Money Wise Mom

I have always been the primary breadwinner for my family, with maybe the exception of one maternity leave. This has never bothered my husband in the slightest. In fact, he’s been known to joke about how sweet it was that I brought home the big money.

Until a few days ago, I assumed that the ickiness of the 90s where men had ego about making more money than a woman was a thing of the past. But the internet will always surprise you. While watching a YouTube podcast last week, the topic came up with a young couple who were struggling to connect around money. The wife expressed her feelings that making more money than her husband was a bad thing and declared that she wanted her husband to lead their family and for their children to see him be successful. My feminist eyes could not have rolled any harder back into my head. Are you kidding me?

Looking back on our lives, I know in my bones that we never would have achieved our dreams of retiring early without being a solid team. We would not have been able to dump our debt, we couldn’t have paid off our first family home early, and we never would have had the space and courage to execute our “Freedom 45” retire early plan.

We’re In This Together Now

“You and me, we’re in this together now. None of them can stop us now. We will make it through somehow.”
— Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails

My husband and I have always had the philosophy that we are a team. It is us against the world. This is true in regards to chores, parenting, and it’s especially true with our money. When we first moved in together money was tight. I worked a minimum wage job while going to university and he stayed home raising our daughter. In a weird way, having one small income simplified things for us. We never got used to “his and hers” money because we didn’t have separate pay cheques. It was just the money coming in that we used to pay our rent and put food on the table.

As life unfolded, we eventually became a double income household (oh my!). Fortunately, we kept operating as a team. It was the way we had learned to survive. We were both equally dedicated to our budget. I never had to worry about my husband undermining my plans by spending our rent money on magic cards. He never had to worry about me hiding purchases or justifying uncontrolled spending on our kids school clothes because it was “for the children”.

We give each other equal say in how our money is spent. We don’t tie decision making power to who specifically made what money or where a windfall came from. We especially don’t allow money to give either of us power over the other. We are two individuals making choices together for the good of us both. While we generally agree on how to spend and save our money, sometimes we have to negotiate with each other and advocate for what we want. And that can, sometimes, be hard. When we want to spend household money that is outside our spending plan, we check in with each other and hold each other accountable. We each have the ability to veto a decision if we feel strongly about it.

We also saw our household of four as a team. This showed up in how we raised our kids.

We did not pay our kids for chores because we did not want a power dynamic over money with our children. Chores were how our family loved and cared for each other and our home. Chores were an act of service to each other. If you choose to pay your kids for chores, be prepared for the day your teenager turns to you and says “I’m not taking out the garbage today. I don’t need any money this week.” (or something to this effect but much less polite)

We did pay our kids an allowance, which was expressly separate from chores. It was a humble amount of a dollar per year old they were. For us, an allowance was a vehicle to teach our kids key lessons around money: its value, that money is finite, and the balance between saving vs spending. At one point, in her preteen years, I went so far as to fund a loan to my oldest daughter so that she could buy a mini fridge for her room. She had to pay back the loan monthly with interest and I would send her statements to show her how soon until she paid off her debt. (My husband told me later in life that he was not a fan that I did this, but he didn’t veto it so Meh?)

We had other ways that our kids participated in money planning. We meal planned together. We let our kids know how much we had to spend a week on groceries and they were able to plan meals and snacks accordingly. Once a week, they were each responsible for choosing and cooking a meal for the family, and it had to fit into our budget. They also knew their birthday budget. They had the agency to choose a big gift, or a big party, or a balance of something in between, as long as it fit into their budget.

Consequently, our kids grew up living and breathing spending plans. As adults, they are both crazy proficient at living within their means. Sometimes a bit overly proficient. I’ve been trying to get my daughter to invest in new kitchen towels since we started living together. (The current ones have too many holes for my liking). I haven’t convinced her yet, but I will keep working on her!

Our Spending Rule

For most of our relationship, we’ve had a spending rule – an agreed max amount that we won’t exceed without permission. It happened pretty organically. We check in with each other if we want to spend more than our set amount. In our early years, our cap was $20. We made so little, that amount was considered a significant spend for us. We increased our spending cap as our income increased. Exceptional spending does not come up often, but when it does we have a system in place to check in with each other. By having an common understanding, we’ve given ourselves guard rails which foster respect for each other but also allows us to stretch outside our limit if we both agree it’s what we want.

More than the Sum of our Parts

“I know there is strength in the differences between us, and I know there is comfort where we overlap”
— Ani DiFranco

The beauty of working together is that we each bring different strengths to our money mindset. And we have the power to influence each other in positive ways. And together we’ve built a great life.

I am a planner and a dreamer. My husband is a rules guy and lives on logic. We are both good savers.

I’ve definitely nudged him into being a planner. Twenty years ago, I was the one who obsessively checked our budget multiple times a day, downloading transactions, and categorizing everything. Now, my husband’s the one downloading our transactions and often has them all neatly categorized before I can open our budgeting software. I used to be the one obsessing to not overspend in a category. Now, he’s the one closely monitoring our food budget and ensuring we stick to our spending plan. I’m still the primary person to forecast our investment projections and rebalance our portfolio, however, even that has evolved over the past year as well. He’s taken more ownership over re-investing his TFSA and RRSP dividends and is more active in our future projections spreadsheet than ever before. And I’m pretty thrilled about it.

And I know he’s influenced me too. He’s my accountability person. He’s taught me to be more patient, to advocate, and to communicate on decisions. Together we’ve agreed on systems and household rules, and he’s definitely kept me honest and (mostly) on track over our marriage. I’ve had to accept that sometimes he doesn’t agree with something I want. I’m not good at not getting my way and I’m not always 100% graceful about conflict, but I work at keeping my communication respectful and try to see his point of view.

After being together for 26 years, we operate as one team with our money. I really appreciate my partner and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

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Drop me a comment… do you and your partner use a ‘spending limit’ rule? What was your starting number?