Do you get an allowance??

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darma2002
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Do you get an allowance??
16
 Thu, 05-22-2003 - 12:43pm
When sharing expenses do you give yourself and/ or spouse an allowance or a specific amount of spending money each week??

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sharonb2002
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: darma2002
Do you get an allowance??
 Thu, 05-22-2003 - 12:57pm
In a word, yes. I used to use the envelope method in which dh and I would have an envelope with money we could spend guilt free. (His was bigger than mine ) Once we got into better spending habits, I don't use the envelopes anymore. But in the back of my mind I know what amount I can spend without going over budget. Most of the time I don't spend that much, and what's left ends up going towards debt.

Sharon

 

darma2002
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
In reply to: darma2002
Do you get an allowance??
 Thu, 05-22-2003 - 1:01pm
Why does he get more?? I manage the checkbook to and usually just wait for SO to ask for money but have been thinking maybe we should just designate an amount.
jbtex
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
In reply to: darma2002
Do you get an allowance??
 Thu, 05-22-2003 - 1:02pm
Giving ourselves an allowance was one of the things that really helped our money management. I'm not a spender but my husband is. I always thought I could control his spending if he didn't have any cash. That didn't work because he used the debit card or checks. Now we each get an allowance. Our allowance covers gas for our vehicles, lunches out, and just pocket money. Now DH only spends his allowance money. I usually have money left and then redeposit it for another snowflake. I tried to switch DH to a twice monthly allowance, therefore he got more at one time. He started running out of money and told me he was doing better getting his allowance weekly, so I switched him back to getting his allowance every Friday.

jb

sharonb2002
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: darma2002
Do you get an allowance??
 Thu, 05-22-2003 - 1:16pm
LOL! He gets more because he spends more in general. I'm trying to put him on a budget without him getting all defensive about it. It keeps him happy and if I don't have to hear him moan about not having enough money and I can afford it... so be it. Most of the time he uses his "spending" money on stuff for the house or cars anyway. Stuff I have a separate budget for, but I'm lucky he pays any attention at all to to the budget let alone know everything about it. I just sock that money away somewhere else then.

Sharon

 

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zaboz
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: darma2002
Do you get an allowance??
 Thu, 05-22-2003 - 2:22pm
I was thinking about this the other day. I'm thinking about setting up an account

for each of us. Maybe start it out with $500 or whatever amount we can save up.

Then every month we'll each get another $50 or $100. That way we'll both have a

nice little fund. If we want to build it up for something big we can.

Or if we need little things, we can buy those too.

It seems like the better we get with our money, the more carefully we spend it.

This way we'll each have a little money to spend without guilt or explanation.

This came up because this year I'm going on vacation and he's buying an old motorcycle.

I want to be sure that we each get a "fair" share of fun money.

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mymartes
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: darma2002
Do you get an allowance??
 Thu, 05-22-2003 - 2:32pm
My h takes $70 a month for tokens (takes subway to work). I cook everyday, therefore, he brown bags it each day. I give him $60 biweekly. I expect $60 to last him longer than two weeks. Sometimes he spends some of it on fruits for the kids or anything needed. When that happens I give him an extra $20. As for myself, I'm a SAHM. I don't need much. I give myself $60 as well. It could last me a few weeks. Unless, I have to take one of the kids to the doctor.

jbtex
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
In reply to: darma2002
Do you get an allowance??
 Thu, 05-22-2003 - 2:42pm
Our allowance is a small amount that we use for gas and daily expenses so our budget doesn't get nickle and dimed to death. We decide together on major expenses. DH still comes out ahead because he has more hobbies than I do, think GOLF!!

jb

birdiecheeks
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-08-2003
In reply to: darma2002
Do you get an allowance??
 Thu, 05-22-2003 - 2:51pm
We each get a very small allowance just for ourselves to waste. Hygiene stuff, bus fare, haircuts etc comes out of the budget. We also have a "family allowance" that is for taking us all out for supper, the fair, whatever might be fun that week... We also have a recreational fund that gets added to each month for vacations and fun summer stuff, or dance classes, gymnastics classes in fall/winter.

Our cash on payday gets fully distributed that day, so all our funds are funded (in other bank accounts), allowances doled out, groceries gotten and bills paid for the next two week period. That way there's no debit card usage nipping away at any cash balances. (Basically we had to stop debiting the same way we stopped c.c.'ing, and become a cash allowance family)

jbtex
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
In reply to: darma2002
Do you get an allowance??
 Thu, 05-22-2003 - 3:06pm
Debiting is the reason we went to a cash allowance. DH never had any cash so he would stop at the ATM, well the minimum withdrawal is $20.00, so that $20 was gone as soon as it hit his hand. Now with the cash allowance he knows no ATM withdrawals and the money in his pocket is what he can spend for the week. Now that it's a set amount it's so easy to budget and I don't have to be the bad guy that says we don't have the money.

We also distribute our pay on payday. We have the bills, allowance, misc, food, and savings. Each item is funded until next payday.

jb

birdiecheeks
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-08-2003
In reply to: darma2002
Do you get an allowance??
 Thu, 05-22-2003 - 3:29pm
I think debit cards can be just as dangerous as credit cards in the wrong hands... I sooo regret the day I got my hubbie into debit cards. He was a cash only man until he met me, and I was a debit card girl. I used quicken and did automatic downloads from my bank, so asked him to debit for ease of record keeping when we joined bank accounts.

Well... the bank machine soon became a neverending source of cash it seems. Didn't matter what he wanted or needed, the debit card would buy it and since we had overdraft the money was always magically there! LOL, he must have been in heaven! It didn't get bad until we started having kids, and I didn't keep up with the bank account - the start of the downward spiral.... groan, I shudder just thinking about it all.

Cash allowances are the way to go if you ask me. Or if you're going to keep it all in the bank I like the concept of the budgetmap (budgetmap.com) that people are talking about on here. I might make my own version of that to show hubby how are freedom accounts are working (they're in quicken right now and he's not a quicken kind of guy).

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