My Wife Is Always Having a “Bad Month” When It Comes to Her Money
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Dear Pay Dirt,
My wife and I (we both use she/her pronouns) are both graduate students who got married recently. We’d been friends for a long time and lived together before so I thought we had all our bases covered but lately I’ve realized that we probably should have talked more about money first. I’m lucky enough to have gotten a generous scholarship including an OK stipend for my MA and also worked for a couple of years first so I’d managed to save up about $30,000. Keeping as much of this as possible in savings is really important to me since I’ll be graduating this year and jobs for journalists are notoriously scarce so I might be unemployed for a while. She went straight into her Ph.D. and has been out of funding for the past two years, although she does have a part-time job. We initially kept our finances totally separate and split essentials down the middle but eventually, we got tired of trying to keep up with who owed who what so we got a joint account.
The deal was that I’d put in $1,500 a month and she would put in $750 and we’d pay for joint expenses out of that. I also put in an extra $3,000 at the beginning to get us started. Well, now it’s been nine months and she’s never put in the full amount, and I’ve been having to pick up the slack. She always says that she’s having a bad month and she’ll make it up later, and she seems genuinely really stressed about money, but also she’s been doing a good amount of retail therapy. Part of the reason for keeping our finances mostly separate is so we wouldn’t be monitoring each other’s spending, and I’m trying to stick to that but also getting increasingly frustrated as my own savings are dwindling trying to make up for her shortfall. On top of that, she’s started making “jokes” about divorce and this has me wondering: If she does file for divorce, what does that mean for me financially? Would she be entitled to the money I’ve saved even though it’s not in a joint account? If so, is there anything I can do now to safeguard my savings? Is there any risk I’d have to pay alimony since I’ve been basically supporting her? If it makes any difference we don’t have kids and live in Pennsylvania. I feel awful for even thinking this but also I’m worried about my future and ending up both single and broke.
—Preparing for the Worst
Dear Preparing for the Worst,
In Pennsylvania, any assets you brought into the marriage are not considered marital property, so your savings are yours (though any interest you may have earned during the duration of the partnership might not be). Anything that is considered marital property (assets accumulated over the course of the partnership) is equitably divided, and the court will decide how to do that based on many different considerations including how long you’ve been married, what your relative incomes are, what your potential future income is, and what your finances are like when you’re divorced.
The court also decides where alimony might be appropriate and similar considerations apply. Since you haven’t been married for very long, it seems unlikely that you’d have to pay, but you would need to consult a lawyer to understand what your spouse’s case for it would be, if she has one.
In the meantime, if you’re optimistic you can overcome your financial problems, you should make some realistic assessments of what your joint income will be once your wife finishes her education and what the job market looks like for both of you. On your end: I teach in a master’s of journalism program at NYU, and very often, my students take part-time jobs that utilize their journalistic skills to subsidize their job hunts and any internships they may need to do, or they freelance as journalists for a while until a full-time position becomes available. There’s a range of options between a great job and unemployment that can ultimately get you to the former.
As for your wife, I think you should let her know that her inability to pay her intended share is creating undue stress and expenses for you and it’s not fair. She may genuinely be unable to pay (even if you subtract the retail therapy) and if that’s the case, then she needs to figure out another way to make ends meet while she’s finishing her doctorate. That might mean taking a leave of absence to work full-time for a bit or looking for extra income in other places. It’s her responsibility to figure out how to handle this longer term and hoping for a “better” month is not enough of a plan. Talking about this is crucial because if you stay together, financial conversations like this will come up throughout your lives, and some of them will be difficult. Learning how to handle conflict and getting used to the idea that you are solving these problems together is something you have to learn early in a marriage or it can be fatal to your union.
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Dear Pay Dirt,
I have two young children (3 and 5), and I’m the kind of person who likes to plan ahead. In a world that is increasingly chaotic and unstable, setting my kids up for financial success seems very important. We are middle-class, and just now moving from a single-income (mine) to a two-income household, which will give us a lot more flexibility to plan, save, and invest. We have our emergency fund and retirement accounts, and I’ve just set up high-yield savings accounts for each kid, with $10 a month going into them. I plan to increase this as my spouse’s job brings in more and add a bit from any windfalls (tax returns, etc.) that we have going forward. I’ve reached out to grandparents about either contributing to the savings accounts or opening 529s for the kids. I’m going to start allowances for them and use the money to teach basic math skills, which the 5-year-old is really interested in right now. I’ve added them both as authorized users to one of my credit cards to build credit. Is there anything else I should be doing at this stage? What about as they get older? Do you have any books or other resources you would recommend regarding financial education? My parents didn’t provide much in this area, so I’ve been cobbling together my own education as an adult, which your column has been extremely helpful with—thank you!
—Finances for the Future
Dear Finances for the future,
You’re already way ahead of most people on this front, which is great! In terms of planning, this is a good time to figure out your estate planning, including how you may want to structure any relevant trusts, any provisions in your will that would designate specific guardians for your children should something happen to you, and any beneficiary designations that are relevant. Given your children’s ages, you should also check to see if you’re eligible for dependent care flexible spending accounts, which can save you money on child care in the same way that your medical FSAs save you money on health care.
As for teaching your children about money, there are some good apps like Rooster Money that allow kids to track their allowance and savings in a way that’s accessible. But the best way to teach younger children, in my experience, is by introducing them to real-world use. Since you have a 5-year-old, you’re probably already experiencing the stage of development where kids are trying to triangulate what things cost and why. If you ask them what, say, a car costs, they’ll say either $20 or $1 billion and there’s nothing in between. Children learn about relative prices by comparison, though, and they also learn about opportunity costs that way. Something as simple as giving your child $1 and asking them to find things they could buy with it allows them to internalize these concepts in a tactile and more memorable way and it goes much further than just teaching it in the abstract. Your kids will also very soon be at an age where they want you to buy things for them—all the time. Many parents find this frustrating, but it’s an opportunity to get them to learn to save, to think about spending now versus later, and potentially how to use and monitor a savings account.
Another good trick is to figure out how to align lessons about money with existing interests. I have an 8-year-old who collects Pokemon cards, and in recent years, he has learned about how to value the cards, keep a ledger of current prices, and calculate a potential profit if he re-sells them. We also recently re-negotiated his allowance and discussed whether he would prefer to be paid a smaller amount more frequently or a larger amount once every two weeks or month, and without using fancy terminology introduced the concept of time value of money. (He chose higher future payments, but agonized about it for a bit.) You already know what your child is motivated by; find a way to build lessons into those things.
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Dear Pay Dirt,
Three years ago, my parents’ terrible financial decisions came to roost and they could no longer afford to live on their own. (They have no savings or pension and took early social security so they literally are below the poverty line in income.) My sister and I are both married with kids, but I get along with my parents better and I have one kid to my sisters’ two, so we decided they would move in with me and pay no rent or bills, while my sister gives them a few hundred dollars a month to help with food and medical costs. At the time, we both had about the same income and expenses.
But now, her situation has totally changed. She and her husband make nearly $500,000 a year, while I make a fourth of that and my husband has been out of work most of the year. And because of the burden of caring for four adults and a kid on my own, I can’t seem to get ahead—no matter what we cut back, I never seem to build up savings. Meanwhile, my sister’s family has two new cars and a boat, and they take expensive vacations. My parents provide child care for me, which is huge, but they also take care of my sister’s kids a lot now, too, and she still just gives that same small amount. I guess I’m asking for help untangling my jealousy of her situation with whether it would be reasonable to ask her to pitch in more money. My parents are in their 70s—this could be the next 10 to 20 years of my life.
—Got the Short End of the Stick
Dear Got the Short End of the Stick,
I think it’s very reasonable to ask for more help, especially if each of your finances have changed. People are often hesitant to do this because they don’t want to create more of a burden for relatives or find it embarrassing to ask for help generally. If either of those things applies to you, imagine a scenario where you don’t ask for help, and your sister finds out later that you needed it and would have happily pitched in—because that may be the case.
So ask. Begin the conversation with an explanation of how you’re doing financially and where added pressures are coming in (your husband being out of work, for example), and tell her that providing the bulk of support for your parents is getting to be unsustainable without hurting your ability to take care of your kid and build up enough savings to ensure you’ll be OK in the longer term. Tell her point blank that you need her to pitch in more money, then put the ball in her court and ask what she thinks would be reasonable to help remedy the situation. And give her a bit of time to think about it so she doesn’t feel ambushed.
As part of this process, you should also figure out what your plan is if this is the next 20 years of your life, and bring your sister into that process. What will you do if your parents’ medical expenses go up precipitously, or if they need a level of care that you can’t provide? The responsibility for planning these things should not fall entirely on you.
Separately, you acknowledge that you have a bit of jealousy about your sister’s relative fortune. That’s not unusual but it’s important to be vigilant about your own feelings and make sure that your jealousy doesn’t unduly influence any of these conversations. It’s also worth asking yourself what exactly you’re jealous of. Is it her financial security? The ease with which she’s landed in a more affluent place? Something specific she’s been able to do or buy? Which of those things has meaning for you? Being able to pinpoint causes can make those feelings more manageable. You probably already know this, but it’s also helpful to catalog for yourself the things you already have that are meaningful to you. These could be experiences, small luxuries, or choices you’ve made that you are happy about that your sister did not choose. Try to counter your feelings of jealousy with gratitude for things that are unique to your life. And try to be happy for your sister. Your fortunes may reverse at some point, so treat her the way you’d want her to treat you if that happens.
—Elizabeth
Our 5-year-old has had a very strong preference for me, her mother, since forever. I have been primary caretaker her whole life, and when I am working (I’m a freelancer) she is great with Dad taking over the primary duties. My husband is an incredible father—endlessly patient, playful, emotionally present, and supportive. He is crushing it. And yet she REALLY prefers me.
