My partner has a low six figure income and is doing pretty well financially. We have a decent net income for our ages (29F & 34M), have a very reasonable mortgage, net several thousand a year from our rental property, no debt aside from mortgages and he has a great pension program at his union job.
I work in non-profit and have a much smaller income than he does. I'm used to a much more frugal way of life and having to stretch my dollar as far as possible. When I was struggling to make ends meet, I read a lot of personal finance books and started adopting principles like 'pay yourself first', building an emergency fund and taking a few days before making significant purchases.
The way my partner handles his/our money really stresses me out. He doesn't budget at all and just pays bills each time he gets paid. If he has a surplus after bills, he puts that into a saving account but generally looks at that account as his fun money for relatively frivolous purchases. He doesn't really have a savings account beyond that and just contributes what he has left over at the end of the year to retirement.
He doesn't plan ahead for things like property taxes, home improvement projects we know are coming (like a new roof). So when they come up, he either plans to use the line of credit or just spends almost no money for a month to cover the cost.
It drives me CRAZY that at our income, it feels like he lives pay check to pay check without any long term planning. We could easily be saving huge amounts of money and always have a great cushion so we never had to stress about larger than average bills or unexpected repairs.
But he gets upset when I try to talk about setting a figure (like $500) a month that we automatically put into savings. He feels that with our income, he should be able to buy what he wants and not have to worry about making a real budget or any 'restrictions' on his spending.
It doesn't feel like we waste money or buy a lot of stupid things but I use Mint and it's kind of embarrassing and shocking to see how much we spend each month. I feel like our money is just flowing down the drain and isn't being spent very intentionally. I'm also terrified of hitting retirement and not having enough.
How can I help him/us make better plans about money. He thinks 'pay yourself first' overly 'controlling' and needless at our income. But I want to be as financially secure as possible and I know we can do so much better!!!
April 23, 2017 at 03:50PM
