Need Advice ladies

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-10-2003
Need Advice ladies
8
Wed, 02-25-2009 - 10:25am

Well, I need some wisdom from those of you who have been in relationships where you do NOT handle money in the same way.


Background: BF is moving in in May. I own the home. My sister is still going to live with us and pay rent. BF is also going to pay rent. It will help me pay the mortgage and save him a little bit of money as it is less then what he pays now. Once my sis moves out, we are going to be splitting the expenses down the middle. I have already told him I will be taking care of them via a joint checking account and he will give me ~ 50% of his paycheck (and I will give 50% of mine) and the rest will be his to do what he wants with it. He likes this idea.


He and I have discussed the possibility of moving if he gets a job out of town. He could potentially be posted an hour away, and we have agreed that should this happen, we may want to consider moving to a halfway point. I have also wanted a cottage my whole life, and this is something I would like to plan to one day have.


So here is my problem. BF is an immediate gratification kind of guy. He is a spender and he has expensive taste. We have gone back and forth on the moving/ cottage issue but haven't seriously thought about it because until we know where each of us is working, its silly.


So here is what concerns me. I asked him yesterday which he would prefer (moving out of the city or cottage) and his response was "whatever I can have fastest". Not good. I also mentioned that if we got


Bex -

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-02-2008
Wed, 02-25-2009 - 10:31am

You are being very smart in thinking of all this and I am proud of you!


I can tell you that my DH is an instant gratification kinda guy too. His "theory" is that he wants to enjoy things and have them NOW when he's young then save up and have them when he's retired. Ooooook.


Due to his being that way he would get paid, depleat our checking with things he "wanted" and then I would use the c/c's to pay for household items - groceries, gas, etc. I should have spoken up sooner but instead I hid our debt and managed to get us into a bad situation. I am not proud of that but I am not 100% to blame either. Right now we are paying off $25,000 in c/c debt due to our mistakes.


Long story - sorry. Your bf is showing great progress by paying off debt. But he also needs to know that its great to learn to save - makes you savor getting what you want so much more. I would just continue to push your saving beliefs on him. It will stick!!!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2006
Wed, 02-25-2009 - 10:44am

Oh, so hard - so hard! I think you go through growing pains in a marriage and you are constantly learning how to handle money together. I have had many ups and downs in my marriage all dealing with how my husband handles money. He is also an immediate gratification type of person, only he doesn't have expensive taste. He will nickel and dime us to death! I tried many ways to try and teach him about money. At first we had separate accounts and I gave him a few bills to pay. That was a disaster. Then I didn't give him any money at all and he would still find ways to get money and spend it unwisely. What I've finally realized is that I can't change him and I think that is the number one lesson that you learn in marriage. He has to deal with his own demons himself. The only person that can change him is him.

I had a hard time deciding whether I wanted to get married or not. There were so many things about him that were different from me. His upbringing, his ideas on life, his ability to handle money, even our personalities are opposites. What I finally ended up realizing is that I have to accept him exactly the way he is because if I marry him on the idea that I can change him or he will change himself, then I am marrying a false hope. He may change, but he may not...so I had to decided whether I loved him exactly the way he is. I did! We get along famously. We have fun together and never fight. We just kind of go together and all the things that bothered me about him...mostly money...I could work around. But I have it good because he could care less what I do with the money. I ended up fixing my problem by just saying "Give me all the money and I will take care of it". He hates dealing with bills, he could care less about what I do with it. If you have a guy that really needs control over the money, that's a little harder to deal with.

So we have one account now, all our money goes in that account. The only thing he spends our money on is eating out at work and we are working on a solution to that. If we are low on funds, I tell him not to spend and he doesn't. I always keep him informed about what's going on, but this is just for my benefit alone because he probably doesn't hear a word I'm saying!

It's been kind of easy though to get him to stop spending because of all the trouble we've gone through with debt. He really understands the pain and suffering that overspending will put you through now. We are both on the same page about money now, but if we hadn't gone through this, then I don't know if he would have ever understood the error of his ways.

All I can tell you is to have a candid conversation about how you each handle money. If you find it strange that he talks about it taking too long to save for a down payment, then talk to him about it.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-22-2008
Wed, 02-25-2009 - 10:52am

Bex, I have to laugh at your weight loss ticker, you seem to have decided to lose more weight and moved the target!

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-10-2003
Wed, 02-25-2009 - 11:36am

Lol, yup, you caught me! I decided that if I'm going to suffer, I should do it in one shot and try and get back to a weight a little closer to what I was when I left highschool, lol. I don't know if will actually make it (my body seems to have a set weight and likes to stay around it) but I am giving it a try. My goal is one lb a week which is doable. Fridays are my "weight-ins" (since I give up the diet on the weekends, lol).



Bex -

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-22-2008
Wed, 02-25-2009 - 11:47am

I applaud you for thinking about this before it's a problem in your relationship/marriage! good job!


I agree that you cannot change people. You just can't......having said that... I was the spender in my relationship with my BF, he was the saver. I had a ton of CC debt, and he had savings. Long story short, I saw the light all on my own and saw the error of my ways. He kinda sat back, offered his advice based on his experience, but never told me what to do. Looking back, I am amazed that it worked out, but he gave me the opportunity to fix it all on my own.


anyways....you know your BF. What kind of listener is he? If you showed him that if you buy a house with no downpayment

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2008
Wed, 02-25-2009 - 11:58am

My Dh is the same way when it comes to instant gratification.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-10-2003
Wed, 02-25-2009 - 11:59am

Thank you for your responses. This had been bugging me all night. I think the smartest move is to get it into his head that these are big decisions and cannot be made lightly. I have looked into property management companies. For $150 a month, they take care of everything. So I could rent out the house and cover all my costs (I would have to put in maybe $100 a month for a "sink" fund to cover eventual repairs, etc). Then, BF and I could save together, move together, put a downpayment together etc. Maybe then he'll see its not all fund and games. Besides, I wasn't loving the idea of using my house (with its $70,000 +) equity to bankroll a new house without him contributing an equal amount, KWIM.


Its just nice to know that I am not the only one with these issues and that others have lived with them successfully!


Thanks ladies!


Bex -


"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift -thats why its called the present."


Bex -

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-04-2008
Wed, 02-25-2009 - 12:06pm

LOL on the weight loss, yes go for it now while you are running!


I think everyone has different money styles, and a long as you don't assume a "mother" role in the relationship and talk things out together, you will be fine.