Maybe the Most Overlooked Factor in the Spouse Search: Money-Psychology Congruence

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5 Responses

  1. Steve from Arkansas says:

    That’s a great post! Last week my frugal wife and I celebrated 39 years of marriage without one fight over money. We are both pretty frugal but now that we are FI and slightly early retired we do agree to buying a few things that help us have great quality experiences together like our fishing boat and off road vehicle. You are right on target that it is an undervalued quality that should be considered before hooking up for life with someone. In addition, outside of the scope of the article, shared hobbies are huge to helping a marriage survive and thrive. Not all but some being shared gives you opportunities to be together having fun. For us that is endurance running, skiing, fishing, hiking and tennis. But it could be anything.

    • Joe Freedom says:

      Thanks Steve! I agree; shared activities are a huge relationship boost (and probably more often than not also a financial synergy from shared expenses and/or economies of scale). Now if only I can get Mrs. JF interested in home-brewing …

    • Joe Freedom says:

      Oh, and ps–Congratulations on 39 years! That’s a huge accomplishment. And congratulations on no fights over money! That’s at least as big of an accomplishment!

  2. m says:

    I agree on #1-4, but have to disagree about #5.

    I don’t think that who earns it should define who/how to spend it. I think how to spend ones combined money needs to be a combined decision, otherwise there will always be tension and fighting. Money will become power in the relationship, and I’m not sure that is healthy. That said, I think that getting on the same page with regard to spending is absolutely critical.

    In our house, I’m also the PF geek, that tracks things with spreadsheets, handles the investments, does the taxes, etc. I also happen to earn more money. We don’t have a budget, but we have a system where we discuss “out of plan” spending. Its not really a fixed dollar amount ( since she might spend $180 on groceries at one time) but rather on if its a usual expense that we’ve agreed to. If its not typical, or a fair amount of money, we discuss it. And we don’t fight about money and have progressed nicely to FI.

    • Joe Freedom says:

      I had to go back and read #5! I think you might be reading my thought here backward. I’m not saying that “he/she who earns it gets to choose how it is spent or managed.” You’re right; that would be a recipe for tyranny. What I’m saying is that there should be a link between consumption level and the earning of money to fund that consumption level, and that if the couple has disparate views on the optimum consumption level (which we do), it is a recipe for disaster (long-term if not short-term) to place the yoke of earning obligation on the “saver” to fund the lifestyle of the “spender.” A lot of couples are on the exact same page regarding optimum spending levels–a good number of blogs attest to this–and wow, is that a HUGE advantage (or at least convenience). We are not. (It’s not a source of discontent. I make my pitch and Mrs. JF makes hers, and then we go her way. Simple). But the way that we addressing this differing philosophy is to say “hey, we can live at this consumption profile right now with no further earned income. But if one of us wants to increase our consumption profile beyond that, he/she will be responsible for funding that increased consumption profile.” Skin in the game so to speak.

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