreadsheet) but if things don't naturally correct we change our behavior.

 

Some of our conflicting money management styles are background, I think. He's naturally frugal but I grew up much more aware of money and that my single mother was making hard choices. Plus I've studies economics and have a more formally ingrained sense of opportunity costs than he does. I'm clear with dh that I will redo the budget if needed if he has objections, but that it represents real choices. For a long time we would say we were saving $x but in fact we were overspending in so many categories that in fact we were not saving anything close to that. It was really hard to get him to see that I was ok with upping the limits on each category but then we had to acknowledge that we could not also save $x.

 

Another idea that might be helpful is to discuss any expenses over an agreed amount before purchasing. This gives you an opportunity to remind him of financial realities before a purchase is made.

 

ETA: we also dumped the credit cards in an out of the way spot and only use debit cards, mostly because debut cards show the transcaction immediately while credit cards take some days (and least ours do). This helps enormously with tracking.

Edited June 11, 2016 by nd293

[Carol in Cal.]

For a while we kept a checking account and two savings accounts.

 

Pay was directly deposited into the checking account, and one of the savings accounts (call it SA1)

 

To figure out how much to put into SA1, I added up all of the recurring non-monthly expenses that we could predict--car and homeowners' insurance, car registrations, property taxes, umbrella liability, etc.  I included an amount for car maintenance that was fairly high, since we drive older vehicles.  And I added in an amount for gifts--birthdays, Christmas, weddings, baptisms--it really added up and I had never really planned for that before.  Then I divided the total by 12, and that was how much went into SA1 per month.  

 

When one of those bills came in, I would try to pay it out of the checking account, but if I needed extra I would take it out of SA1.  If a surplus built up in SA1 that way, we would add it to investments or debt reduction.

 

The good thing about this was that those bills were no longer a shock AND DH did not assume when there was a big balance in checking that he could safely withdraw more cash right when I was about to pay, say, the property taxes.  

 

The second savings account was our emergency fund.

Edited June 11, 2016 by Carol in Cal.

[Pawz4me]

Tracking spending bores me to tears. I never did it when I was single. I never needed to. I'm not a big spender and have no desire to buy things just to be buying things. I always spent less than I made, there was always a nice (and usually steadily growing) safety net in my checking and savings accounts and I did not care in the least how much I spent on gas or groceries or the electricity bill or whatever. I still don't care. DH on the other hand is the king of spreadsheets and tracking. He likes knowing where the pennies go. So our deal is that he can track away but he can't bore me with the details. I don't give a rip how he budgets things as long as the money works out. When we were younger and money was tighter he'd tell me if I needed to watch the grocery bill or discretionary spending and I would. Neither of us are big spenders, so I guess that helps make our system (if it can be called a system) work for us.

[HomeAgain]

Right now dh and I have gone to a cash-only budget for variables.  He didn't like my spreadsheet, but talking about the finances once a week really helped.  He now has his spreadsheet and I have mine.  His lists a LOT more, I think it has projections for the next year along with retirement accounts and graphs...I budget for the next 4 pay periods.

Years ago, though, dh was very cavalier about money.  I started turning on shows like Till Debt Do Us Part and Suze Orman and bringing up the budget weekly at least, and he started becoming more conscientious about it all.

[mamakelly]

My hubby and I did not see eye to eye at all on money matters. We took a Financial Peace class, and it seriously changed how we both saw money and how we managed it. I highly recommend it!

[purplejackmama]

I completely understand this post. I have no advice, but you aren't alone. I suck at money management and my hubby may be worse.

[brett_ashley]

I agree with the poster above who said decide together on the amount needed to replenish savings and redo direct deposit agreement to divert a percentage of each paycheck there. He's not going to get excited about the spending analysis, so just take it right off the top.

[fraidycat]

Ha. We already have everything on auto draft that can be, we really hardly have any bills.

 

Actually I'm proud to be looking outside of my comfort zone for a different way of handling things. I can be a bit of a perfectionist control freak, which isn't the right tact either. Surely there is some sort of compromise rather than just saying my way is the right way. We do have to figure something out b/c it is stressing me- the issue is finding something that works for us both for the long term.

I agree with Stephaniez's ideas of a"spending" account, or along the same vein, Automate even more. Open a new savings account and have the funds automatically dispersed from the checking to short term savings each month and then whatever is left in checking is the spending money. It sounds like a case of "it's there, so it's spendable". If it's not there (out of sight, out of mind?) then it won't get spent.

 

If you're in the US there are federal rule re: max number of debit transactions allowed per month out of savings (6 I think), so while it's easy just to transfer money over if you need to, there's an element of "big brother is watching", so it's got to be really worth it to make that transfer.

Edited June 11, 2016 by fraidycat

[Soror]

I'm loving all the thoughts here. I'm reading and re-reading them. 

 

I do have a separate savings with auto-withdraw for our house insurance, car insurance and property taxes. Those come all pretty close to each other and are a good size chunk so I do pull that out.

 

The thing with pulling more out to auto for savings is that dh's pay is variable. When he is at his minimum pay it pretty much covers our budget and savings as is w/out extra savings. Or on the other end we could have quite a bit extra, it is different each week. So, we always get hung up on that. I tend to be all or nothing and dh is more laid back whatever happens, happens. 

 

Dh loathes the idea of cash only, although I've considered it- except the fact that I suck at getting money out. I wonder if it might not be good for me to do cash only for our groceries? That is one of my problem areas right now. 

 

Part of the problem is when we go to set a budget my expectations are off. I still think in terms of penny pincher absolute bare minimum mode- which is not good long term. Then we don't meet that and I'm stressed and he thinks I'm being unreasonable because sometimes I am. Of course I am also sometimes in the right, sometimes things are not needs but wants. Anyway, I'm part of the problem for sure- I tend to be an all or nothing person. That coupled w/ dh's pay decreasing the last 2 yrs hasn't been a good combo. I still want to save as much as we could before and think we should be able to except (1) he hasn't made as much and (2) we aren't living in bare minimum mode b/c that is miserable long term. So, then I put my head in the sand and he keeps on keeping on b/c the status quo is fine for him-

 

So, I need a way to keep myself motivated apart from him. I need to learn to lighten up a bit b/c my preferred method is unsustainable but doing nothing with a laid back husband isn't sustainable either. I think we need to talk again about moving some of our money to our saving account- the issue there is that the interest isn't as high.

[mamakelly]

Take a FPU class! I'm telling you, it will be the best $100 you ever spent.

 

http://www.daveramsey.com/fpu/locate-classes

[elegantlion]

Have you looked at You Need a Budget? I used this for several months after the divorce, it was helpful in seeing where my incidental spending was going. I don't have a huge number of monthly bills, so those weren't an issue.

 

There are some previous threads on this, which was what made me buy it. It challenges you to look at your money and put that into a budget instead of creating a budget and then trying to force your income into that. Other people have explained that aspect better, but it seemed very intuitive to me. 

 

 

 

 

[theelfqueen]

We like mint.com

[fairfarmhand]

Can you make several budgets?

 

One budget for bare minimum penny pincher months.

 

another for decent amount of earnings.

 

And another for when he makes really good money.

 

And put a dollar amount on what is each level.

 

Yes, go to cash for groceries. That's helped me so much and I also avoid the "well, I'm  writing a check so even though I only need this box of salt, I should pick up these other three things so I'm not writing a check for 75 cents." Also, when I just need a few things, I leave my purse in the car and take in a $5 bill. Totally curbs impulse purchases."

 

If getting cash out of the bank is an issue for you, just do it once a month. Get the whole amount of his spending money, your spending money and your grocery money.

 

If you're worried that you''ll blow it in the first week, divide it into four envelopes in your underwear drawer. SEAL THE ENVELOPES. This keeps me from "just grabbing an extra twenty for a sonic run."

[Annie G]

 

 

The thing with pulling more out to auto for savings is that dh's pay is variable. When he is at his minimum pay it pretty much covers our budget and savings as is w/out extra savings. Or on the other end we could have quite a bit extra, it is different each week. So, we always get hung up on that. I tend to be all or nothing and dh is more laid back whatever happens, happens. 

 

 

 

My dh doesn't care about the day to day finances. Sounds a lot like yours.  So here's what I do: every pay period I leave enough in the account to cover what I expect to spend in the next two weeks...until the next payday.  When the next paycheck comes in, whatever is left from the previous pay period gets transferred to savings. 

 

Let's say today is payday and I have $55 left in my checking account. Paycheck is $1000 and we have $500 in bills and I expect to spend $300 for food for two weeks. That means I transfer to savings $255- the $55 I had left from last paycheck and the $200 I anticipate to be extra this paycheck.  Now, I do have a buffer in my checking account but that's for real emergencies, not for willy nilly spending.  

 

Anyway, this works for dh because if he doesn't see it, he doesn't spend it.  If he 'saw' the $255 in the checking account, it might be tempting to spend it on something.  This has really helped because it means we have the same amount to spend every pay period no matter what dh is paid.   I kind of had to take over this task because I'm much more disciplined about it and without it, we were setting a savings goal and spending the rest. Well, that's crazy. 

 

Variable pay can be tough because if it's minimum pay for a while, when there is more income there's such an attraction to spending it because you've been so frugal!

[Arctic Bunny]

DH is very proud of the fact that he gets an allowance, lol. He has a totally separate account; money is automatically transferred there. He has even gone so far as to set up an automatic savings account within his account.

 

Everything else comes directly out our chequing account, except groceries and gas. It's either automatically withdrawn for bills, or withdrawn into separate accounts for car/vacation/insurance/etc. He doesn't "know" how to get into those accounts (his choice!), although it wouldn't be that hard. And he's quite happy that way.

[lllll]

nm

Edited June 13, 2016 by _ ?^..

[Katy]

We've used mint.com in the past.  We're way off budgeting for this move (too many unpredictable expenses), but I think next we're going to try ynab.com after having read several blog posts about it.  It's not free though.

[justasque]

I like an iPhone app called Pennies to keep track of my credit card spending.  I put in (roughly) how much I spend each day, and it tells me how much I can spend each day until the end of the billing period and still not go over my goal.  So if I set the goal at $900, at the beginning of the month it says I can spend $30 per day (on average).  As I spend, and the month goes on, that number changes up or down.   I don't let it dictate my life - if I need gas I'll buy it (and the app lets you spend past your daily limit) - but it does help me make the small decisions that can add up.  Like, do I buy new food for tonight's dinner or can I make do with what I have for another day?  Should I park in the $ garage or try to find street parking?  Should I return that low-priced item I don't need or not bother making the trip?  If I get off track with entering purchases, I can always use my credit card's app to check on my spending and enter it (in a big rough chunk) into the Pennies app to catch up.  The app is one of those that are designed to very easily do one basic thing, and do that thing well.  Might be something your dh is willing to consider.

[elegantlion]

We've used mint.com in the past.  We're way off budgeting for this move (too many unpredictable expenses), but I think next we're going to try ynab.com after having read several blog posts about it.  It's not free though.

 

I bought mine on sale through Steam. 

[Soror]

I like an iPhone app called Pennies to keep track of my credit card spending.  I put in (roughly) how much I spend each day, and it tells me how much I can spend each day until the end of the billing period and still not go over my goal.  So if I set the goal at $900, at the beginning of the month it says I can spend $30 per day (on average).  As I spend, and the month goes on, that number changes up or down.   I don't let it dictate my life - if I need gas I'll buy it (and the app lets you spend past your daily limit) - but it does help me make the small decisions that can add up.  Like, do I buy new food for tonight's dinner or can I make do with what I have for another day?  Should I park in the $ garage or try to find street parking?  Should I return that low-priced item I don't need or not bother making the trip?  If I get off track with entering purchases, I can always use my credit card's app to check on my spending and enter it (in a big rough chunk) into the Pennies app to catch up.  The app is one of those that are designed to very easily do one basic thing, and do that thing well.  Might be something your dh is willing to consider.

We don't have iPhone but I'll have to see if they have that on Android, maybe it would be one dh would like

 

My dh doesn't care about the day to day finances. Sounds a lot like yours.  So here's what I do: every pay period I leave enough in the account to cover what I expect to spend in the next two weeks...until the next payday.  When the next paycheck comes in, whatever is left from the previous pay period gets transferred to savings. 

 

Let's say today is payday and I have $55 left in my checking account. Paycheck is $1000 and we have $500 in bills and I expect to spend $300 for food for two weeks. That means I transfer to savings $255- the $55 I had left from last paycheck and the $200 I anticipate to be extra this paycheck.  Now, I do have a buffer in my checking account but that's for real emergencies, not for willy nilly spending.  

 

Anyway, this works for dh because if he doesn't see it, he doesn't spend it.  If he 'saw' the $255 in the checking account, it might be tempting to spend it on something.  This has really helped because it means we have the same amount to spend every pay period no matter what dh is paid.   I kind of had to take over this task because I'm much more disciplined about it and without it, we were setting a savings goal and spending the rest. Well, that's crazy. 

 

Variable pay can be tough because if it's minimum pay for a while, when there is more income there's such an attraction to spending it because you've been so frugal!

 

Yes, we do tend to want to take care of various things when income is higher, really it is not even frivolties, when you own your home there are always projects. 

 

I like this other variation on taking money off the top which is more immediate- that might work better with his varying salary. 

Can you make several budgets?

 

One budget for bare minimum penny pincher months.

 

another for decent amount of earnings.

 

And another for when he makes really good money.

 

And put a dollar amount on what is each level.

 

Yes, go to cash for groceries. That's helped me so much and I also avoid the "well, I'm  writing a check so even though I only need this box of salt, I should pick up these other three things so I'm not writing a check for 75 cents." Also, when I just need a few things, I leave my purse in the car and take in a $5 bill. Totally curbs impulse purchases."

 

If getting cash out of the bank is an issue for you, just do it once a month. Get the whole amount of his spending money, your spending money and your grocery money.

 

If you're worried that you''ll blow it in the first week, divide it into four envelopes in your underwear drawer. SEAL THE ENVELOPES. This keeps me from "just grabbing an extra twenty for a sonic run."

Yes, I think cash will help a lot. I buy weekly groceries but we are in town so much I will often stop for just one thing and get way more. I'm still trying to think on the budget, I need to get my thoughts sorted out and talk to him. I've thought about doing different ones but then again it annoys me b/c the only number I know for sure is the bare minimum number and I don't know that ahead of the month. I can get a good estimate of the first 2 wks as his pay is 2 wks behind but the last 2 wks of the month I don't have a clue.

[HomeAgain]

FPU would probably help you guys a lot.

I wonder if some of your problems could be solved by playing around with your online checking.  Ours has a hidden option to see a graph of how the money is spent over the past 30, 60, or 90 days.  All it took was going into my checking for a while and labeling transactions with their drop down menu.  After a time it auto filled it for me.  But I could pull down the graph and make a realistic budget based on what we were already spending each month and adjusting categories accordingly.  I had tried budgeting before with what I *wanted* to spend, and never being able to stick with it was frustrating.
Also, you could try moving money to savings as soon as it hits on payday so that what is left in the account is a constant, stable number.  The extra is paid to yourselves first and doesn't even come into play. Or you could do a hills & valleys fund if the lower paychecks aren't covering what you need.  But it will help in budgeting long term if you are not rethinking numbers each week.

[fairfarmhand]

We don't have iPhone but I'll have to see if they have that on Android, maybe it would be one dh would like

 

 

Yes, we do tend to want to take care of various things when income is higher, really it is not even frivolties, when you own your home there are always projects. 

 

I like this other variation on taking money off the top which is more immediate- that might work better with his varying salary. 

Yes, I think cash will help a lot. I buy weekly groceries but we are in town so much I will often stop for just one thing and get way more. I'm still trying to think on the budget, I need to get my thoughts sorted out and talk to him. I've thought about doing different ones but then again it annoys me b/c the only number I know for sure is the bare minimum number and I don't know that ahead of the month. I can get a good estimate of the first 2 wks as his pay is 2 wks behind but the last 2 wks of the month I don't have a clue.

 

Perhaps you should do it on a biweekly basis rather than a monthly one.

[mamakelly]

I don't know how much ynab costs, but Dave Ramsey's Every Dollar app is free.

Edited June 12, 2016 by mamakelly

[nd293]

The thing with pulling more out to auto for savings is that dh's pay is variable. When he is at his minimum pay it pretty much covers our budget and savings as is w/out extra savings. Or on the other end we could have quite a bit extra, it is different each week. So, we always get hung up on that. I tend to be all or nothing and dh is more laid back whatever happens, happens.

 

Dh is a contractor and although he mostly works a set work week, he could potentially be out of work for a few weeks (has only happened once) and some weeks earns more for extra hours or less if there are public holidays.

 

I use a 'pretend' salary. There's a magic number which is basically a standard week. If we earn less than that (say over Christmas shutdown) then I make up the difference from the 'salary savings' fund and if he earns more some of that tops up 'salary savings' and the rest goes to 'extra savings'.

[Soror]

I downloaded the free trail of YNAB. I've looked at it several times but we used Mint before and were happy enough with that (although there were some things that I didn't care for). As of now I know I need something different, we'll see how it goes.

 

I did drop by the bank for cash before buying groceries and I had about $10 extra in my wallet, I ended up spending every penny. BUT I had forgot that I had to buy food for ds' Camp and dd's sleepover. I talked to dh and told him how much we've been spending on groceries(eek!) and how I'm trying to keep it to cash once a week to get that down.(as sometimes he'll run to the store to pick up stuff- like on Tues when I'm out he'll pick up something easy for him to cook- BUT I had an ephiphany last week- I need to just preschedule something easy I know he can make so I planned for spaghetti this week-(my husband helps in lots of ways but struggles w/ cooking)

Perhaps you should do it on a biweekly basis rather than a monthly one.

 

Hmm, that is an interesting idea

Dh is a contractor and although he mostly works a set work week, he could potentially be out of work for a few weeks (has only happened once) and some weeks earns more for extra hours or less if there are public holidays.

I use a 'pretend' salary. There's a magic number which is basically a standard week. If we earn less than that (say over Christmas shutdown) then I make up the difference from the 'salary savings' fund and if he earns more some of that tops up 'salary savings' and the rest goes to 'extra savings'.

You know I have friends who do things this way, although that is generally for ones that sometimes dont' have any income. It would be good however to put some aside in those higher weeks for the ones that are lower instead of just pushing it to savings, theoretically we can get by on those weeks but stuff happens sometimes- I guess it is just another way of pulling from savings from needed....

[Soror]

I downloaded the free trial of YNAB 4.0 and have the app on my phone now. We'll see how it works. I like the fact that I can manually enter transactions as soon as they occur, instead of waiting on it to clear. I like that it has you plan from money already there because we need to do more pre-planning. I still need to talk to dh about moving some funds around so it is out of sight. I've talked to him about this before but have yet to convince him. Logically he thinks it shouldn't make a difference where the funds are but money stuff doesn't always follow logic.