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Couples and Money Arguments

Confronting money issues for couples is pretty common relationship territory. If you and your partner are like most couples, chances are, you argue about money sometimes. Numerous studies have shown that money fights predict divorce rates. Based on a 2004 study by SmartMoney Magazine, here is what sparks the six most common types of arguments:

Look Into Your 2012 Crystal Ball

A couple of Saturdays ago, I finally sat down with my magic crystal ball. I was ready to create my personal 2012 spending and income plan. I was a bit nervous this year about what I would see in the ball. I really need to convert my house to gas, or at least replace my dinosaur of a furnace. Yikes. And I’ve been asked to join some friends on a big out of country trip. I would like to go! And since I already did my business annual plan, so I know what income I have this year.

So I sat down with a cup of Starbucks coffee, called up The Crystal Ball and set to work.

(Lights darken, crystal ball begins to glow, getting brighter and brighter, mists swirl in its depth and begin to part, and I lean forward, peering into the future….)

Two hours later, I had all my answers. Well, I had a lot of answers and I wanted time to think. To feel. To journal.  To digest the future I had just seen. This future seemed to have several scenarios and I was going to have to make some choices. I am reminded of that saying, “You can have anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want.” Rats.

Make a budget that lasts

If you are going to make a budget that lasts, you can’t just jump to categorizing and slashing expenses—that’s a lot like jumping into a diet and following a certain regime without really understanding the “why” behind your eating—it’s not a sustainable solution. Just like with eating, you have to understand the “why” behind your spending.

This doesn’t have to be a laborious process; just becoming more aware should give you a lot of data in a few weeks. To begin, you should start using Mint (the best comprehensive tracking software I have used). Mint gives you a great overview and long-term tool. Along with Mint, I recommend taking a week or two to keep a journal with your daily spending, so you understand on-the-spot how you’re feeling before and after each purchase.

I have identified four types of spending that cover virtually every single dollar that leaves your bank account:

8 Step Plan to avoiding the post-holiday spending hangover

Here’s a question– Did you wake up last January with a spending hangover? You know what I mean- come January, when all the gifts are opened and the parties are over, the Visa, MasterCard, Macy’s and Nordstrom’s bills begin to arrive.

Credit card use is up 7% this holiday season. And sadly, it takes the average American who uses credit cards to finance Christmas six to seven months to pay off the holidays. Who wants to be basking in the summer sunshine while still paying for the gifts you gave your kids, family and friends?

Applying Spousonomics To Money Problems

Always telling the truth about money is something to aspire to, but it may be unrealistic marriage advice. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned in a blog post that it is absolutely essential that couples are 100% transparent about their money, or else the relationship probably won’t survive. How silly I am.

Spousonomics shows that this just isn’t true! The book, by Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson, offers a hilarious and valid twist to standard marriage advice by showing how economics—yes, economics—is the key to a happy marriage. What it also showed me is that married people aren’t 100% honest with each other, especially not about money.

In what the call their Exhaustive, Groundbreaking and Very Expensive Marriage Survey, Szuchman and Anderson discovered that based on economics, there are actually incentives for spouses to lie to one other. One such principle is Asymmetrical Information. This means that if you’re totally honest about a topic you might be penalized, so consequently, you withhold information when communicating. For example, you might fudge on the amount of time it takes you to complete a task you were asked to perform by your spouse because you want to build in enough time to goof off before you actually do it. So you lie about it instead of being nagged by your spouse or assigned additional tasks. By withholding information, you get what you want from the spousal transaction.

Making Time for What You Want in the New Year

Most people in today’s working world are feeling the pressures of having too much to do and too little time to do it. The stress of trying to do more with less is beginning to take its toll on my productivity and of most of the people I know.  The illnesses, mistakes and even accidents resulting from lack of sleep and extreme stress cost us more than what we are attempting to gain by doing too much. The realization that both time and energy are finite has prompted me to take a deeper look. This year, the buck stops here.

Is Occupy Wall Street The Answer To Your Money Problems?

Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is a resistance movement of people who want Wall Street, the government and corporations to realize that individuals have the power to create change from the bottom-up. Yet the language of OWS concerns me, because it’s the language of war, instead of the language of collaboration and integration.

OWS doesn’t have an official website, just an unofficial de facto online resource (as it calls itself). It describes itself as leaderless resistance movement. Occupy Wall Street states it is composed of the We Are The 99%, and that they will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. On its website, it states they are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactics and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants (Hmmm . . . ).

It’s exciting to see Occupy Wall Street all over the country deliver a message that transcends government and party politics. I am interested to see how OWS takes part in the conversation of change. Yet I can’t help but wonder if the language that is being used in OWS isn’t what got us into this mess in the first place.

There is no place to go and see the accomplishments of OWS to date, which makes it similar to our experience with war in Iraq; is anything really getting done, or are we being swept away by propaganda? There is a lot of talk, but what kind of results or payoff can we identify? Is our most effective target for occupation really Wall Street, or is something else?

The Power of Tracking Your Numbers: Step #3

This is the 3rd in a series on creating a financially healthy life. If you jumped in and did the first two steps, Just Do It and Reality, Get a Dose, this one might be the one you might need extra support in accomplishing. Lots of us like to do projects. We like to plan. The first two steps were projects.

This 3rd step requires consistency. Yes, consistency. This is where many of us jump off the financial band wagon.

I liken it to the health band wagon. Most people can stick to a diet for awhile. It might be challenging, you may not like it, but if we knew that we only had to change our eating habits for 3 months to impact our physical health for the rest of our lives, would we do it? Most of us would.

The Anti-Gift Holiday

Switching focus from gift giving to others to giving to yourself, is the best way to feel some relaxation and peace during the holiday season. You may think others might feel neglected, when in fact, they will feel more peace and happiness as well.

For the past several years, my family and I have not engaged in the wrapped-and-bowed gift giving tradition. of the year-end holiday season. We started this because none of us could think of a gift we truly wanted; then we’d each be scrambling to think of something, anything, since not giving a box with a bow was unacceptable. We all got tired of this dynamic, and since my sister and I no longer lived with my parents, it became harder and harder to tease out other each other the things we wanted as the holiday season drew near. One year, we said, forget it, let's enjoy the other elements of the holiday season--this way, the pressure is off, and we can relax and enjoy the season without killing ourselves with gift giving.

Shame and Money Secrets

Money secrets are some of the most shame-filled secrets we keep. We’ve all heard that “the truth will set you free,” however, I believe that there are two kinds of money secrets we keep: the ones we keep because it’s inconvenient to tell the truth and the ones we keep because we don’t want to hurt ourselves.

Sometimes we keep a money secret because we don’t want to deal with the questions and issues that will be raised if we reveal our secret. Or we think it’s none of their business what goes on in our personal financial situation. I happen to think it’s completely okay to keep quiet about some things. For example, my parents know quite a bit about my financial situation, but they don’t know everything. I imagine they think they know more than they actually do, and I am okay with that. They know that some times have been rough, but maybe not how rough . . . and they know when times have been good, but maybe not every single stupid money decision I have ever made.

Notice too I am making a distinction between active lying andnon-disclosure; I don’t believe I actively lie about anything, but I certainly don’t feel like everyone needs the complete “E True Hollywood Story” train wreck version whenever something difficult occurs.

With your loved ones and life partners: I think you need to be absolutely transparent with your money. People think that money is the #1 reason why marriages break up, but I think that statistic is sort of like saying that the reason a marriage broke up was because of cheating: cheating may have caused the final break, but there were a million missed intimacies, communications and decisions made that led up to the cheating. Same for money; money in and of itself is never the reason a marriage ends, it’s everything around it. Money is a symptom. Transparency ensures that at least communication about money will not be the marriage’s downfall.