Several times traveling I’ve told my husband “I think we’re on the group W bench.” Always fun to see how many people get that reference.
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I just can’t be concerned for two young people making that much money being concerned about dining out and travel. Seems a bit out of touch.
You live once. Way too many people fret about things they shouldn’t.
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We were fortunate to both have decent salaries and a desire to live well within our means. Most years we max’d out on our 401K deductions (a good move, since pension plans changed for the worse over time). I tend to be more frugal, but as long as we could pay our credit card every month and have savings left over I rarely vetoed his suggestions. But I’m sure he reigned back a bit on his suggestions knowing that I can get stressed over too much splurging.
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I think it’s important that married couples have an understanding as to how money is to be spent, saved and even earned.
My husband loves to spend money. He thinks nothing of dropping $$$. I am a saver. I always buy things on sale and my kids laugh at my bargains. We’ve never had a problem. But we have had heated arguments about directions and choices. Just had one the other day about an upcoming vacation.
When we married we decided that anything over $500 would be checked with the other person ( gifts aside). We talk about long term things and we’ve collaborated on stock options and sales of companies (mine and his). But his nature is to buy fancy things and keep them for a long time. Mine is to buy inexpensive items. When I worked full time I always had 6 mom. salary in the bank.
I found out that my sister who has been married more than 30 years splits the bills with her husband. Everything. They also don’t have a combined checking account. I was shocked and confused as to how they pay bills. But it’s not my business.
I feel as though people need to live their lives as they wish. Going out to eat isn’t a bad thing. Nor is saving money. It’s when you get extremes that things don’t work out.
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Saving can be related to fear (i.e., money will protect us.). Spending can be rooted in unrealistic notions (no illness, frailty in old age.) You do have to explore where this comes from!
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I have friends who have his, hers and theirs accounts. Some expenses are paid out of each. It’s more complicated than I’d prefer but has worked for them for over 30 years so I’m glad. One of the issues is he gives $$$ to his family and he can do so out of HIS funds.
I’ve never understood the split bill philosophy. That to me doesn’t seem like a marriage at all.
My own parents always had “yours, mine and ours” accounts which seemed to work fine. “Ours” took care of everything in the house and the kids (not split equally in any way) and the “yours and mine” accounts let you do your own thing with no complaints. Probably stemmed from my mom’s sage advice to “just make sure you always have bus money home”. Married 70 years so I guessed it worked!
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We had a friend with wife who was a teacher earning much less than he did, no kids. The method which worked for them was to split the joint expenses proportionally to their income ratio.
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I think the idea is that each gives the other permission to spend (or invest or donate) up to $X, no questions asked, instead of asking permission for each individual item of spending (or investing or donating).
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We also have separate and joint accounts. Most of the $ is in the joint account and is used for all of our joint expenses – house, kids, etc. The separate accounts are used mostly for ATM cash.
What I’d like to know from the OP, it sounds like there is a conflict. Is the person who wants to save creating conflict for the one who wants to spend.
Imo the spender isn’t out of line. Traveling and going on trips is entirely doable for people making a good living and paying their expenses.
I guess the issue for me (with a couple on equal footing income wise) is the saver holding back on the spender doing their thing. Or wants the spender to pay for them so they can keep saving.
I think a saver and a spender can coexist but in an equal and compromising way. When one is pressuring the other to be like them, then that’s the issue.
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More to add.
My husband is not that fond of eating out. He has simple eating tastes and the idea of gourmet restaurants are not his thing.
He’s not much of a traveler either. He likes his own “stuff” and his own bed. He will travel but don’t make him go out of town all the time.
If my husband was with someone who’s idea of fun was expensive restaurants and monthly trips, it would be his idea of 
. My sister in law is like this and my husband was very uncomfortable with what she liked to do when we got together.
So to someone like my sil, my husband might come across as a saver, but in reality it’s about what his interests are. FYI, they aren’t about spending money.
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Oh wow. I guess I thought pretty much all married couples did the yours/mine/ours accounts. H & I have done it that way since we got married in the 70s(!). But then I guess I don’t compare notes much about that kind of thing.
Lol, we have the same H!!!
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We have mostly joint accounts. I’ve never considered funds (other than separately labeled retirement funds) exclusively or another of us pretty much everything we have is ours. We even invest our retirement funds as ours and diversify overall among all our assets rather within each account.
For example, H’s 403K account us very conservatively invested in fed govt bonds and our other retirement funds are in mutual funds and a few in individual stocks. We always talk to one another about gifts and purchases of $1000 or more.
We each have about $100-200 in “petty cash”for expenses,plus charge cards —it’s worked well for us for 36 years.
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My husband and I have mostly had joint accounts (except 401k and more recently inherited money, which specifies beneficiaries of respective families). Back in NY, our main credit union checking/savings was in his name (using his employee serial number) with me as joint user. That was actually a bit of a pain, since I handled all of the bill paying and credit union visits. So when we transferred to CO I suggested that I be the primary owner of our accounts at the new credit union. At first he seemed offended, til I explained the alternative was that HE could set up all the new utility accounts and pay our bills going forward. (These days it would make little difference, since so much is done remotely.)
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We just do yours and mine. Not quite sure how we started divvying up who pays what, and I’m pretty sure it’s not even, but it seems to work without ours!
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DH and I are 100% joint accounts. I have always made far less money than he does, but it all goes into the same pot.
We usually discuss big purchases beforehand.
There was once a member on CC (I don’t remember the name) who said that she required her DH to give her receipts of every single purchase he made, even if it was for a pack of gum. She said she knew their spending down to the penny, LITERALLY. If my husband “required” me to do that, I don’t think we would have stayed married.
DH is more of the spender than I am, but he doesn’t go crazy and we have zero debt-no mortgage or car payments. No complaints here.
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@Nrdsb4 - I think we may be the same person! My H and I have also always had joint accounts beginning 34 years ago when we bought out house (two years before getting married). H makes quite a bit more money than me, but all of the money goes to the same place. We also have no mortgage or credit card debt and H’s truck is paid off next year. My 401K from the company that I worked at for 29 years is actually just as large as H’s 401K even though I only worked part time for 15 years. I was very fortunate to work for an employee owned company and maxed out my 401K and the company stock did incredibly well.
We spend on travel and eating out, but we are both on the same page about these expenses.
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We have also always had joint accounts for our 40 years of marriage but each have a little “fun money” pot- bday/Christmas $ gifts, Marketplace sells, etc. I do have a credit union account where I have put some estate $ for the time being - but H is secondary on the account.
Never have second guessed this. Never, ever came to mind that it would be any different regardless of who made more $. Thankful that for those 40 years we have both been employed with no periods of job loss/absence. Income is one stabilizing point in a marriage/family but there are many more including management of children and their activities, household shopping, home repair/maintenance etc. Overall, “ours is ours”.
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