#1 Money Rule for Couples: You Must Play Together to Stay Together

Welcome to The Finance Gym Action Plan for a Better Life with Money video series. My name is Stacey Powell, and if you’re ready not just to know better, but do better with your money, then you’ve come to the right place.

Lately, we’ve been talking about our relationship with money and how it impacts our financial life. Today, we’re going to be talking about one of my favorite pieces of advice for couples, and that is to have monthly money date night.

I don’t care if you’ve been married for 50 years, if you’re a newlywed or if you’re thinking about getting married. Having a money date night every month can make a huge impact on your financial life.

Here are a couple of reasons why:

1. The only time you talk about it is when you’re trying to solve a problem, a big enough problem that requires the both of you to talk about it. It’s usually frustrating, stressful, ugly. So that’s your framework for how you show up to any conversation about money because most of your conversations are kind of icky, and frustrating without any simple solutions.

If you consistently talk to your significant other about money, your goals, and your dreams, you’re laying a framework in your head that that’s your money conversations are good. Not just icky stuff.

Then when the icky stuff happens, you’re much better equipped with a shared language and know how to work together. So that’s reason number one.

2.  It’s a stereotype, but I think it’s a true stereotype. In most couples, you’ve got the person that loves spreadsheets, loves accounting software, loves all that stuff and figuring out. Then you’ve got this person over here who wants absolutely nothing to do with any of it and is so happy that the other person is going to do it all. So there is one person making the vast majority of the decisions and actions around your money. While that might be convenient, it isn’t best. Here’s why.

I tell my clients all the time. Imagine I’m your accountant. I’m going to give you a ton of advice. I hope you’re going to take most of it. But I also hope you’re not going to take all of it because my framework – I’m conservative. I’m not always going to take risks. I’m not always going to go for the quick path. I’m going to spend 6 hours on a spreadsheet when I should have only spent 1 hour on a spreadsheet trying to make a decision. I should have followed my intuition more, right? That’s my framework.

Another person’s framework brings great value to your financial decisions and so bringing your two heads together is actually important and better. You might think you’re not good at money, but that’s not true. That’s the story you tell yourself. You have great value to balancing out your partner.

It’s not the end-all-be-all to fixing your money situation. It’s only part of the equation. So those are my top 2 reasons why it’s really important to have money date night with your honey. Keep your marriage together, going strong, and being fun.

So if you would like to join me and more of these conversations, you can Subscribe to these videos. You can join us over at Team Do Better on Facebook whenever you can come in and talk about money, and you can also sign up for our newsletter at TheFinanceGym.com. So I want you to sign off and schedule your first money date night.

Money Management Tips - Are You Frugal or a Spendthrift?

Welcome to The Finance Gym Action Plan for a Better Life with Money Video Series. My name is Stacey Powell and if you’re ready to not just know better but do better, you’ve come to the right place.

Today we’re going to be talking about how we all spend money. Are you frugal or are you a spendthrift? I am always fascinated by the spending decisions that we all make. I have lots of clients over the years that it doesn’t matter what they buy. They’re going to buy the most expensive thing they can possibly afford.

I also have a lot of clients that it doesn’t matter what they buy. They’re going to buy the cheapest or the best deal and just be frugal about all of their spending decisions. Then there are some people right in the middle. It just depends on what they’re buying. Some things are really important to them. So they buy the best. Other things aren’t really so important. So that’s where they go and find the best deal.

I illustrate this on page 81 in the book, if you’re following me along. It’s two shopping carts full of the same six things – a couch, a watch, a TV, a necklace, a vacation and a car. These people over here, they have to have the best of, $311,000 price tag. These people over here, $16,000 price tag. It’s the same six things. When you sit on a couch, maybe it makes a little bit of a difference what kind of couch you’re sitting on. But in the end, you just need a place to sit.

So if you’re buying a $4000 couch or a $300 couch, why are you making that decision? I’m not placing the judgment on either decision. If you can afford a $4000 couch and you’re fully funding your reserves and your retirement and taking care of everything else, then by all means go buy that $4000 couch. But I also know there are a lot of people that buy that $4000 couch on credit and pay for it over many years and then they pay more for it. Why are you making those decisions? So in this video, I’m really just asking you to spend some time thinking about which side you’re on. I’m going to ask you to spend some time writing about some of your spending decisions.

In the book, page 78 and 79, I ask you to talk through your spending habits. There’s a worksheet that has a bunch of questions for you to fill in. You can go to TheFinanceGym.com and in the store, there’s a whole area of free pages of the book and we’re going to put these up there for you to go and download and fill them out even if you don’t have the book. I’m going to help you, so head on over there.

While you’re there, be sure to sign up for the newsletter. You can also go to Facebook and join our Team Do Better group, a great place to talk about your spending habits on there, you can chat with me. And also you can sign up for our video series down below so that you can catch every single one of these as they come out. Now go do some thinking about what kind of spender you are.

Stop the Money Stress!

We all have stress about money. If you have loads of money, you worry about losing it. If you have a little money, you worry about not having enough. If you’re somewhere in between, you want more. Money, money, money.

It doesn’t matter if you believe that "money is the root of all evil" or that "money = happiness." Money is necessary in our society. We all want different things when it comes to our money. The one thing we all have in common, is that we don’t want to stress about it.

So, how do you deal with your money stress? Do you stick your head in the sand and hope it goes away? But every month, it’s still there...eating away at you...But you manage, because you’ve gotten used to it. We’re adaptable creatures. If we live a certain way, for a certain period of time, it becomes normal. That doesn’t mean that it’s ok.

We all have stress about money. And the more we ignore it, the worse it gets.

I used to have an ad on my fridge of two people having coffee that said something along the lines of “you don’t need a chill out album or yoga…sometimes you just need a conversation.” This hit me like a brick wall. At the time, I was all about dealing with my stress by relaxing, but it wasn’t doing it. So, I tried a conversation. And that was just the beginning. Dealing with the cause of stress is the best way to get rid of it.

Do you want to get rid of your money stress?

•       Talk about it.
•       Track your numbers.
•       Know your goals.
•       Make a plan.
•       Take action.
•       And make sure someone is holding you accountable.

This list is easy for some, but not for others. We’re here to help. But you have to want it. It may be uncomfortable at first. It will get easier. You will feel better. You will make progress.

-Leah Schonlank

Finance Gym offers personal finance coaching in professionally facilitated peer-advisory groups. 

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