They say that opposites attract. I suppose that’s true, as my husband and I are extreme opposites in so many ways. While it wasn’t love at first site (we were good friends), I thought I knew him well. What I neglected to see was that he hates money. He MUST hate it, because he insists on throwing it away. Of course, if I’m being completely honest, I wasn’t particularly good with money either back in those days either.
It seems that in relationships that over the years we take on roles. So, I fell into the role of saver, while he continued to toss dollar bills out the window (or at least that’s how it felt to me). After 36 years of marriage, I sometimes wonder how we’ve been able to reconcile the fact that one of us is a spender and the other a saver.
I stopped and thought about it all the other day and was reminded that my parents were exactly the same as my husband and I. My dad was a “BIG SPENDER.” He made a good living, and was extremely generous with friends and family. He also knew that my mom was very frugal, and because of this SHE managed the household finances as well as keeping the books for his business. When my mom passed away, he found investment accounts, rental homes, retirement accounts, and more that he never knew existed. She would take a portion of the weekly food budget and sock it away in investments that grew over the years. Eventually, she bought 3-family homes and rented them out.
In the years after my mom passed away, my dad retired and when he passed on he had very little of the money my mother had amassed left.
Today I am my mother. We owe nothing on our cars, I’ve stashed some investments away, and we bought a new home last year and I’ve been paying down the mortgage with extra payments.
My question for you is: Do you and your significant other have different money styles? Is one of you a “spender” and the other a “saver”? How have you reconciled your differences about money in your relationship?
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