By Lara McElderry, Guest Writer
Is there a romantic side to budgeting? I believe there is. It’s not that spreadsheets are sexy; it’s that budgeting can help us feel more connected to our partners when we both understand our financial picture. Making a budget and speaking about money may be uncomfortable at times, but it’s one of the best things we can do for our relationships.
At the risk of sounding gender stereotypical, when I married my husband I wanted him to deal with the finances and keep the budget. He was the math and chemistry major and I was working on a Master’s degree in teaching. Clearly, he should do the numbers!
With time, and his demanding specialty choice as a general surgeon coupled with our decision to have a family, the finances fell to me. Though I always kept the lights on, we needed a better plan and we needed some education. Not content to just get by anymore, I’ve made major strides in my financial understanding of what is best for our family, and the starting point was: our budget. Since then I’ve realized that not only does having a budget help keep my family more financially fit, but it helps to strengthen my marriage as well. Here are five reasons why.
5 Reasons Budgeting Helps Strengthen a Marriage
#1 Honesty
Having increased honesty is a benefit of budgeting together. The truth can hurt, but anyone who has been lied to will tell you the larger pain was in the disappointment that their loved one felt they couldn’t be honest. If you have a spending habit your partner is unaware of you should let them know and soon. If your net worth is negative (as it is for most physicians for several years) please say so when getting into a relationship. Don’t deceive, it’s not nice. Coming clean and being 100% honest clears the air and allows for new conversations otherwise unavailable. If you admit deception, you’ve made a hard choice and your partner may be upset. Expect that, and be okay with it. Admit you were wrong and own it. Give them room for some anger or confusion. It will pass and there really is no better time to come clean then now. Having financial secrets does not a happy relationship make.
#2 Sharing Your Goals
Openly communicating about your goals can help you to decide where money fits into the picture. Too often, money becomes the picture and the rest of our life is but an appendage. Don’t let this happen. Put your goals first: family, travel, opening a private practice, taking in an aging parent, mission work, triathlon, or retiring early. Be genuine and be you. Remember money is a tool and neither good or evil. It won’t make you happy or sad. It’s your actions with that money that determine your happiness. When money is used toward goals aligned with your personal values, happiness increases.
#3 Admitting a Weakness
What if one partner doesn’t like keeping a budget? What if (gasp!) we aren’t self-disciplined? People struggle with going to the gym, drinking less, eating right, etc. We are humans. Now, some people love going to the gym, some never drink, and some have eaten a healthy diet for years. Likewise, some people love spreadsheets and seeing numbers. Many of us don’t. We will never geek out and read all of the financial books recommended to us. Remember that when talking to a partner who isn’t a budgeter, it’s like exercise, we know we should, the intention is there, but the follow-through is so hard. Taking time to openly discuss the importance of budgeting and finding accountability methods will help. Expect setbacks, but still budget. Together. Even with a reluctant spouse. Together, together, together.
#4 Connection
When the budget is made by and understood by both partners you will feel more connected to each other. There’s a lot of information out there on money and happiness in marriage. Guess what? When partners don’t have financial stress taking up brain space they can make room for intimate thoughts. This improves a marriage and makes greater satisfaction in the bedroom. Yes, I just told you to get your budget in order for the sake of your sex life. You’re welcome.
#5 Take Action
Finally, when you are truly honest, you’ve shared goals where money is the tool, not the object, you admit weaknesses and keep trying, and you’re connecting more with your partner you will be able to take action. Decisions that were overwhelming before start to iron themselves out in the space you’ve now created with your partner. Big decisions like selling your home, starting your own practice, having children, or retiring are all more easily addressed when partners come together and work within a budget and a financial plan.
Relationships are tough and take effort. They also bring us great joy. I’m not suggesting my relationship was awful before we budgeted, nor am I suggesting that we now have a perfect marriage. But I am offering my experience, that when we took time to make a budget, our relationship improved. We all know that our portfolios are not a direct correlation to our overall happiness. Sometimes it is good old fashioned, sitting around the table with pencil and paper and a pile of receipts and sharing our weaknesses and heartfelt goals that get us the best results. In all of our studying and learning, let us not forget the ones we love the most. Be honest with your partner, share your goals, admit weaknesses, connect more, and take action. Doing so improved my marriage, and I believe the benefits of budgeting will make successful homes happier.
What ideas do you have about how to successfully work with your spouse on a budget? Did you find your relationship improving after implementing a budget and financial plan? Comment below!
[Editor's Note: Lara McElderry is the host of the Married To Doctors Podcast. The podcast (and blog) aims to “make successful homes happier” through sharing stories and hearing from experts in marriage relationships. Lara has supported her husband through medical school, residency, a specialty change, fellowship, and raising five sons! This article was submitted and approved according to our Guest Post Policy. We have no financial relationship.]
I’ve heard before that Budgets are Sexy — the site by that name’s been going for ten years strong! http://www.budgetsaresexy.com/10-years-of-blogging/
We’ve never had a budget exactly, but my wife and I agree on all major spending decisions and we have similar mindsets when it comes to money.
One thing we’ve agreed upon in general is to stop buying each other gifts. We might pick up a small token (candy or similar small treat) but we don’t spend big bucks on each other for birthdays and holidays. We generally get what we want when we want it, and coming up with ideas for gifts was a struggle, anyway.
Frankly, eliminating that pressure to get the gift right and not outdo or woefully underperform when it comes to the gift exchange has made life a bit easier.
We’re celebrating Valentine’s Day on Hawaii’s big island, but that’s just a happy coincidence.
Cheers!
-PoF
All these Hawaii timed posts have you beating me by several hours now! Nice to see posts before mine in the morning when I do my daily “favorite blogs” visits 🙂
He’s going to be like Joseph in Alaska who used to read my posts the night before (I typically publish at 12:30 am MT).
My wife and I take a bit of a hybrid on this topic (and on many others). Being the more concrete person of the two, my wife takes care of the bills. I handle the big picture stuff (our investment strategy, when we started doing a backdoor Roth, how quickly to pay down debt).
However, we both do the budget. I completely agree that it is important to sit down, look at the numbers, and intentionally decide where your money is going to go. For, typically, if you want me to tell you what someone cares about, I’ll simply ask you where their money is going. Budgeting helps my wife and I have similar goals and also helps make sure we are aligned in what we are spending out money on.
The conversations are definitely not always a fun one, but they have never not ended up being beneficial.
Thanks for the post. Solid advice.
I’m glad you enjoyed the article! I really appreciated this line from your comment:
Budgeting helps my wife and I have similar goals and also helps make sure we are aligned in what we are spending our money on.
Thank you!
That’s only 5 reasons.
Thank you, this was corrected early this morning.
Were you hoping for more or less?
My wife and I have always been exceptionally frugal (see also: cheap, broke), though, since we started residency we’ve been slightly more careless with our money, dipping into our savings for a couple hundred bucks every month to account for our increased spending. This is obviously a problem. In med school our budget was basically just “don’t spend any money, ever, on anything non-essential.”
So now that we have some income and the ability to buy a few of our “wants” and not just our “needs,” we just needed a budget to put some reigns on the spending. We just signed up for YNAB last month (my wife’s idea) and it’s already made a huge difference. I feel like we are not having disagreements on random expenditures because there aren’t many of those, since we’re following our budget.
We sit and update/discuss YNAB each night, or every other night, which often leads to other enjoyable conversations instead of just watching Netflix.
Took a bit to figure out how to use it, but I’m a big fan. It’s a heck of a lot easier than building spreadsheets. I’m certain that the motivated individual could make spreadsheets that perform all the functions of YNAB, but I am not that motivated individual.
I have heard great things about YNAB! I should probably look into it more. I think it’s amazing that you two actually are using it and updating it as often as every other night! The best part of your comment for me was you mentioning more time for Netflix! Exactly to my point-we can connect more when we are on the same page financially. Great job! I hope you’ll check out the podcast too.
Sorry if it wasn’t clear. I was saying that discussing our budget, if only for a few minutes, opens up other conversations so we spend MORE time having conversations and LESS time mindlessly watching Netflix.
This was our experience with YNAB as well. It’s simple but great software and they have very good educational materials on their website. We started using it about 4 years ago, and still do a monthly budget with it. It generally gets fully updated/reconciled once a month as we’re still using the old software, but we’ll probably upgrade to the web version soon to make the reconciliation more automated. I appreciate their philosophy recognizes the reality that priorities sometimes change mid-month, and the software makes it easy to move money from one category to another to account for that.
I’m not sure my wife and I could stick to any budgeting process that required us to talk about it every night or two.
Haha. But once they get the hang of it they won’t have to check in nearly as often. I found that we don’t even really have to”budget” anymore because I just intuitively know how much we can spend comfortably each month.
Yeah, it’s mostly just the novelty of it right now. Getting comfortable with all the little features of the program. Discussing how to allocate our savings (this much for emergency, this much for vacation, this much for a car maintenance fund, etc.). We didn’t sit down and discuss all that the first day, so we’ve been doing it now. I think that once we get the hang of it, it’ll be easy to keep track of it with less frequent check-ins and less mental energy. Also, to be fair, these discussions are almost always less than 5 minutes, and usually less than 2. It’s usually just us figuring out how to do something different or tweaking things in the budget because of unexpected expenses (like doctor co-pays and kids dental bills)
This was an amazing post. I really enjoyed point number 3 comparing budgeting to exercise!! It explains the lack of enthusiasm my spouse has when I “surprise” her with a financial discussion. Every person has different strengths. We will keep working at it!
Glad to hear that you enjoyed this section of the article. Budgeting is beneficial, but like exercise not all of us love it (even though it is good for us!) Thanks for commenting!
Really love this post. It reminds me of the first couple years of my married life. FYI, my wife and I were both accountants but she’s a CPA and a banker. The first year of our marriage, I told my wife that I will be the one handling all our finances. I felt at that time that I somehow know more about financials than her (ego maybe). I was doing okay, although I noticed that she’s really good with numbers, yes better than me. I am more of a strategist. I asked her if she wants to take over and she did. Best decision that we’ve made. She’s very strict, detailed and disciplined. I had to come out of my own money if I want to buy that new golf clubs.
I love the back and forth you went through at the beginning of your marriage. This is so important for every couple-and I definitely am a believer that it should be done together. As I say in the article: together, together, together. Glad you enjoyed it, and hope you will check out my new podcast, Married To Doctors.
I couldn’t agree with this post more! Except for maybe the opening sentence about “It’s not that spreadsheets are sexy” I have built some *very* sexy spreadsheets. 😀
As an extremely frugal person married to more of a spender having a budget has been so helpful! Obviously it helps reign in the spender but it has helped me loosen up a little, and in turn love my husband better. I’d naturally save all our money and never splurge on meals out for the sake of a higher bank balance. I realize though, that my husband really enjoys eating out and drinking craft beers. When I build that into our budget he feels happier and like I’m loving him well. Adding those things to our budget allows me to let go a little because I know we can afford them since I can see that we’re still making progress toward our goals.
Congrats on the sexy spreadsheets, LOL. I’m super happy to hear that you have budgeted for things that are important to your husband and make his life a little happier. Strong marriages take a little work, and budgeting can be work, but so worth it! Glad you enjoyed the post, and I hope you will check out the podcast too. http://www.marriedtodoctors.com
When I think about it, my husband and I talk about money all of the time – as a natural conversation topic. We don’t budget – but also don’t have to since we live far below our means (house purchase price was at about 1.5 x gross income; husband still drives his med school car despite being 10 years out of residency, etc.) It also helps a ton that we’re both interested in personal finance and read WCI and Bogleheads. So, there’s always a post to talk about – like this one!
I’m always mildly shocked when I hear married close friends and family talk about their finances – although it’s probably the norm. One person knows everything/does everything, and the other person is either entirely in the dark and/or doesn’t care.
Although it wasn’t pleasant to talk about at the time, I think what set DH and I on the right financial mindset was getting a prenup before we got married. It’s wasn’t the prenup itself – it was having to talk at length about our debts/assets and, more importantly, how we felt about money. At that time, I had been a pharmacist for a while so had no student loans and had a 6-figure retirement portfolio; he wasn’t far out of residency so was with 6-figures of debt, but the potential for lots of future income (and had heard horror stories of colleagues who were wiped out by nasty divorces). Getting to the point where we understood each other’s emotions around money greatly advanced the financial partnership of our marriage – the “business” of marriage, if you will.
Really great article.
When we were a young married couple, 20+ years ago, we had annual “financial summits”, where we would discuss where we were, what are near term financial goals were (ie. Saving for a car or a sofa), and how we expected to meet them.
With time, and increasing income, affluence and complexity, we stopped having these conversations. We were high earners and high savers and rarely had a financial need that lacked an easy solution.
As we both look to wind down our careers, it is probably time to reconvene this way as when we turn down/off the spigot of our professional incomes, there will need to be some changes in spending patterns and a greater level of planning.
I really loved this guest post! It gets at the emotional side of finances, which is so important but often neglected. It’s not just about numbers. I love the line about money being a tool and it’s what we do with it that matters- in and of itself it doesn’t make you happy or sad.
I am so glad you enjoyed the post, I had fun writing it and wondering how people would respond-LOL I certainly do believe that budgeting improves relationships, and I’m glad you enjoyed this perspective. I have a podcast as well I hope you will give a chance! Thank you.
I wouldn’t call it sexy or romantic, but it sure has been great for our marriage! My wife and I have been budgeting together since 2003 and it’s (almost literally) been a marriage-saver for us. I can’t imagine NOT budgeting together at this point.