Lately I feel like I’ve been stuck in a season of waiting. My husband and I have been dreaming of putting down roots in the Pacific Northwest since the first time we visited Oregon seven years ago. While we are just months away from making that goal a reality – we hope to buy a house sometime this summer – we are still in transition. In addition to waiting as we search for the right house, I spent the fall waiting to get an appointment with a doctor about a health concern I was dealing with, spent the winter waiting for medical tests, and am now spending the spring waiting to fully recover from surgery.
It’s not uncommon for couples to have an income gap between partners – in fact, it's the norm. According to data from Morning Consult and Insider, nearly three-quarters of Americans reported they had some income imbalance with their partner before they started dating. And while that imbalance can flip-flop as partners change jobs or receive a raise or bonus, at times it can be significant. This might happen when one partner retires, decides to go back to school, or opts to stay at home with the kids. This might also happen when one partner gets a big promotion or receives a large inheritance. How can you manage your finances so this imbalance in income doesn’t throw your relationship off balance? Consider these steps:
I’m a big fan of the Financial Feminist podcast. A few weeks ago the host, Tori Dunlap, shared a money hack that she had heard about from another financial educator on Science Finance: Before making an impulse purchase, ask yourself: “How many ‘taco dollars’ does it cost?” That particular financial educator really loved tacos, so he judged each purchase by asking, “How many tacos could I buy for the cost of that item?” Concert tickets: 20 tacos. Cupcake: 1 taco. Fancy hotel stay: 83 tacos. Then, he would ask himself: “Is it really worth that many tacos?”
My last post on things that can jumpstart your financial life in 5 minutes or less got me thinking about one of the most effective steps I ever took during our marriage: asking my husband an icebreaker question about our life together. That word icebreaker is key: these are questions designed to get conversation going, not shut it down. And that means the question has to be open-ended and asked with a spirit of genuine curiosity of learning what your partner thinks.
Long-time readers of this blog are familiar with the four money personalities I discuss: the giver, the saver, the spender, and the acquirer. Over time, though, I’ve learned that while people tend to understand the first three, they often stumble over the last one. On first blush, people generally thought the “acquirer” referred to someone who liked to accumulate or collect things. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The acquirer was someone focused on how money came into their life, not what was done with the money after it was received.
A few weeks ago I presented an online workshop on love and money. During the Q&A, it was clear that many of the couples attending were struggling to create a spending plan that they could both agree to. Often, one partner felt the other’s spending was getting in the way of meeting their other financial goals, and the other partner felt hemmed in by their partner’s restrictions on spending. It wasn’t working for either partner – or for their joint financial life.
I still can’t believe it’s been a year. In some ways it feels like just yesterday that the lock-downs started, and in other ways it feels like 10 years ago. In the last year, we’ve learned a lot about our personal finances, our economy, our community, our physical health, our mental health, our government system, and the threads of systemic injustice running through it all. Now that things are beginning to look a little brighter again, I hope we can resist the temptation to stuff the unprocessed experiences and learnings from this year away in favor of just “getting back to normal.” Instead, what we’ve learned can help us shape a brighter future for everyone, not just those in positions of privilege.
Have you ever received a tax refund, stimulus check, bonus, or any other financial windfall, and since you weren’t sure what to do with it, you just let it sit in your checking account until it slowly drained away? Guilty! No matter how well you manage your money, letting a financial windfall sit in checking is the best way to see it disappear and you likely won’t have any idea where it went. Eek! I know you have big goals you’re working toward and any financial windfall can bring you one step closer to bringing those goals to life.
A few weeks ago personal finance guru and creator of “Financial Peace University” Dave Ramsey said during an interview with Fox News: “I don’t believe in a stimulus check, because if $600 or $1,400 changes your life, you were pretty much screwed already.” He later went on to say, “You have a career problem, you have a debt problem, you have a relationship problem, you have a mental health problem — something else is going on if $600 changes your life.”
The other day someone asked me, “What should I look for in a new bank or credit union?” It was a question I hadn’t thought about in a long time and I’m guessing you may not have either. Generally folks will choose their bank or credit union and stick with it. As we talked through the features she might look for in her new bank or credit union, I was reminded of all of the great hacks I’ve learned over the years to help me use my checking and savings accounts to their fullest extent.
Couples I meet who keep most of their finances separate are usually reluctant to admit it. It’s as if they feel it’s a relationship red flag that they don’t pool all of their money together. I’m not sure why joined finances is still seen as the only solution for married couples. As I’ve said many times before on this blog, I’ve met happy couples who have completely joined finances, happy couples who have separate finances, and happy couples who do a hybrid of both.
I don’t know about you, but our grocery budget has skyrocketed since quarantine began. There are lots of reasons for this: eating out less, opting for grocery delivery instead of going to the store, rising prices on some items that were scarce (particularly at the beginning of the pandemic), trying more adventurous recipes, and (if I’m being honest) taking a bit of a “treat yo’self” approach. But I’ve committed to getting this area of our budget under control. Besides the basics (shopping in-season produce, making a list, and never shopping hungry), here are a few tricks I’ve put into practice (or hope to soon) to make this happen:
A few weeks ago, I was sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch and watching Netflix on my phone when the screen suddenly turned white. My husband spent hours attempting to revive it, to no avail. It was dead as a doornail. Luckily, we have insurance on our phones, so I was able to put in a claim that night.
Do you ever wish you could hit the “reset” button on your financial life and start over with a clean slate? Wash away any bad decisions or missed opportunities and just start fresh? Today, I want to give you that opportunity. While I don’t have a magic wand to clear out any past debts or obligations, I can give you a strategy to create a new plan for moving forward.
Honest confession: I’m someone who tends to jump to conclusions. An off-handed remark in an email, a cryptic text, an unidentified debit charge on my bank account, I quickly make up a story in my head and it’s often not the right one. Throughout my life, and most particularly in my marriage, this quality has come back to bite me. I’ve blamed my partner for something he didn’t do. I’ve read something into a comment that was never there to begin with. While jumping to conclusions may feel like a smart, protective measure, it doesn’t tend to be all that helpful especially in a relationship.
One of the things I’ve missed most during quarantine is the ability to go out on dates with my spouse. Movies, plays, museums, concerts, art openings, restaurants, bars, sporting events … my husband and I have always prioritized doing things together. Yes, we have found some fun outdoor activities to do this year, but there’s something about being inside a nicely decorated room with outstanding food that I miss dearly. It can be challenging to reinvent date night in quarantine month after month!
A few weeks ago, I was in a financial conversation with a married person who reluctantly admitted that he and his partner have chosen to keep separate bank accounts. It was clear in the way he spoke that he felt he and his wife were doing something wrong -- as if keeping their money separate would ruin their marriage, even though it was a system they had found to work really well for them.
I visited North Minneapolis for the first time during my graduate school orientation. One day of orientation was devoted to visiting different organizations in our community that related to our course of study. My group had the opportunity to visit a church in North Minneapolis and walk the neighborhood with their pastor.
After traveling, baking is easily one of my favorite hobbies. I’ve taken this extra time at home to expand my baking range and learn new skills. I finally learned how to make sourdough starter and now make fresh sourdough loaves each week. I learned how to make croissants (yum!) and my husband’s favorite, soft pretzels. As I’ve ventured deeper into this hobby, I’ve discovered the similarities between baking and finances go beyond just puns about dough.
Over the last few years of writing on my blog, I’ve taken a variety of different approaches to my New Year’s posts. Last year, I guided my readers through a financial audit designed to help you take stock of where you are today and create a goal for the future. The year prior I talked about the importance of setting your intention—rather than a New Year’s Resolution. I commend these posts to you. This year, I’m taking a little different approach.
As this year draws to a close, I realize there are so many things that have happened in my life this year that I’ve avoided sharing on the blog. I kept putting off sharing them for fear of looking tone deaf while so many others are struggling financially, emotionally, and physically. I kept hoping there would be a big moment where everything turns around and we enter into our phase of “new normal” but here we are at the end of December still waiting. And during this season normally filled to the brim with hope, love, joy, and celebration, which this year is paired with so much grief, anxiety, fear, and isolation, I want to celebrate the things, big and small, which have brought me hope this year. I hope that no matter your situation you’ll take the time to do the same.
In mid-November each year Minnesota celebrates Give to the Max Day. For the past 10+ years thousands of Minnesota schools and nonprofits have gathered together to fundraise for their causes on the same day. There’s a real spirit of communal generosity that inspires giving — which I definitely support wholeheartedly.
Personal finance often feels like it’s just you, your partner, and your money journeying up the mountain to reach your financial goals. It’s easy to get laser-focused on your money, your dreams, your goals, your debt reduction. Now, don’t get me wrong, this laser-focus can be a great thing. It can ensure you’re not measuring yourself by any other yardstick but your own. However, it can also leave you blind to the needs of others.
Anyone else remember early March like it was just yesterday? Our lives have been stuck in low gear for months. While my husband and I have certainly tried to make the best of a terrible situation, it’s likely our best memories of 2020 will be those from the first quarter of the year. While I had certainly hoped we would be back to our “regular” lives again by now, instead we’re watching things continue to get worse.
