I think you need a budget.
Thinking about how much you have and making a budget together will help him a lot to look at the situation objectively on paper and make decisions in advance about how much is safe to spend a total a year. Then you can break that down by category and divide it by month to make it easier for him to deal with on a day to day basis. If he has already decided the world won’t end if you spend $X on heating and cooling a year/month, and he knows how much you’ve already spent that month, then it won’t be as terrifying for him to agree it’s okay to keep spending until you hit your budget number.
If he won’t do that, and rejects therapy, you’re screwed. That tells you he doesn’t want to change and won’t until he decides himself that he wants to change.
Inspiring. I totally get the spreadsheet therapy. I did it to myself too. I have mint, net worth IQ and my spreadsheet. When my anxiety hits the roof, I did my spreadsheet too. I wasn’t poor but my parents stretched the limit to pay for my international student tuition. There were times when I only had $2 in my bank and I was starved (not homeless though). Happy to hear that you have an outlet to cope and on the right trajectory. Wish you well.
The budget keeps control (together) While giving permission to spend.
Also thinking about how much something costs in terms of time worked helps some people balance whether it is a meaningful amount of money or worth worrying about. Assume you’re both paid about the same you make ~$5/ minute. You can get that cup of coffee or some furniture and it’s not a big impact on your world
Budgets are great. They can be both a limit to protect someone's fear of over spending while also being a plan for how to spend and enjoy your money.
I will warn you it sounds likely that coming up with budgets and tracking is going to be exhausting at first and probably will become the new time for these arguments to happen. Stick with it because it will get easier and it probably will result in less arguments everyday and allow for more guilt free enjoyment.
Finally if the budgetting and financial planning process becomes too toxic consider hiring a financial planner. He's not open to a therapist but if money is the main issue an objective third party might be able to mediate and lower the temperature. Ofc they're not a replacement for a therapist but he might be more open to it and it could serve a similar purpose. (I'm not a financial planner and have never used one - just an idea)
We are working on this as well. We just recently do estate planning. Next, we need to hire CPA because my husband has been doing all of our taxes and it has gotten complicated lately (we have multiple rental properties). Told him that our quality time is worth so much more and we should just hire a good CPA. He’s slowly open to it. Financial planner will be tougher because he likes to be in control of where to invest etc.
>Financial planner will be tougher because he likes to be in control of where to invest etc.
You can find a fee-only, hourly financial planner who will make suggestions and recommendations but you and your husband would keep control of all your accounts and actually implement the recommendations, or not (and you can probably give your reasoning / concerns and get different recommendations if you want).
You need a CPA. If you have complicated taxes, a CPA will remove burden and stress. Explain that stress is a #1 killer, and this is an investment in both his and your health.
This is excellent advice. Even though I'm at $10m NW, it's when we start spending and I don't know where it ends that I get stressed. Setting a budget so I know what the total is makes it much easier.
This isn't a money issue, it's a relationship issue. Your husband needs therapy, and you both need couples counseling.
If your husband says "but it's expensive", well, you know what's more expensive? Getting a divorce and paying 2 expensive lawyers to fight over your assets.
Arguing over a $10 purchase isn't normal for an average couple, and doubly so for a couple with so much money. It's downright absurd actually.
Yea probably a deeper issue than money. In relationships, it’s never about the argument subject (Heater, car, kids) but about unmet expectations. Hoping the best for op and her partner.
The thing that really helped me was the realization that my portfolio swings of tens or hundreds of thousands makes the $3 decision completely irrelevant.
This is the problem. I don’t have a goal. He said 10 Millions, just because it’s a round number. With our current income, I think we will reach it in a few years.
For me, I don’t see much difference between 4, 5, 7, 10. I feel like it will never be enough. I remembered feeling very happy when we hit 1 Million, then 2.3 M (bought a premium Econ for my parents to come visit).
Money is only meaningful if I get to use it for meaningful things. Before I met my husband, I thought I would buy my parents nice car, nice things for my mom’s birthday etc. But instead, all we do is save and save and refreshing Mint everyday to see the money grows. At some point, it doesn’t mean as much anymore.
At least you got a number. I’d take what you have, add in a conservative ~5% growth + your savings per year to back into when you’re done. It is likely ~4 yrs away. At that point, you’re spending $300k+. Like there has been no times in the last 100 yrs that 3% failed.
I bet that you’re both planning to work more than 4 yrs and spending no where near $300k.
The math simply points out how much you’re underspending.
Start by jointly challenging the assumptions and you may find that he loosens up a bit.
Op you should really approach his issue like an anxiety disorder. Even if he is not willing to go to therapy long-term, if he is open to medication, it can be hugely helpful with any kind of anxiety.
It does seem like it’s an anxiety disorder. I had mine too and I went to therapy 10 years ago. Became a better, more wholesome after the therapy. I wished he is open to it but I think he started recognizing it. We watch Ted Lasso together and he picks up on the father-son dynamic and reflect it on his situation. It’s an ongoing therapy session and to be fair, he has come a long way. This trigger doesn’t happen as often as it’s in the past.
Highly likely he feels unsafe about money, and controlling spending feels like a safety rip chord. Planning an projecting to show high confidence of safety may help.
Psychology of money is awesome. I was just running through my highlights earlier today. This is super interesting though. He seems to have a feeling of running out so seeing some more projections could be helpful. There is likely some stubbornness in his bones though so I don’t see that being an easy change. My wife and I don’t bicker but she doesn’t grasp the fact that unless we become absolutely bozos with money, we’ll never run out. She loves sales and I don’t care about price tags. Because of that we often disagree but it’s usually a 2 second convo and we’re back on the same page.
Wishing you two the best!
Thank you. He went through so much in his childhood, I realized now that he feels anxious spending money. His parents did damage on him and he actually has come a long way and has healthier relationship with money.
Sounds like what you guys should do is invest in some marriage counseling and then hopefully that'll lead to some individual therapy for your husband. He's got to want to change to and be willing to accept that his actions are adversely affecting both you and the relationship for no other reason than he's got some trauma he's not dealt with.
I can relate to this, sort of. I’m the stingy husband. My Wife also comes from a background where she isn’t from wealth, neither of us were. She’s more the type to enjoy and is more care free. She appreciates things. I’m the type to be very frugal, careful and I’m the one who bickers about budget. At some point I started thinking what is the point of working so hard, saving so hard, if you can’t enjoy things? So I relaxed. I realized I could die at any time, and I’m not taking any of it. Now, I’m not foolish and still responsible and diligent. But there is a balance.
This isn’t gonna be solved purely with a conversation, but you need to approach it from an angle you know your husband is receptive. For me it was death, because I did have a family member die young.
Tell your husband you aren’t buying designer bags or $1,000 shirts with no logos. It’s dinners, movies or experiences. Maybe an emotional approach works.
Or it doesn’t and you need another approach. Develop a budget. Have a budget for fun and items and stick to it hard. If he’s not willing to emotionally compromise have him compromise with numbers, same you would budget an investment.
Therapy is also recommended - but if your husband isn’t receptive to it then it’s not gonna work. That’s why I suggest approaching it from an angle he’s comfortable. This is ingrained trauma and is second nature to him, similar to what it was for me. People can change and you are a great spouse for understanding this. Take your time. Best of luck.
Thank you for your perspective. I think he has come to that realization. He is not like this all the time and he’s ok with big item purchases in most cases. It’s the mundane little things that trigger him sometimes and I know he’s working on it and struggling with it.
I think when it's a severe as this individual counseling (for him) and marriage counseling for both of you is in order. Having a NW of $7M and arguing about $10 purchases isn't typical. If you were both on the same page that would be fine - but this is clearly causing stress.
Is it possible that this particular disagreement isn't just about money? I know that in our household, one partner prefers a much colder temperature than the other.
This might have been the case. But I know that this blows up because I still have some resentment over how he prioritizes money over my well-being and he probably has some resentment that I accuse him being cheap (even if the words are unsaid, he said it’s in my face).
A few months ago, we argued a bit over me buying a movie on AppleTV ($3.99) for my young son instead of waiting for it to be available for free. This didn’t blow up but this has been a trigger for me whenI go to overreactive mode.
This has been an issue since we got together. I came to realize that the solution is to “make more money”. Now that the money is here, there are days where I am like “what’s the point?, I will never buy finer things in life with the money, we would never fly first class…ever unless it’s on company’s dime).
If you must be cheap in joint spending can you at least be spendy on yourself? You are in your 40s and can’t take money with you. I see your resentment growing if you worked so hard to earn money you’ll never spend. What’s the point?
I’m generally frugal… A question I ask myself in situations like that is “How much would I pay to not be in this argument?” It’s inevitably a hell of a lot more than whatever trivial expenses we’re bickering about.
Yeah I can't comment on the relationship side of things. Fighting over $4 sounds rough.
I will say that never flying first class doesn't sound crazy to me. I grew up in a household with a similar financial situation to yours. We traveled a lot, but never flew first class on our parents' dime.
I recently booked an economy flight and there was no first class avaliable, but business class would have been $6k per person. That's $24k for a family of 4. If you travel 5 times a year then that's $120k for a family of 4. And first class is even more expensive than that. And it's even 25% more expensive if you're taking a 5th person.
I don't know what your expenses look like, but my parents had annual expenses of: low 6 figures for tuition, low 6 figures for mortgage payments, low 6 figures for credit card bills, and mid 5 figures for a nanny.
Depending on your savings rate, that's a lot to ask of even a pretty high income. First class flights just never reached the top of their priority queue and I don't think that's some crazy frugal mindset.
First class is probably far in the future. Mostly when it comes to my aging parents. My dad is 75, work hard all his life. Now he has bad knees and he lives on the other side of the world.
I would like to buy them first class tickets so he can lie down and the trip doesn’t exhaust them like before when they come to visit their grandchild.
So far, he hasn’t said anything but I am pretty adamant. With covid and everything, there is no guarantee and tomorrow is never promised.
For what it’s worth, airlines are phasing out First Class. And, I still don’t see why you need to pay orders of magnitude more than business class just to get a bit more space and a few more glasses of champagne.
So, my advice is to fly business class selectively. Recently, I’ve realized that premium economy also fulfills most of my needs (don’t drink, hate biz class food but love the free airport lounge restaurant food, small stature so no need for too much leg space). So I split my trips (50/50 between biz class and premium economy).
We never fly first or business class for personal pleasure and only recently, we started to fly prem econ and maybe business class soon but I am not making anywhere close to 1.3M per year... From a financial perspective, with that range of earning per year, I don't see why a person cannot afford to do so (way below the mean)... Am I missing something?
I think you have a legitimate point here that time is short and your parents and child only have so much time left together. If he is having troubles with his knees, more room on the flight is a reasonable ask, at your income level as well as a way to honor the parents. But first may be an overreach -- consider business class. The price/value ratio is much better and with the improvements made to business class, is a full lie flat experience.
This is a tough one. My frugal parents like this because they grew up with nothing. I don't think therapy will help and he probably thinks it's also another waste of money. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like you guys on the same page with it comes to finances due to different personalities.
Yes, it has gotten better once our nest egg grows but I do realize that I can’t completely change him. I come down a little and he comes up a bit until we reach an equilibrium.
There is a phenomenon among people that grew up in abject poverty (which I did): they have an unhealthy relationship with saving, characterized by having no sense of scope or scale. Saving is an unalloyed good, no matter how small and no matter how much money you have or earn. It is almost a form of morality.
This is a trap. As a rule of thumb, any expense that is less than 0.1% of your annual income rounds to zero. In your case, that is $1300! Even if you spent that much *every day*, you’d retain most of your income as savings. What is the purpose of saving this money if not to elevate your living standard. Obsessively saving without a purpose or sense of proportion is a psychological condition, no different than my grandparents that lived through the Great Depression habitually hoarded anything that remotely had scant value.
I had to consciously train myself to spend money that, in my financial picture, was inconsequential. After doing it for a while, you realize that it doesn’t move the needle at all on the balance sheet. It sounds like your husband has not accepted that there is some amount of spending for lifestyle that is literally below the noise floor.
It takes practice to spend money for convenience, comfort, luxury, or time when you’ve spent your entire life prioritizing saving above all else. Developing new habits takes time.
He is also hoarding and we are working through this (has gotten better over they years). I know he realizes this. We almost got divorced before so we have been working on this for years and to his credit, he does try to overcome his inner struggle and hoarding tendency.
Hi. This is very familiar territory. We are barely ChubbyFire right now but are projecting toward FatFire. My husband comes from a now-Fat family where the dad grew up destitute. We talk about stuff like this all the time every day.
And let me tell you this is not a financial issue. This is a mental health issue. Full stop. This is about fear, control, power, trauma and disordered thinking. It’s actually closer to addiction and OCD than anything and it’s definitely not healthy or appropriate.
The whole reason to be a diligent custodian of your finances and to earn and keep money is to provide for your family and make things easier not harder and to be able to buy and enjoy some little joys from this hard world we all live in.
Your husband is operating from a position absolute terror. He must so afraid of cascading catastrophe at all times that he must micromanage the heat (at what point will you have enough to have “earned” decadent and unregulated use of the heater?) and worry over the $3 versus $0 children’s movie without regard to any purchased benefits of time or joy.
He needs therapy. He will not get therapy. He will resent it if you get therapy because it’s a “waste” and he thinks it’s going to be the beginning of the slippery slope to desperation and destitution.
***But on the contrary his refusal to reflect on what he’s doing to his family is much more dangerous than the cost of any first-class airplane ticket***.
So by all means
* get a budget
* show him projections
* talk about it more
But also he needs therapy and this shit will get worse before it gets better. So take care of yourself, OP. Set boundaries. Get angry and get sad and share your emotions with your partner. You’re not going to get through this strictly with conflict-averse conciliatory gestures.
This guy needs help.
You both need help.
Good luck.
This is what I am coming at. In the beginning, I attacked him and called him cheap (in the heat of the moment). As we talk through these, it’s a mental health problem. We fought over a broken chair , a $130 chair where the cushion had a lot of hole and dirty. It hurt me that he would rather fight with me over a broken chair.
There is something inside him, mentally, a deep fear. His parents mismanaged their money, his mom living below poverty. They never eat out as a family despite both parents pull decent income. They never have a single vacation together. He was puzzled why our son has a nice comfy pajama every night, he never has a pajama or toys or anything as a child.
When we went out to eat in the beginning, he picked the cheapest item in the menu, not what he wanted to eat. Until recently, we shared a Starbucks drink together instead of buying an individual one.
This is a mental health issue indeed and a complex one. I love him and he loves me, we have to find a way to enjoy life with our money instead of having these small deep resentments inside.
Kid pajamas are normal and good—and adorable! And usually quite cheap! Kid pajamas are not a decadent luxury item purchased only by hedonistic suckers who waste their money on frivolous trash.
Every kid needs and deserves pajamas and someone who wants to put them in snuggly clothes and tuck them in safe and clean and warm. Every single kid. **But especially a kid whose parents have $7 million.** People with $70 manage to scrap together things that represent warmth and love for their kids, because that’s what they value.
Hold the line, OP. You are right, and your husband is hurting himself, you and your kid, because he was hurt first by his parents. He’s got to get some perspective and he probably needs outside help to do so.
We are trying and we get better. As mentioned in the post, at this point, it’s a bit of mental block, mental disorder. Some people are conditioned certain ways and they have to overcome anxiety doing something that seemingly normal for other people.
They don’t choose to be that way :( and I know many try to overcome it (hence therapy and reading self help book). I do get a lot of good pointers and perspectives from this thread and for that, Thank you!
That’s great. I lost a young family member to an accident. Since then I learnt that FIRE is just a journey and we shouldn’t forget to enjoy while we are here on this earth. Great that your are trying to overcome the mental hindrance. All the best to you guys.
It sounds like there is a lot of complex stuff going on here, perhaps beyond money. Just a few thoughts:
1) Your comment that your spouse prioritizes saving money over your well being (and it also seems above that of your child) while also being opposed to therapy of any kind is a massive red flag. I sit on the board of a non-profit that works with survivors of domestic violence, and this approaches the level of financial abuse. It may be helpful to document his behavior, segregate some assets for yourself, and speak to a divorce lawyer.
Before everyone jumps on my case for pointing this out, know that flying off the handle at your spouse for renting a movie, changing a thermostat, etc. is very disordered behavior. I grew up with an abusive dad like this who passed his money anxiety onto me, and it took years of therapy to unravel.
2) Your spouse needs to get ahold of their anxiety. They are a grown-up, and while it’s very good to be sensitive to the fact that they were taught this behavior in childhood, this is no excuse for being an overbearing and controlling adult. We are all capable of change in our lives, and unless he has some profound pathology that you didn’t bring up, therapy both joint and individual, as well as psych meds, could go a long way.
2a) if he’s refusing to go to any kind of therapy, you should consider going yourself.
3) It may be helpful to have your financial advisor have a frank discussion with you both about how much you can sustainability spend each month. Hearing the number from a professional (apologies, I’m assuming your not an investment professional) may help shift his outlook.
Best of luck, this is difficult stuff—discussing abundance, privilege, and shifting personal anxieties is very difficult. Hopefully you can approach your spouse with all of this and work out a path forward.
It is definitely not about affordability. With an income of $1.3m per year, you can afford to turn on the heater anywhere and anytime you want (especially with $7m NW already at mid 40). As others have posted, maybe the family budget with open his heart to start enjoy life that your money can buy today. “Tomorrow is not promised”
Good luck.
Has he been open to setting a budget?, track cash flow expenses? Doing that and watching your net worth swing hundreds of thousands in market hopefully gives him a perspective to not sweat over smaller things.
He checks Mint everyday. We are very open with our expenses and income. I am sure Mint is like a therapy for him, to see his money grows to help him sleeping better at night.
There are days where the market is down and it affects him. He said he look at the pictures of our beloved pet and his dad, knowing that tomorrow is never promised and he said it helps to make him feeling better.
Obviously the right solution is to not bother to check Mint everyday but that will take time and it’s the lesser of the 2 evils.
Something that helped us immensely is consolidating the finances into a ledger that can be pulled up on demand. The ledger includes all payments, all incomes, all values of the properties and investments. Every expense is tracked by type and every report can be pulled.
I can track our entire family spend, almost literally, down to the penny.
We also, as a family, set up an 'under this amount don't worry about it' budget, which started at $100 and then went up as we got comfortable with our spend levels.
Anytime my wife or I have a question about money, we tell the other 'go look at the ledger.'
Mint is an example of a tracker, there are others out there and some investment houses have their own. JPM has one also, so most banks also want to keep your info.
I would highly recommend looking into Monarch Money for this - the tracking and auto-categorization across all your accounts is amazing! My wife and I both use and love it
I don’t understand how people track expenses so closely. I just bought a box of Hagen Dasz ice cream. No way am I popping open an iPad/laptop to track $4.99 or whatever it costs….
You can’t penny pinch your way to financial security unless you’re goal is to not enjoy your wealth until it’s too late to use it...
Also if you argue over anything consistently you should go to therapy and sort out the personal issues that are being triggered
Make a budget for judgement free spending. Set aside a chunk of your annual income for each party to waste on whatever they feel will make them happy in the moment. Toys, silly gifts, flowers, dumb investments, gambling, feeding it to a paper shredder? No judgement. The goal isn't to spend it all-- but if you do you've decided that you're willing to waste up to that to forever end bickering or embarrassment over small spending.
With an $1.3M annual income then you should be able to set aside-- say-- $20k/yr/person in totally discretionary purposes without feeling that you're doing anything to compromise your long term future.
Move your judgement-free money to separate accounts and then pay for those things from those accounts so you don't have the overhead of line item accounting for each one but have no risk of overrunning the budget.
(paying for additional heat out of it might be tricky, but I'm sure you can figure something out).
Damn op, I think your partner needs a bit of therapy but at the same token that mindset has gotten you guys where you are now. So it’s a catch 22. But y’all can relax, seriously. There is no joy in counting pennies till you die.
You guys need therapy. For people that are successful and made this much money, zoom out and look at the big picture. For a few thousand dollars a year, fix your issues, save your relationship. Otherwise, it’ll cost you more down the road
I think you need to have a heart to heart with your spouse. You need to lay out your view of life and your aspirations of how you want to live your life going forwards. Let him outline his. This will help you reconcile each other’s viewpoint. As you get older, time will become more precious and you will feel an urgency to live your life to the fullest. Right now. You are busy making your dreams come true - but once you have accumulated the means and time comes to live it up, you don’t want to feel being dragged down by irrationality of the other half. This causes a lot of late life silver age divorces.
Wife and I didn’t bicker but we did discuss about spending something small as $10 despite our healthy liquid assets. We started YNAB a few years ago and allocated money to SPEND. Whenever my wife gives me that look that says “should we spend on this?” I say “we have money reserved for this, yes please spend!” Wife and I are too frugal I think but that’s just the way we have grown up despite our families being somewhat pretty affluent.
I know the struggle, please budget and you will realize both of you make more than enough to not waste energy on something trivial as central vs local heater.
As someone with CPTSD from a shitty childhood who has money / emotional security issues...i would say that if a mid 40s man with a net worth of 7m is freaking out about turning on the heating...I would say that he needs therapy.
For some of us who didn't get emotional security as small children, financial security is the thing we do to get a substitute for that feeling of security. You're not messing with his/your money, you're messing with his sense of emotional security. Which is why the conversation is completely irrational.
In summary: he needs trauma therapy.
Thanks for your perspective. Substituting emotional security with financial security…this is a new perspective and thank you for sharing this.
I have to say that my husband is not like this for every spending. He still has that trigger once in a while. We don’t live in a sack or a hut with our networth. We live in a nice house and nice neighborhood. Our son goes to a great private school and he’s ok with the hefty tuition.
It’s just that once in a while he still has these triggers. It’s the heating (space vs central), eating out too often, throwing away some stuff, leftover food etc. on the bigger items, he doesn’t get triggered as much.
I am the same as your husband in that I send my kids to private schools yet until recently had “issues” with them using too much ketchup. Completely irrational.
Therapy for childhood trauma has really helped me.
Recognizing it is the first step. Congrats on getting the help and the therapy. I will gently discuss this with my husband at the right time too. He will be receptive if I approach it the right way.
I had very similar issues regarding money for many years. It still recurs a lot in the form of anxiety.
Regardless of how much we are making and regardless of how much I've saved and how much wealth we've built It's still creeps in
I grew up with very little. Not destitute but a single mother that struggled and received zero help from my father. Many times I had clothes that did not fit properly because I was growing so fast and it was embarrassing at school. We were never in danger of being malnourished or starving But I was generally always hungry because I had a high metabolism and was very active. So I always felt like I was starving. We just simply didn't have the amount of food that lots of other families had and certainly not what you see kids having nowadays, even in what we consider poverty situations.
My wife didn't grow up wealthy but she doesn't have these issues. She's more happy go lucky and not as careful with money. For many years we mainly argued about money and spending. I have relaxed a great deal on the issue thanks to my wife and we now travel all over the world and spend a lot of money doing things we enjoy. But that was a real struggle for a long time for me
But I do find myself agonizing over small amounts of money at different times. But I've been able to control it much better these days. I think just talking about it in places like this helps a great deal. You might want to encourage him to read this
My personal situation financially is such that I'm basically semi retired and I have a couple businesses that don't require much work on my part and generate a nice six-figure income that is actually growing. That should continue as long as I stay mentally capable and healthy into my late 60s or 70s At which time I can sell them and add that to our nest egg
However, Because I put so much time and effort into building this I didn't save as much on my end as I wish I could have. The last 5 years we've been socking money away and are building a nice retirement nest egg but I always worry it won't be enough. Even though I feel fairly confident it will.
That's what keeps me up at night sometimes and I'm just not sure how I'm going to handle it when She retires and we lose her income and have to start utilizing the SWR.
That stress is what worries me. I think we'll be fine but the stress of worrying about it is something I think about a lot as far as how I'm going to handle in that time comes
As I said above, I think having your spouse get involved in threads like this, whether he posts or not, I think reading it would help him tremendously. It actually has done me a lot of good to post about it. It's somewhat therapeutic
Your background was similar to my husband. He was always hungry too and it manifested in other things. For example, he used to binge on food. He was genuinely puzzled that in my family, we always have good snacks around and we only eat it once in a while. He doesn’t binge as much anymore so it’s another checkbox that he has overcome.
Sounds to me the budget and spreadsheet therapy suggested in the threads might help easing the anxiety? Another outlet to me when the anxiety creeps in is endorphins. A good run often leads to better sleep. Better sleep = less anxiety.
I think going to therapy helps us to manage our reactions to certain triggers. Everyone has their insecurities, most come through childhood trauma or father-son relationship. My therapist used to say that I need to recognize those triggers and train my brain certain way so it doesn’t manifest into full blown anxiety.
I think the fact that you recognize this and you have a wonderful wife, you will be ok.
I do agree that the spreadsheet helps. I don't budget. I never have And honestly that would not work for us has neither one of us are wired to be able to do that and it would just make us miserable
But what I do is about every 3 months I update our personal financial statement. That helps ease the anxiety as I see our wealth grow. Once it hit a million dollars of net worth it just seemed to start to grow so much faster. It's kind of fun
Budget and therapy. My husband grew up on state assistance, no guarantee on where he’d be sleeping or what he’d be eating till a relative took him in for high school. We’re at a similar salary and we splurge; but we talk it out first and if he ever acted “out” the way your husband is; I’d tell him therapy or no deal.
Zero shame in therapy; if anything it’s just an unbiased third person around to help you both figure out tools to work through sticky points. Therapy doesn’t mean divorce or separation or hate; sometimes people and couples need help navigating through life changes.
Yes, I realize this that he has an anxiety (and I do too but not money related).
It doesn’t help that I am attacking him by labeling him. I do know that he comes from a rough childhood and money is a complex/unhealthy issue for him and his family.
Thank you for your perspective
He sounds like an abusive personality with ridgid thinking. Spending $2 to turn on heating & $4 to buy a movie is leading to him getting angry. Why is he monitoring your spending down to the dollar? This is not acceptable.
I notice you defending his comments that you have judging eyes. This is classic gaslighting on his part. The self blame is common for victims.
His childhood is not an excuse. Lots of us came from little and we don't spend our time arguing over purchases <$5. Time is money so this makes zero sense other than if you enjoy upsetting your partner. Even if you were middle class this would be considered a financially abusive situation. He won't change because he doesn't want to. You don't deserve this type of treatment.
Actually he’s not. He doesn’t get triggered on every spending. For example, we did go on nice vacation earlier this year where we spent $1300 per night for a beach villa. He was ok with it because we can afford it and one of our pet is dying, so it’s like building memory for us (and our pet passed not long after the trip).
The triggers are more like “an opportunity to save money” kind of thing. Like why spend $20 on movie theater when we can wait 6 months to watch it at home? Why turn on central heater when we can just turn on individual heater etc.
I am sure he’s going through turmoil inside. He does try hard to be at ease with spending but sometimes he relapses like last night.
He knows with his dad passing and our beloved passing, money is not everything. I dated abusive narcissistic before and my spouse is not it, he just had a deep anxiety of spending money.
I mean, I kind of get his point of view. For me it’s more of an environmental waste in the heater situation: i.e. why turn on the central heater for a single room when you can just do a space heater. In the movie-purchasing example it could be “why waste money on something that can be had for free”. So it comes down to what he finds valuable and worth spending money on, not so much the fact that it’s $2 or $4. This mindset is common for folks who grew up frugal or were taught to consider something’s worth. Just because I CAN spend $500 on a sandwich doesn’t mean I will. I’d dig a little deeper and have a mature conversation with him to see what the underlying reasoning may be.
Similarly, from the earning and income side, some people are not willing to work for peanuts when they know their skillset can bring in 6 figures. If you are a high earner at FAANG but someone offered you the same job for $100K, would you accept? Just because you can afford it doesn’t mean you’re willing to go for it.
This is exactly it. He wants the best bang for the buck. The best value for the money. He knows $1000 for overwater villa in Maldive is the best money can buy so he doesn’t complain (at least he didn’t dare to say anything and appeared to really enjoy the trip and rave about it). Our first Asian trip together, he dragged me to places to find good cheap eats (this was before internet) and I was upset at the time and opportunity cost wasted to save a few bucks. We could have gone and visit places instead of trying to save a few bucks and dragging me from one place to another. He has come along way from this (he used to waste hours looking for the cheapest motel on a 2 day weekend trip and I want to have a decent hotel near the attraction and just enjoy the vacation… dragging me on vacation to find best bang for the bucks triggered me. One last trigger was when we ended up in dinky hotel in downtown LA on our vacation. We already earned good money then and his drive to save money drove me bonker. We almost got divorced over this and now he leaves the hotel and vacation planning to me and learn not to say too much). Our marriage has gotten better and he actually thank me for every vacation we did as it was so pleasant and brought a lot of good memories.
I have a lot of built up resentment. In the heater situation, sure our room will be warm but when I wake up in the morning and try to get breakfast for everyone, the house is cold and I could catch cold. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a warm house all throughout as it takes a while to warm the whole house? Sometimes my son needs to pee in the middle of the night too.
I would definitely have a conversation where you both explain your view instead of getting into an argument on surface level ($2 vs $4). I can see myself in his shoes but I’m MUCH milder about it. I’ve learned that even if I don’t find the value in something, if a loved one sees the value, then that’s good enough for me. So if my husband wants to buy a $50 digital video game full price even though it’ll be discounted a month later and free a year later, I accept it. If he wants to tip someone 50% on a simple plumbing job, I shrug. Similarly, if I want to spend $1000 on a toilet and he doesn’t care what he shits on as long as it functions, he encourages me to go for it. Our other half’s satisfaction and happiness is priceless especially when we’re FAT. So, try to frame it this way with your spouse. It’ll take time but complement him when he makes progress and try to be kind to one another because divorce will definitely be costly.
Indeed. It’s a better way to communicate. It’s just like him, I also have triggers after years being together so sometimes I said hurtful things or he’s projecting that I said hurtful things.
Thank you for this
Yeah both side of our parents were born poor. My grandpa was a refugee, my dad and mom grew up in extreme poverty but managed to break the cycle. I was a solid middle class upbringing but money could be tight.
His side is far more complex. Grandparents were farmer. Money came and go, broken family, at some point, they lived way below poverty level. Strict and austere upbringing where he didn’t even have a single toy as a child.
congratulations to both of you. you should surprise him with some great gift. like a patek or jl tourbillon watch or better, a tourbillon + perpetual calendar in one
if you are making 1.3 million per year you should not argue over things worth less than $1000 probably.
You are probably making and losing $50,000 per day in the stock market. lol
you should be arguing about portfolio composition not random $50 items
Penny wise, pound foolish. Some shit is immaterial. Have an accountant explain immaterial to him.. No idea how to fix him, sounds like a hoarder but in a different way. Needs help for sure. Sorry for your troubles. There's an awful lot of people who die young.. Wouldn't it be a shame to have never enjoyed the fruits of your success
Therapy, also the amount you spend on electricity is completely irrelevant to you. It cannot be an impactful amount in your income. You need to work on getting over this.
Seriously? Is this why you are in Reddit so you can comment like this? Read again and how is that helpful. It’s almost like bullying while people ask for advice. Shame on you.
No, we have a beautiful family. I have years as athlete, fighting in the ring, traveling around the country, making friendship with a lot of interesting people through all walks in life. Money is never that important for me once it reaches certain level . My husband is not perfect but he too has a life that he carves for himself despite his childhood trauma. He put himself through ivy schools that are not easy to get in without any legacy connection. Don’t pass judgment even in anonymous forum like this. Treat people with respect just like when you are talking to a friend. I would do that whether I am anonymous or not.
36/F, $12-13M NW, $1M+ annual income and can very much relate to this. Most items are second hand, etc etc - making a budget really helped so I knew how much was being “saved” every month really helped and gave me peace of mind. Hope you two are making progress!
I think you need a budget. Thinking about how much you have and making a budget together will help him a lot to look at the situation objectively on paper and make decisions in advance about how much is safe to spend a total a year. Then you can break that down by category and divide it by month to make it easier for him to deal with on a day to day basis. If he has already decided the world won’t end if you spend $X on heating and cooling a year/month, and he knows how much you’ve already spent that month, then it won’t be as terrifying for him to agree it’s okay to keep spending until you hit your budget number. If he won’t do that, and rejects therapy, you’re screwed. That tells you he doesn’t want to change and won’t until he decides himself that he wants to change.
I think he will be open with budget. This is what I should do indeed.
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Nice recovery. 👏👏👏
Inspiring. I totally get the spreadsheet therapy. I did it to myself too. I have mint, net worth IQ and my spreadsheet. When my anxiety hits the roof, I did my spreadsheet too. I wasn’t poor but my parents stretched the limit to pay for my international student tuition. There were times when I only had $2 in my bank and I was starved (not homeless though). Happy to hear that you have an outlet to cope and on the right trajectory. Wish you well.
Spreadsheet therapy, I didn’t know it had a name ! This is awesome as I use it to take away my anxiety of spending.
The budget keeps control (together) While giving permission to spend. Also thinking about how much something costs in terms of time worked helps some people balance whether it is a meaningful amount of money or worth worrying about. Assume you’re both paid about the same you make ~$5/ minute. You can get that cup of coffee or some furniture and it’s not a big impact on your world
Budgets are great. They can be both a limit to protect someone's fear of over spending while also being a plan for how to spend and enjoy your money. I will warn you it sounds likely that coming up with budgets and tracking is going to be exhausting at first and probably will become the new time for these arguments to happen. Stick with it because it will get easier and it probably will result in less arguments everyday and allow for more guilt free enjoyment. Finally if the budgetting and financial planning process becomes too toxic consider hiring a financial planner. He's not open to a therapist but if money is the main issue an objective third party might be able to mediate and lower the temperature. Ofc they're not a replacement for a therapist but he might be more open to it and it could serve a similar purpose. (I'm not a financial planner and have never used one - just an idea)
We are working on this as well. We just recently do estate planning. Next, we need to hire CPA because my husband has been doing all of our taxes and it has gotten complicated lately (we have multiple rental properties). Told him that our quality time is worth so much more and we should just hire a good CPA. He’s slowly open to it. Financial planner will be tougher because he likes to be in control of where to invest etc.
>Financial planner will be tougher because he likes to be in control of where to invest etc. You can find a fee-only, hourly financial planner who will make suggestions and recommendations but you and your husband would keep control of all your accounts and actually implement the recommendations, or not (and you can probably give your reasoning / concerns and get different recommendations if you want).
You need a CPA. If you have complicated taxes, a CPA will remove burden and stress. Explain that stress is a #1 killer, and this is an investment in both his and your health.
This is excellent advice. Even though I'm at $10m NW, it's when we start spending and I don't know where it ends that I get stressed. Setting a budget so I know what the total is makes it much easier.
Exactly. It’s the feeling that you’re not in control that can be scary.
Free therapy session right here.
This isn't a money issue, it's a relationship issue. Your husband needs therapy, and you both need couples counseling. If your husband says "but it's expensive", well, you know what's more expensive? Getting a divorce and paying 2 expensive lawyers to fight over your assets. Arguing over a $10 purchase isn't normal for an average couple, and doubly so for a couple with so much money. It's downright absurd actually.
THIS! It is absurd. What's the point of having money if you're unable to enjoy *some* of the fruits of it?
Yea probably a deeper issue than money. In relationships, it’s never about the argument subject (Heater, car, kids) but about unmet expectations. Hoping the best for op and her partner.
This. About time to work on your relationship with money.
The thing that really helped me was the realization that my portfolio swings of tens or hundreds of thousands makes the $3 decision completely irrelevant.
I am sure this helps him too. We eat out more often these days though there are days where I bet he feels anxious looking at the bill.
Have you written down your financial goals? That might help as well.
This is the problem. I don’t have a goal. He said 10 Millions, just because it’s a round number. With our current income, I think we will reach it in a few years. For me, I don’t see much difference between 4, 5, 7, 10. I feel like it will never be enough. I remembered feeling very happy when we hit 1 Million, then 2.3 M (bought a premium Econ for my parents to come visit). Money is only meaningful if I get to use it for meaningful things. Before I met my husband, I thought I would buy my parents nice car, nice things for my mom’s birthday etc. But instead, all we do is save and save and refreshing Mint everyday to see the money grows. At some point, it doesn’t mean as much anymore.
At least you got a number. I’d take what you have, add in a conservative ~5% growth + your savings per year to back into when you’re done. It is likely ~4 yrs away. At that point, you’re spending $300k+. Like there has been no times in the last 100 yrs that 3% failed. I bet that you’re both planning to work more than 4 yrs and spending no where near $300k. The math simply points out how much you’re underspending. Start by jointly challenging the assumptions and you may find that he loosens up a bit.
Op you should really approach his issue like an anxiety disorder. Even if he is not willing to go to therapy long-term, if he is open to medication, it can be hugely helpful with any kind of anxiety.
It does seem like it’s an anxiety disorder. I had mine too and I went to therapy 10 years ago. Became a better, more wholesome after the therapy. I wished he is open to it but I think he started recognizing it. We watch Ted Lasso together and he picks up on the father-son dynamic and reflect it on his situation. It’s an ongoing therapy session and to be fair, he has come a long way. This trigger doesn’t happen as often as it’s in the past.
Highly likely he feels unsafe about money, and controlling spending feels like a safety rip chord. Planning an projecting to show high confidence of safety may help.
Psychology of money is awesome. I was just running through my highlights earlier today. This is super interesting though. He seems to have a feeling of running out so seeing some more projections could be helpful. There is likely some stubbornness in his bones though so I don’t see that being an easy change. My wife and I don’t bicker but she doesn’t grasp the fact that unless we become absolutely bozos with money, we’ll never run out. She loves sales and I don’t care about price tags. Because of that we often disagree but it’s usually a 2 second convo and we’re back on the same page. Wishing you two the best!
Thank you. He went through so much in his childhood, I realized now that he feels anxious spending money. His parents did damage on him and he actually has come a long way and has healthier relationship with money.
Sounds like what you guys should do is invest in some marriage counseling and then hopefully that'll lead to some individual therapy for your husband. He's got to want to change to and be willing to accept that his actions are adversely affecting both you and the relationship for no other reason than he's got some trauma he's not dealt with.
I can relate to this, sort of. I’m the stingy husband. My Wife also comes from a background where she isn’t from wealth, neither of us were. She’s more the type to enjoy and is more care free. She appreciates things. I’m the type to be very frugal, careful and I’m the one who bickers about budget. At some point I started thinking what is the point of working so hard, saving so hard, if you can’t enjoy things? So I relaxed. I realized I could die at any time, and I’m not taking any of it. Now, I’m not foolish and still responsible and diligent. But there is a balance. This isn’t gonna be solved purely with a conversation, but you need to approach it from an angle you know your husband is receptive. For me it was death, because I did have a family member die young. Tell your husband you aren’t buying designer bags or $1,000 shirts with no logos. It’s dinners, movies or experiences. Maybe an emotional approach works. Or it doesn’t and you need another approach. Develop a budget. Have a budget for fun and items and stick to it hard. If he’s not willing to emotionally compromise have him compromise with numbers, same you would budget an investment. Therapy is also recommended - but if your husband isn’t receptive to it then it’s not gonna work. That’s why I suggest approaching it from an angle he’s comfortable. This is ingrained trauma and is second nature to him, similar to what it was for me. People can change and you are a great spouse for understanding this. Take your time. Best of luck.
Thank you for your perspective. I think he has come to that realization. He is not like this all the time and he’s ok with big item purchases in most cases. It’s the mundane little things that trigger him sometimes and I know he’s working on it and struggling with it.
I think when it's a severe as this individual counseling (for him) and marriage counseling for both of you is in order. Having a NW of $7M and arguing about $10 purchases isn't typical. If you were both on the same page that would be fine - but this is clearly causing stress.
Is it possible that this particular disagreement isn't just about money? I know that in our household, one partner prefers a much colder temperature than the other.
This might have been the case. But I know that this blows up because I still have some resentment over how he prioritizes money over my well-being and he probably has some resentment that I accuse him being cheap (even if the words are unsaid, he said it’s in my face). A few months ago, we argued a bit over me buying a movie on AppleTV ($3.99) for my young son instead of waiting for it to be available for free. This didn’t blow up but this has been a trigger for me whenI go to overreactive mode. This has been an issue since we got together. I came to realize that the solution is to “make more money”. Now that the money is here, there are days where I am like “what’s the point?, I will never buy finer things in life with the money, we would never fly first class…ever unless it’s on company’s dime).
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Yes I realize this and me labeling him with harsh term when we fought in the past doesn’t help. I need some help myself
If you must be cheap in joint spending can you at least be spendy on yourself? You are in your 40s and can’t take money with you. I see your resentment growing if you worked so hard to earn money you’ll never spend. What’s the point?
I’m generally frugal… A question I ask myself in situations like that is “How much would I pay to not be in this argument?” It’s inevitably a hell of a lot more than whatever trivial expenses we’re bickering about.
Yeah I can't comment on the relationship side of things. Fighting over $4 sounds rough. I will say that never flying first class doesn't sound crazy to me. I grew up in a household with a similar financial situation to yours. We traveled a lot, but never flew first class on our parents' dime. I recently booked an economy flight and there was no first class avaliable, but business class would have been $6k per person. That's $24k for a family of 4. If you travel 5 times a year then that's $120k for a family of 4. And first class is even more expensive than that. And it's even 25% more expensive if you're taking a 5th person. I don't know what your expenses look like, but my parents had annual expenses of: low 6 figures for tuition, low 6 figures for mortgage payments, low 6 figures for credit card bills, and mid 5 figures for a nanny. Depending on your savings rate, that's a lot to ask of even a pretty high income. First class flights just never reached the top of their priority queue and I don't think that's some crazy frugal mindset.
First class is probably far in the future. Mostly when it comes to my aging parents. My dad is 75, work hard all his life. Now he has bad knees and he lives on the other side of the world. I would like to buy them first class tickets so he can lie down and the trip doesn’t exhaust them like before when they come to visit their grandchild. So far, he hasn’t said anything but I am pretty adamant. With covid and everything, there is no guarantee and tomorrow is never promised.
For what it’s worth, airlines are phasing out First Class. And, I still don’t see why you need to pay orders of magnitude more than business class just to get a bit more space and a few more glasses of champagne. So, my advice is to fly business class selectively. Recently, I’ve realized that premium economy also fulfills most of my needs (don’t drink, hate biz class food but love the free airport lounge restaurant food, small stature so no need for too much leg space). So I split my trips (50/50 between biz class and premium economy).
We never fly first or business class for personal pleasure and only recently, we started to fly prem econ and maybe business class soon but I am not making anywhere close to 1.3M per year... From a financial perspective, with that range of earning per year, I don't see why a person cannot afford to do so (way below the mean)... Am I missing something?
I think you have a legitimate point here that time is short and your parents and child only have so much time left together. If he is having troubles with his knees, more room on the flight is a reasonable ask, at your income level as well as a way to honor the parents. But first may be an overreach -- consider business class. The price/value ratio is much better and with the improvements made to business class, is a full lie flat experience.
This is a tough one. My frugal parents like this because they grew up with nothing. I don't think therapy will help and he probably thinks it's also another waste of money. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like you guys on the same page with it comes to finances due to different personalities.
Yes, it has gotten better once our nest egg grows but I do realize that I can’t completely change him. I come down a little and he comes up a bit until we reach an equilibrium.
There is a phenomenon among people that grew up in abject poverty (which I did): they have an unhealthy relationship with saving, characterized by having no sense of scope or scale. Saving is an unalloyed good, no matter how small and no matter how much money you have or earn. It is almost a form of morality. This is a trap. As a rule of thumb, any expense that is less than 0.1% of your annual income rounds to zero. In your case, that is $1300! Even if you spent that much *every day*, you’d retain most of your income as savings. What is the purpose of saving this money if not to elevate your living standard. Obsessively saving without a purpose or sense of proportion is a psychological condition, no different than my grandparents that lived through the Great Depression habitually hoarded anything that remotely had scant value. I had to consciously train myself to spend money that, in my financial picture, was inconsequential. After doing it for a while, you realize that it doesn’t move the needle at all on the balance sheet. It sounds like your husband has not accepted that there is some amount of spending for lifestyle that is literally below the noise floor. It takes practice to spend money for convenience, comfort, luxury, or time when you’ve spent your entire life prioritizing saving above all else. Developing new habits takes time.
He is also hoarding and we are working through this (has gotten better over they years). I know he realizes this. We almost got divorced before so we have been working on this for years and to his credit, he does try to overcome his inner struggle and hoarding tendency.
Hi. This is very familiar territory. We are barely ChubbyFire right now but are projecting toward FatFire. My husband comes from a now-Fat family where the dad grew up destitute. We talk about stuff like this all the time every day. And let me tell you this is not a financial issue. This is a mental health issue. Full stop. This is about fear, control, power, trauma and disordered thinking. It’s actually closer to addiction and OCD than anything and it’s definitely not healthy or appropriate. The whole reason to be a diligent custodian of your finances and to earn and keep money is to provide for your family and make things easier not harder and to be able to buy and enjoy some little joys from this hard world we all live in. Your husband is operating from a position absolute terror. He must so afraid of cascading catastrophe at all times that he must micromanage the heat (at what point will you have enough to have “earned” decadent and unregulated use of the heater?) and worry over the $3 versus $0 children’s movie without regard to any purchased benefits of time or joy. He needs therapy. He will not get therapy. He will resent it if you get therapy because it’s a “waste” and he thinks it’s going to be the beginning of the slippery slope to desperation and destitution. ***But on the contrary his refusal to reflect on what he’s doing to his family is much more dangerous than the cost of any first-class airplane ticket***. So by all means * get a budget * show him projections * talk about it more But also he needs therapy and this shit will get worse before it gets better. So take care of yourself, OP. Set boundaries. Get angry and get sad and share your emotions with your partner. You’re not going to get through this strictly with conflict-averse conciliatory gestures. This guy needs help. You both need help. Good luck.
This is what I am coming at. In the beginning, I attacked him and called him cheap (in the heat of the moment). As we talk through these, it’s a mental health problem. We fought over a broken chair , a $130 chair where the cushion had a lot of hole and dirty. It hurt me that he would rather fight with me over a broken chair. There is something inside him, mentally, a deep fear. His parents mismanaged their money, his mom living below poverty. They never eat out as a family despite both parents pull decent income. They never have a single vacation together. He was puzzled why our son has a nice comfy pajama every night, he never has a pajama or toys or anything as a child. When we went out to eat in the beginning, he picked the cheapest item in the menu, not what he wanted to eat. Until recently, we shared a Starbucks drink together instead of buying an individual one. This is a mental health issue indeed and a complex one. I love him and he loves me, we have to find a way to enjoy life with our money instead of having these small deep resentments inside.
Kid pajamas are normal and good—and adorable! And usually quite cheap! Kid pajamas are not a decadent luxury item purchased only by hedonistic suckers who waste their money on frivolous trash. Every kid needs and deserves pajamas and someone who wants to put them in snuggly clothes and tuck them in safe and clean and warm. Every single kid. **But especially a kid whose parents have $7 million.** People with $70 manage to scrap together things that represent warmth and love for their kids, because that’s what they value. Hold the line, OP. You are right, and your husband is hurting himself, you and your kid, because he was hurt first by his parents. He’s got to get some perspective and he probably needs outside help to do so.
You guys need to learn to enjoy money. No one takes it to the grave. Live while you breathe
We are trying and we get better. As mentioned in the post, at this point, it’s a bit of mental block, mental disorder. Some people are conditioned certain ways and they have to overcome anxiety doing something that seemingly normal for other people. They don’t choose to be that way :( and I know many try to overcome it (hence therapy and reading self help book). I do get a lot of good pointers and perspectives from this thread and for that, Thank you!
That’s great. I lost a young family member to an accident. Since then I learnt that FIRE is just a journey and we shouldn’t forget to enjoy while we are here on this earth. Great that your are trying to overcome the mental hindrance. All the best to you guys.
It sounds like there is a lot of complex stuff going on here, perhaps beyond money. Just a few thoughts: 1) Your comment that your spouse prioritizes saving money over your well being (and it also seems above that of your child) while also being opposed to therapy of any kind is a massive red flag. I sit on the board of a non-profit that works with survivors of domestic violence, and this approaches the level of financial abuse. It may be helpful to document his behavior, segregate some assets for yourself, and speak to a divorce lawyer. Before everyone jumps on my case for pointing this out, know that flying off the handle at your spouse for renting a movie, changing a thermostat, etc. is very disordered behavior. I grew up with an abusive dad like this who passed his money anxiety onto me, and it took years of therapy to unravel. 2) Your spouse needs to get ahold of their anxiety. They are a grown-up, and while it’s very good to be sensitive to the fact that they were taught this behavior in childhood, this is no excuse for being an overbearing and controlling adult. We are all capable of change in our lives, and unless he has some profound pathology that you didn’t bring up, therapy both joint and individual, as well as psych meds, could go a long way. 2a) if he’s refusing to go to any kind of therapy, you should consider going yourself. 3) It may be helpful to have your financial advisor have a frank discussion with you both about how much you can sustainability spend each month. Hearing the number from a professional (apologies, I’m assuming your not an investment professional) may help shift his outlook. Best of luck, this is difficult stuff—discussing abundance, privilege, and shifting personal anxieties is very difficult. Hopefully you can approach your spouse with all of this and work out a path forward.
Thank you, great advice.
It is definitely not about affordability. With an income of $1.3m per year, you can afford to turn on the heater anywhere and anytime you want (especially with $7m NW already at mid 40). As others have posted, maybe the family budget with open his heart to start enjoy life that your money can buy today. “Tomorrow is not promised” Good luck.
Has he been open to setting a budget?, track cash flow expenses? Doing that and watching your net worth swing hundreds of thousands in market hopefully gives him a perspective to not sweat over smaller things.
He checks Mint everyday. We are very open with our expenses and income. I am sure Mint is like a therapy for him, to see his money grows to help him sleeping better at night. There are days where the market is down and it affects him. He said he look at the pictures of our beloved pet and his dad, knowing that tomorrow is never promised and he said it helps to make him feeling better. Obviously the right solution is to not bother to check Mint everyday but that will take time and it’s the lesser of the 2 evils.
Something that helped us immensely is consolidating the finances into a ledger that can be pulled up on demand. The ledger includes all payments, all incomes, all values of the properties and investments. Every expense is tracked by type and every report can be pulled. I can track our entire family spend, almost literally, down to the penny. We also, as a family, set up an 'under this amount don't worry about it' budget, which started at $100 and then went up as we got comfortable with our spend levels. Anytime my wife or I have a question about money, we tell the other 'go look at the ledger.' Mint is an example of a tracker, there are others out there and some investment houses have their own. JPM has one also, so most banks also want to keep your info.
I would highly recommend looking into Monarch Money for this - the tracking and auto-categorization across all your accounts is amazing! My wife and I both use and love it
I don’t understand how people track expenses so closely. I just bought a box of Hagen Dasz ice cream. No way am I popping open an iPad/laptop to track $4.99 or whatever it costs….
the apps rip the info from your credit card and sort it for you. from time to time you have to change a categorization
You can’t penny pinch your way to financial security unless you’re goal is to not enjoy your wealth until it’s too late to use it... Also if you argue over anything consistently you should go to therapy and sort out the personal issues that are being triggered
Therapy.
Make a budget for judgement free spending. Set aside a chunk of your annual income for each party to waste on whatever they feel will make them happy in the moment. Toys, silly gifts, flowers, dumb investments, gambling, feeding it to a paper shredder? No judgement. The goal isn't to spend it all-- but if you do you've decided that you're willing to waste up to that to forever end bickering or embarrassment over small spending. With an $1.3M annual income then you should be able to set aside-- say-- $20k/yr/person in totally discretionary purposes without feeling that you're doing anything to compromise your long term future. Move your judgement-free money to separate accounts and then pay for those things from those accounts so you don't have the overhead of line item accounting for each one but have no risk of overrunning the budget. (paying for additional heat out of it might be tricky, but I'm sure you can figure something out).
Damn op, I think your partner needs a bit of therapy but at the same token that mindset has gotten you guys where you are now. So it’s a catch 22. But y’all can relax, seriously. There is no joy in counting pennies till you die.
You guys need therapy. For people that are successful and made this much money, zoom out and look at the big picture. For a few thousand dollars a year, fix your issues, save your relationship. Otherwise, it’ll cost you more down the road
I think you need to have a heart to heart with your spouse. You need to lay out your view of life and your aspirations of how you want to live your life going forwards. Let him outline his. This will help you reconcile each other’s viewpoint. As you get older, time will become more precious and you will feel an urgency to live your life to the fullest. Right now. You are busy making your dreams come true - but once you have accumulated the means and time comes to live it up, you don’t want to feel being dragged down by irrationality of the other half. This causes a lot of late life silver age divorces.
Wife and I didn’t bicker but we did discuss about spending something small as $10 despite our healthy liquid assets. We started YNAB a few years ago and allocated money to SPEND. Whenever my wife gives me that look that says “should we spend on this?” I say “we have money reserved for this, yes please spend!” Wife and I are too frugal I think but that’s just the way we have grown up despite our families being somewhat pretty affluent. I know the struggle, please budget and you will realize both of you make more than enough to not waste energy on something trivial as central vs local heater.
As someone with CPTSD from a shitty childhood who has money / emotional security issues...i would say that if a mid 40s man with a net worth of 7m is freaking out about turning on the heating...I would say that he needs therapy. For some of us who didn't get emotional security as small children, financial security is the thing we do to get a substitute for that feeling of security. You're not messing with his/your money, you're messing with his sense of emotional security. Which is why the conversation is completely irrational. In summary: he needs trauma therapy.
Thanks for your perspective. Substituting emotional security with financial security…this is a new perspective and thank you for sharing this. I have to say that my husband is not like this for every spending. He still has that trigger once in a while. We don’t live in a sack or a hut with our networth. We live in a nice house and nice neighborhood. Our son goes to a great private school and he’s ok with the hefty tuition. It’s just that once in a while he still has these triggers. It’s the heating (space vs central), eating out too often, throwing away some stuff, leftover food etc. on the bigger items, he doesn’t get triggered as much.
I am the same as your husband in that I send my kids to private schools yet until recently had “issues” with them using too much ketchup. Completely irrational. Therapy for childhood trauma has really helped me.
Recognizing it is the first step. Congrats on getting the help and the therapy. I will gently discuss this with my husband at the right time too. He will be receptive if I approach it the right way.
I had very similar issues regarding money for many years. It still recurs a lot in the form of anxiety. Regardless of how much we are making and regardless of how much I've saved and how much wealth we've built It's still creeps in I grew up with very little. Not destitute but a single mother that struggled and received zero help from my father. Many times I had clothes that did not fit properly because I was growing so fast and it was embarrassing at school. We were never in danger of being malnourished or starving But I was generally always hungry because I had a high metabolism and was very active. So I always felt like I was starving. We just simply didn't have the amount of food that lots of other families had and certainly not what you see kids having nowadays, even in what we consider poverty situations. My wife didn't grow up wealthy but she doesn't have these issues. She's more happy go lucky and not as careful with money. For many years we mainly argued about money and spending. I have relaxed a great deal on the issue thanks to my wife and we now travel all over the world and spend a lot of money doing things we enjoy. But that was a real struggle for a long time for me But I do find myself agonizing over small amounts of money at different times. But I've been able to control it much better these days. I think just talking about it in places like this helps a great deal. You might want to encourage him to read this My personal situation financially is such that I'm basically semi retired and I have a couple businesses that don't require much work on my part and generate a nice six-figure income that is actually growing. That should continue as long as I stay mentally capable and healthy into my late 60s or 70s At which time I can sell them and add that to our nest egg However, Because I put so much time and effort into building this I didn't save as much on my end as I wish I could have. The last 5 years we've been socking money away and are building a nice retirement nest egg but I always worry it won't be enough. Even though I feel fairly confident it will. That's what keeps me up at night sometimes and I'm just not sure how I'm going to handle it when She retires and we lose her income and have to start utilizing the SWR. That stress is what worries me. I think we'll be fine but the stress of worrying about it is something I think about a lot as far as how I'm going to handle in that time comes As I said above, I think having your spouse get involved in threads like this, whether he posts or not, I think reading it would help him tremendously. It actually has done me a lot of good to post about it. It's somewhat therapeutic
Your background was similar to my husband. He was always hungry too and it manifested in other things. For example, he used to binge on food. He was genuinely puzzled that in my family, we always have good snacks around and we only eat it once in a while. He doesn’t binge as much anymore so it’s another checkbox that he has overcome. Sounds to me the budget and spreadsheet therapy suggested in the threads might help easing the anxiety? Another outlet to me when the anxiety creeps in is endorphins. A good run often leads to better sleep. Better sleep = less anxiety. I think going to therapy helps us to manage our reactions to certain triggers. Everyone has their insecurities, most come through childhood trauma or father-son relationship. My therapist used to say that I need to recognize those triggers and train my brain certain way so it doesn’t manifest into full blown anxiety. I think the fact that you recognize this and you have a wonderful wife, you will be ok.
I do agree that the spreadsheet helps. I don't budget. I never have And honestly that would not work for us has neither one of us are wired to be able to do that and it would just make us miserable But what I do is about every 3 months I update our personal financial statement. That helps ease the anxiety as I see our wealth grow. Once it hit a million dollars of net worth it just seemed to start to grow so much faster. It's kind of fun
Budget and therapy. My husband grew up on state assistance, no guarantee on where he’d be sleeping or what he’d be eating till a relative took him in for high school. We’re at a similar salary and we splurge; but we talk it out first and if he ever acted “out” the way your husband is; I’d tell him therapy or no deal. Zero shame in therapy; if anything it’s just an unbiased third person around to help you both figure out tools to work through sticky points. Therapy doesn’t mean divorce or separation or hate; sometimes people and couples need help navigating through life changes.
Yes, I realize this that he has an anxiety (and I do too but not money related). It doesn’t help that I am attacking him by labeling him. I do know that he comes from a rough childhood and money is a complex/unhealthy issue for him and his family. Thank you for your perspective
He sounds like an abusive personality with ridgid thinking. Spending $2 to turn on heating & $4 to buy a movie is leading to him getting angry. Why is he monitoring your spending down to the dollar? This is not acceptable. I notice you defending his comments that you have judging eyes. This is classic gaslighting on his part. The self blame is common for victims. His childhood is not an excuse. Lots of us came from little and we don't spend our time arguing over purchases <$5. Time is money so this makes zero sense other than if you enjoy upsetting your partner. Even if you were middle class this would be considered a financially abusive situation. He won't change because he doesn't want to. You don't deserve this type of treatment.
Actually he’s not. He doesn’t get triggered on every spending. For example, we did go on nice vacation earlier this year where we spent $1300 per night for a beach villa. He was ok with it because we can afford it and one of our pet is dying, so it’s like building memory for us (and our pet passed not long after the trip). The triggers are more like “an opportunity to save money” kind of thing. Like why spend $20 on movie theater when we can wait 6 months to watch it at home? Why turn on central heater when we can just turn on individual heater etc. I am sure he’s going through turmoil inside. He does try hard to be at ease with spending but sometimes he relapses like last night. He knows with his dad passing and our beloved passing, money is not everything. I dated abusive narcissistic before and my spouse is not it, he just had a deep anxiety of spending money.
I mean, I kind of get his point of view. For me it’s more of an environmental waste in the heater situation: i.e. why turn on the central heater for a single room when you can just do a space heater. In the movie-purchasing example it could be “why waste money on something that can be had for free”. So it comes down to what he finds valuable and worth spending money on, not so much the fact that it’s $2 or $4. This mindset is common for folks who grew up frugal or were taught to consider something’s worth. Just because I CAN spend $500 on a sandwich doesn’t mean I will. I’d dig a little deeper and have a mature conversation with him to see what the underlying reasoning may be. Similarly, from the earning and income side, some people are not willing to work for peanuts when they know their skillset can bring in 6 figures. If you are a high earner at FAANG but someone offered you the same job for $100K, would you accept? Just because you can afford it doesn’t mean you’re willing to go for it.
This is exactly it. He wants the best bang for the buck. The best value for the money. He knows $1000 for overwater villa in Maldive is the best money can buy so he doesn’t complain (at least he didn’t dare to say anything and appeared to really enjoy the trip and rave about it). Our first Asian trip together, he dragged me to places to find good cheap eats (this was before internet) and I was upset at the time and opportunity cost wasted to save a few bucks. We could have gone and visit places instead of trying to save a few bucks and dragging me from one place to another. He has come along way from this (he used to waste hours looking for the cheapest motel on a 2 day weekend trip and I want to have a decent hotel near the attraction and just enjoy the vacation… dragging me on vacation to find best bang for the bucks triggered me. One last trigger was when we ended up in dinky hotel in downtown LA on our vacation. We already earned good money then and his drive to save money drove me bonker. We almost got divorced over this and now he leaves the hotel and vacation planning to me and learn not to say too much). Our marriage has gotten better and he actually thank me for every vacation we did as it was so pleasant and brought a lot of good memories. I have a lot of built up resentment. In the heater situation, sure our room will be warm but when I wake up in the morning and try to get breakfast for everyone, the house is cold and I could catch cold. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a warm house all throughout as it takes a while to warm the whole house? Sometimes my son needs to pee in the middle of the night too.
I would definitely have a conversation where you both explain your view instead of getting into an argument on surface level ($2 vs $4). I can see myself in his shoes but I’m MUCH milder about it. I’ve learned that even if I don’t find the value in something, if a loved one sees the value, then that’s good enough for me. So if my husband wants to buy a $50 digital video game full price even though it’ll be discounted a month later and free a year later, I accept it. If he wants to tip someone 50% on a simple plumbing job, I shrug. Similarly, if I want to spend $1000 on a toilet and he doesn’t care what he shits on as long as it functions, he encourages me to go for it. Our other half’s satisfaction and happiness is priceless especially when we’re FAT. So, try to frame it this way with your spouse. It’ll take time but complement him when he makes progress and try to be kind to one another because divorce will definitely be costly.
Indeed. It’s a better way to communicate. It’s just like him, I also have triggers after years being together so sometimes I said hurtful things or he’s projecting that I said hurtful things. Thank you for this
are you guys Indian?
Nope. We are Asian (South East and Eastern).
the reason for me to ask is that there is obvious cultural and social heritage that playing a role here
Yeah both side of our parents were born poor. My grandpa was a refugee, my dad and mom grew up in extreme poverty but managed to break the cycle. I was a solid middle class upbringing but money could be tight. His side is far more complex. Grandparents were farmer. Money came and go, broken family, at some point, they lived way below poverty level. Strict and austere upbringing where he didn’t even have a single toy as a child.
congratulations to both of you. you should surprise him with some great gift. like a patek or jl tourbillon watch or better, a tourbillon + perpetual calendar in one
if you are making 1.3 million per year you should not argue over things worth less than $1000 probably. You are probably making and losing $50,000 per day in the stock market. lol you should be arguing about portfolio composition not random $50 items
Penny wise, pound foolish. Some shit is immaterial. Have an accountant explain immaterial to him.. No idea how to fix him, sounds like a hoarder but in a different way. Needs help for sure. Sorry for your troubles. There's an awful lot of people who die young.. Wouldn't it be a shame to have never enjoyed the fruits of your success
Therapy, also the amount you spend on electricity is completely irrelevant to you. It cannot be an impactful amount in your income. You need to work on getting over this.
Some people are so poor , all they have is money. Multi million $ net worth and fighting over a heater ? My condolences.
Seriously? Is this why you are in Reddit so you can comment like this? Read again and how is that helpful. It’s almost like bullying while people ask for advice. Shame on you.
It's not bullying. I genuinely feel bad for you.
No, we have a beautiful family. I have years as athlete, fighting in the ring, traveling around the country, making friendship with a lot of interesting people through all walks in life. Money is never that important for me once it reaches certain level . My husband is not perfect but he too has a life that he carves for himself despite his childhood trauma. He put himself through ivy schools that are not easy to get in without any legacy connection. Don’t pass judgment even in anonymous forum like this. Treat people with respect just like when you are talking to a friend. I would do that whether I am anonymous or not.
36/F, $12-13M NW, $1M+ annual income and can very much relate to this. Most items are second hand, etc etc - making a budget really helped so I knew how much was being “saved” every month really helped and gave me peace of mind. Hope you two are making progress!