“When one’s a saver and one’s a spender, each just thinks the other is a jerk,” says one couples counselor
By Cheryl Winokur Munk Sept. 10, 2019 10:05 pm ET For married couples who seek to combine finances after years of keeping their own accounts, the process is rarely as simple as saying, “I do.”
For all of these couples, the trick is to get the benefits of a financial union while minimizing the emotional roadblocks that come with the fear of losing independence and control, say financial advisers and couples therapists. Among other things, couples need to be willing to discuss their fears and desires around spending and saving.
To start, experts suggest that each spouse meticulously track expenditures and savings. This process, which includes looking through both of their credit-card statements and other bills for several months, can be eye-opening, because many times one spouse simply isn’t aware of how much the other spends and on what, financial advisers say.
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Ms. Vuppuluri says going through this process helped ensure they weren’t telling each other how to spend, which could have ended up “in unnecessary conflict over minor things.” Rather, they came up with a budget together that worked for both of their habits and was aligned with their overall savings goals.
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Conflicting perspectives For many couples, the hardest part about merging finances comes when the spouses are on different financial footings or have different financial goals. Ryan and Molly Rollins, both 38, of Richmond, Va., went through the process of merging finances a few years into their marriage. While they had talked about it from the start, Ms. Rollins, a writer and editor, wasn’t in any rush to shake things up.
Ms. Rollins say that her husband “was so laser-focused on saving and erasing debt that he was frugal to an extreme.” She says she feared that the same expectations might be forced on her, even though she was already “pretty reasonable” with her spending and didn’t have financial issues that needed solving.
Conflicts in retirement For older couples who have kept their finances separate for a good part of their marriage and are now nearing retirement, the transition can be even harder. And old habits can be even harder to break. Initially, Mr. Beasley was uncomfortable with the idea. “I almost felt like an animal protecting my food,” he says. “I think somewhere in my mind I thought, ‘What if there’s not enough for me?’ ”
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