When Opposites Attract; Managing Finances within a Marriage

Host: Dr. Jennifer Hunter, Assistant Director for Family and Consumer Sciences Extension, University of Kentucky

Co-host: Mindy McCulley, Extension Specialist for Instructional Support

Episode 32

0:00 Welcome to Talking FACS; what you need to know about family, food, finance and fitness. Hosted by the University of Kentucky Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Program, our educators share research knowledge with individuals, families and communities to improve quality of life.

0:21 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Hello and welcome to Talking FACS. This is your host, Dr. Jennifer Hunter, Assistant Extension Director for Family Consumer Sciences at the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture Food and Environment.

Today, is again one of those days where Mindy McCulley, our Extension Specialist for Instructional Support is joining me so that we can talk about money.

And today, I think is a particularly, let's call it, interesting topic When Opposites Attract; Managing Finances within a Marriage. Thanks so much for joining us, Mindy.

0:51Mindy McCulley: I'm so happy to be here and I think this is a great topic.

0:55 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: This is one that I definitely think people can resonate with.

0:59 Mindy McCulley: Exactly.

1:00 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: And that they can certainly apply to their own lives. And it's really thinking about that you and your spouse or you and your significant other about how couples manage finances in their marriage or in their long term relationship. And kind of how individuals have different money personalities and how they bring those moneys personalities into the relationship.

1:24 Mindy McCulley: And we all know that everybody has baggage that they bring into a marriage and money is certainly not individual and that there are all kinds of attitudes and perceptions that we bring in, but money can be the one that can break the camel's back sometimes.

1:38 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Money is definitely, I think, a difficult topic. It's a delicate topic. It can be an emotional topic. And a lot of that resonates in, like you just said, with maybe the baggage that we bring in.

And what we know about our money habits is that a lot of that resonates in childhood; which I know can be scary and trust me, all the time, I think about, “How am I screwing up my kids?” “How they're going to think and feel about money later on in life”.

2:04 Mindy McCulley: Right.

2:05 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: But there's a lot of research out there that tells us that those experiences that we had with money as small children are really kind of what frames how we think, feel and spend our money today. And that's not to say that if mom or dad or grandma or grandpa, whoever that loved one was that raised us, if they were great with money, that we're going to be great money managers or if they were bad with money, that we're going to be bad money managers.

It's just what our perceptions are of those experiences and how we ourselves kind of translate those experiences into how we think and feel today.

2:37 Mindy McCulley: And we also know that two children in the same family can be different in their money spending habits and their attitudes toward money that are raised exactly the same way we think.

2:49 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: That's right. So, we're going to test to see if my brother listens to the podcast.

2:53 Mindy McCulley: Okay.

2:54 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Because we were raised in the exact same household. And I will say that my parents were very conservative when it came to spending, that they were very much focused on savings and working to meet savings goals.

However, in adulthood, my brother and I approach money very differently. And I would say that I am much more the saver and not maybe exactly the way that my parents approach money, but very similar.

My brother, he went the opposite route. And that's not that's not passing judgment on his money decisions, although he just rolled his eyes. It's just that we approach money very differently.

And so, it does show that how two kiddos can be raising the exact same households and we just process those money experiences differently.

3:42 Mindy McCulley: Exactly. And so, we're having those different experiences, when you go and combine that with another person that you're going to live with for the rest of your life, you hope it's a whole new ballgame.

3:54 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Right. And that's where communication is really key for successful money management in a relationship. I think often people think money's a taboo topic. So, they do not spend a lot of time talking about it. Or maybe it's just their own insecurities about money that they really don't feel confident in the decisions that they've made or they're embarrassed by decisions that they've made.

And so, it's just not a topic that couples really spend a lot of time communicating about, especially prior to entering that long term relationship or entering into marriage. And it's one of those that really and truly they should explore ahead of time.

4:31 Mindy McCulley: Exactly.

4:32 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: And so, having those hard conversations is important of identifying how does your partner feel about financial security? Is your partner spontaneous with money? Do they want to have a monthly budget?

4:46 Mindy McCulley: Yes.

4:47 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Can they maintain a monthly budget? And I always kind of tell this story when I'm talking to groups about marriage and finance that my husband and I have very similar, what I would call, money personalities.

But after we got married, we combined all of our all of our finances when we got married, so we had co-mingled accounts and we have one debit card for the account. And I would get really frustrated that he would not bring me his receipt home so I'm going to reconcile the account.

And one night I said, “I'm sorry. I'm just going to have to revoke your debit card privileges because” and he said, “Well, you know, if I was the one in charge of reconciling” he said, “I don't think you could bring your receipts home”. He said, “So, I'm just going to reconcile yours”. So, literally, 18 years ago, we cut up our debit cards and we have functioned without a debit card since then.

But it was it was really a good point that we had very similar money personalities, but we kind of managed our finances differently and we had to figure out what system it is that works for us.

And he was right. I would not have brought my receipts home to him, because that's just not… you know me, I'm not that organized that, you know, I manage it when exactly when I do it. So, he called me on and he was 100 percent correct. So, we had to figure out what it is that works for us.

5:56 Mindy McCulley: Right.

5:57 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: And that's what other couples need to do as well.

5:58 Mindy McCulley: Yes, everybody needs to find what works for you and what you can live with, because you do have to live with it. You know, you have to be able to work with it.

6:08 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: And that's what couples will often say, “Well, what's the secret? How do we make money work in our marriage?” and it's exactly that. It's figuring out what works for you.

I think probably the next most common question I get is, “Should we co-mingle our accounts? Do we just have one account as a married couple or do we kind of keep our separate accounts? “

6:28 Mindy McCulley: And I think that is really a big question.

6:30 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: It is and it's one that…

6:32 Mindy McCulley: It works differently for different people; right?

6:33 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: It works differently for different people. Research out there does make some recommendations. And the actual research recommendation is that by commingling accounts, by having one account, that that really kind of solidifies the relationship. It makes everyone vested in the financial goals. And those couples tend to have greater financial success.

6:54 Mindy McCulley: Right.

6:55 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: But I'll give that with the caveat of that's not going to work for everyone.

6:58 Mindy McCulley: Right.

6:59 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: And sometimes it might depend what life stage it is that you got married.

7:01 Mindy McCulley: Right.

7:03 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: I got married very young. And so, we didn't have a lot going in. Neither one of us had much in our bank account. It didn't take a lot to combine our bank accounts, but maybe an individual getting married later in life or a remarriage type scenario. That could be a different situation.

So, it's really and truly kind of what suits each couple.

7:25 Mindy McCulley: You're right. And there's no right or wrong. It's what works for you and what is the best for you.

I remember a couple that I've known for a long time who did not mingle their accounts and to the fact that even when they had children, if they went out to dinner, they split everybody’s meal down the middle. And I was like, “That would be a little hard to do” but that's what worked for them.

7:49 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Right. And you can put yourself in an extreme situation exactly and make things more stressful. Typically, couples that do not just have kind of that true joint set of finances, normally, they do at least have some form of shared account. And as a couple, they identify how much should be contributed to that account each month.

And oftentimes, couples will say, “Well, I think it should be equal”. And that may not be the case.

8:14 Mindy McCulley: It might not be possible.

8:15 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Because of, you know, what type of job that the individuals have. So, it needs to be some type of shared agreement that works well for the couple that everyone feels is adequate.

8:25 Mindy McCulley: Right.

8:26 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: And that's not always necessarily going to be 50/50. But again, you are a couple, you do love each other, you do want your spouse to feel like that they have adequate money to meet their needs.

8:38 Mindy McCulley: Right.

8:39 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: And so, you really do want to sit down and have a conversation. And for that shared account; whether it's your only account or if it's a joint account and you have kind of separate accounts as well, you do want to make certain that you're setting financial goals for those accounts and also a budget for that account.

So, here we go again with the budget talk. I know every time we do this; right?

8:58 Mindy McCulley: Budget is budget.

9:00 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Budget is key. But that you know that there is a budget for that account, there's a plan for those dollars and that you know how that they're going to be spent.

9:07 Mindy McCulley: Well, and you said when we sit down and talk about this and I think it's important that we note that a good time to talk about it is not when you're in the middle of a financial crisis.

9:17 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: That is very true. And this should be a conversation that you're having fairly often. That it's not during a point of crisis, it's not when one of us wants something. That it is just a conversation that you have on a regular basis.

It would be wonderful to have it at least on a monthly basis, just so that you can set, because one thing you should do as a couple is set financial goals together. That if that is saving for the family vacation, if that's working towards saving for a college education fund for the kiddos, if it is saving for retirement plans, it's saving for a down payment on a house; whatever it may be. That you set those financial goals together and that you figure out how you're going to achieve them together.

At a bare minimum, a couple should sit down once a year and do a good financial checkup; to really evaluate their accounts, compare them to the year before, how much progress did we make this year?

So, this is going to tell you how big of geeks we are at my house, but every year, and this will be shocking to our listeners probably as well is that my husband takes care of kind of our financial household. That it might be my work thing, but it's what he does for us at home.

But one of the things that he does every year is that on December 31st, he takes a snapshot of us as a couple and then he'll edit the photo and he'll put our savings balance on it for the end of the year.

10:45 Mindy McCulley: Okay.

10:46 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: And then the next year, we’ll bring that back up and so he'll do a new photo with our new savings balance and so, that we can watch those savings accounts grow over time and see about how we're working towards meeting those financial goals.

10:58 Mindy McCulley: And that's important that you have the picture of you together.

11:02 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: We do have the picture of us together because we're working towards it together. They’re goals that we have set together. It's also, I guess, kind of fun to watch us grow for age.

11:13 Mindy McCulley: Age as your money grows; right?

11:15 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: And it's also a fun way that we can look back at where were we five years ago and where were we 10 years ago and where were we now 18 years ago and kind of see how we've progressed over time.

11:27 Mindy McCulley: And I can see this being a fun thing for your kids. You know, when they get to be at this stage in their life where you are now and they can say, “Oh, here's where Mom and Dad were. We’re okay. You know, we're there too”.

11:39 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Right. And what started it is that, I would talk about the financial snapshot at the end of every year that everybody should do a financial snapshot. And so, I almost think he was making fun of me one day when he did the snapshot of the two of us.

11:53 Mindy McCulley: But then it works; right?

11:54 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: It works. It's fun. I look forward to it every year. I have a file of them on my phone of photos that I can go back through it. So, anyway. But that's how we geek out at home. Maybe too much information.

So, again, Mindy, kind of take home points for our listeners is that communication is key and having those car conversations, if they are, about how is the best way to manage the budget within your household, and then also working together to achieve those common financial goals.

12:23 Mindy McCulley: I think this will be great tips for our listeners going forward. And hopefully, we're going to see great, big balances at the end of next year.

12:30 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Exactly. Financial snapshots. Thanks so much, Mindy.

12:35 Thank you for listening to Talking FACS. We deliver programs focusing on nutrition, health, resource management, family development and civic engagement.

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