I’m the spender in the relationship. I get the supplies, I mostly take care of the groceries, buy things for the home. I buy my fiance clothes when he needs it. He is the opposite. Maybe he’ll get dinner but he won’t go and get me pjs if I need it. I spend and I really do not save. I am ashamed of it. On the other hand, he is better with money. He never asks money from me although I have the better job. He has enough money for a downpayment on a house. However, I get angry. Angry in that I feel like he always gets me the ‘cheaper’ stuff. Whether it’s the cheapest flowers or just deal. I feel like he doesn’t appreciate me. Yes, he buy the groceries. I do not know. I feel like our values do not align when it comes to money. But I dated a spender would we get somewhere? I do not know if it’s worth picking a fight. We did take a nice vacation together this summer. Ugh help! I feel like I am having a bad attitude. Is this most men? I think the crummy flowers really set me off because I’ve hinted to get something a little better. I just feel disrespected at times. Am I being unreasonable?
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Two spenders living together…. normally end up broke and large debt
I would be very interested in understanding why he spends the way he does. Does he have childhood issues or is he saving for a goal?
As well for yourself, is your spending habits healthy as well, are you building to heal or distract yourself from something or are you normal spending habits or are they learned borderline issues.
I would not sweep this under the rug because this will pay a major part in the success of your marriage later on.
Financial issues are one of the most common reasons for divorce, so pretty important. You absolutely need to be in alignment when it comes to financial matters. That doesn’t mean you both need to be spenders or both need to be savers, but you both need to understand how the other views money and be in agreement about budgets and how it’s spent.
For example, my wife would flip her shit if I bought her expensive flowers. I know that, and I don’t buy expensive flowers.
A spender and a saver can be a recipe for disaster. You need to work this out before you get married. My advice would be that you don’t connect the amount spent to how much he values you. Living in debt with expensive things isn’t success. Work together to come up with a budget you both find reasonable. Live with this budget for a year or so. If you still feel he’s cheap and he feels you’re extravagant then it would be best to go your separate ways and find more compatible partners.
Well, if you’re married and in the US, your money is sorta pooled anyway. So the concept of buying things for the other is a little weird since it’s all “our” money anyway.
Money is certainly worth fighting over. Money and sex is where the rubber meets the road.
But, this situation doesn’t sound THAT bad. It gets toxic fast when the saver acts like they’re morally superior and that the spender is wasteful. It doesn’t sound like that’s happening.
I’m glad you admitted you have a bad attitude about this because being “angry” because your fiancé won’t buy you pjs (how often does someone need new pjs anyways?) and he buys cheap flowers seems like one of the more petty things I’ve seen posted here in a while. I would be the angry one if I bought my wife flowers, only for her to tell me they weren’t good enough.
It’s also interesting to see you admit you are ashamed that you spend and don’t save, yet also then look down on your husband for doing the thing you, yourself, are ashamed of.
I think there will be a lot of jealous wives who read someone complaining about getting “crummy” flowers, when they don’t get flowers at all.
I’d say it’s rather important to have same values in this topic. We both like to spend money within reasonable borders and it’s good that we have the same idea what reasonable means for us.
That’s something you’re gonna want to have a conversation about and get to a shared understanding before taking any next steps or combining finances. Resentment about money can kill relationships quick. At best this can be just a simple philosophy difference between two people, at worst it can be one who can’t be responsible with money (can’t budget, will lie about paying bills, rack up huge debt unnecessarily, hide it, etc) or be overly controlling (abusive financially, etc). I don’t know the details of your situation obviously, but assuming the worst of it from your side is you feeling like you can’t save anything, that’s something that can probably be solved by a discussion about what joint finances should look like and a budget that meets everyone’s needs reasonably.
OP, it sounds like you need to sit down together and craft a budget that identifies shared and personal expenses. From your post, it sounds like you are the one putting in most of the funds towards shared expenses while your partner saves. That’s not ok.
Until you work that out, I’d stop spending any money for their personal needs and require them to contribute equitably towards shared expenses.
You get flowers?!
Joking aside, I think this is something the two of you need to discuss. If saving for a house is important than the two of you can put a percentage of both income to the side to save for it and maybe other bills can be split so you do not feel like the spending is unfair. You also mentioned that your fiance makes less than you so it makes sense that he would not have the ability to spend on leisure items as much as you.
You being incapable of saving money might end up being the biggest issue in your marriage. I know I got fed up with my ex living like we didn’t have a care in the world while I was trying to pay down debt. All I can say is you both better be on the same page about finances or your marriage will likely fail.
It’s important to share financial values in a way that helps you work together to accomplish goals- a spender and a saver can totally be together as long as both budget ok. In your situation, you need to have a good talk and realize how both of you are viewing money- he sees that he can buy you flowers at a good deal, thus saving money for your future (shared) big purchases- like a vacation or a home. For him, that means he did something for you with a net positive. For you, he might as well have not bought the flowers because he didn’t value the gift enough to get high quality ones. I get it, and it would bother me a bit too if I got low quality/cheap stuff on the regular. That needs to be discussed, in detail- because neither of you are actually wrong. On the other side, if you buy him some nice, expensive clothing, you took money that you yourself earned and spent a chunk of it on him, for which you feel he should be grateful- but he appreciates value, so just like the flowers, you might as well not have bought those clothes either! You’ll feel like you’re on the losing side each time until you come to an understanding- sit down, when you’re both in a good mood, and say you need to discuss the different ways you spend money. Tell him if he’s going to buy something for you, to spend money the way *you* would spend it if you were buying for yourself- 5 cheap bouquets will make you feel unappreciated, sad, and like he doesn’t think you’re worth it, while 1 beautiful arrangement that clearly took effort and $$$ will make you feel great. Sometimes taking some of the spontaneity out of it helps- it may feel less romantic to say “Hey, I’ve got a list of things I’d love/my favorite brands/types of flowers etc and if you pick from that, I’ll feel heard and appreciated every time” but clear expectations are really very helpful. If it’s something off the list, tell him to ask the sales associate what they think you’d appreciate. For him, tell him you’ve been spending money on high quality spontaneous gifts you know he’d like- but that’s more mirroring how *you* would like to experience affection. What does he like? Would he rather you save that money? Would he rather you take him on a date to a restaurant or an activity for some good quality time? Does he still want gifts, but you can just decrease the price point to something lower so you’re not overspending on something that will be totally lost on him? It’s possible some $10 Walmart pajama pants would be just as appreciated as the $80 LL Bean ones, because what he appreciates is that you saw he needed Pj’s, not that you got him better ones.
I’m in a similar situation OP- my husband is a saver and his knee-jerk reaction is to not buy something. I do pretty well with a budget, I don’t overspend- but my job in our marriage is to buy things. I take care of the kids, mine, and often his clothes. I go to the grocery store. For him, he’d go to the store for snacks and then be out of snacks in 2 days, where I can spend enough that we’ll easily get to the next shopping day with snacks and drinks to spare, plus food for meals. I get good quality things. I like brands that will last. It took a few years for us to totally figure it out, but we have. We bought a new house, we do weekends away and vacations. His pants don’t rip as often since he finally realized that buying cheap stuff twice a year was harder than buying a good pair when it was needed- but I couldn’t force him into that. I spent what he would be comfortable spending throughout the year and then spent good money for Christmas or his birthday.
We don’t have info in your post OP about why he isn’t a spender- my husband grew up poor and never wants to be in that position again, so it makes sense he doesn’t feel comfortable being frivolous. His brother went the opposite way- he grew up poor too, but when he gets money, he spends it. The way people react is different, but there’s always a reason. Your SO probably has a different relationship with money than you, and you need to get to the bottom of that. My main takeaway is that you’re both right- you need to learn that the same reason he’s getting you cheap flowers is also why he can do a vacation next summer. He needs to learn that spending money on cheap things is frivolous, and will do more harm to his relationship than good- and you both need to realize that you together can be a good recipe for financial success in the long run.