Have you ever noticed that you really want to make progress with your money, but it seems like your partner just doesn’t care as much? In most relationships there is one partner who manages the money and another who is more along for the ride. It can be extremely frustrating and stressful for the partner trying to make the changes because suddenly your partnership feels like you’re on an iceberg trying to wrangle your money and likely getting more and more frustrated with your partner. So what can you do to get on the same page, tackle your financial goals as a team, and get your partner on board with a budget?
The best way to get your partner on board with a budget is for you to make it personal and explain why it’s so important to you and even how achieving the goal will benefit them. Let’s dive into two examples to see how this could play out in your life.
Example 1: If your financial goal is to save $5,000 for a vacation and your partner does not understand why they should cut back on how many times a week they can eat lunch at a restaurant, you need to explain why it’s important and how it will benefit them. So you might say: “this vacation in Florida is really important to me because when we go in September it will give us a break from work and it will give us a chance to relax and reconnect. If we have the money saved before our trip, we can get back and not have extra stress because we have a big credit card balance. If we have a credit card balance from the trip we’ll end up spending more money because of the interest payments on the credit card. Our trip is 3 months away. Do you think you could bring lunch from home twice per week until our trip so we can meet our $5,000 goal? Once we have the $5,000, you can go back to your normal schedule of eating lunch out or we can pick another fun goal to focus on.”
Now you might be thinking that this example is easy because it isn’t too hard to see the benefits of a vacation. So let’s look at an example that might be a little more challenging to get your partner on board with a budget.
Example 2: If you have $5,000 in credit card debt at 18% interest and minimum payments of $200, you would have the debt paid off in 2 years and 7 months if you only made minimum payments. Your goal is to have your credit card debt paid off in 1 year. You know that in order to achieve this goal you’ll have to pay $475 per month towards your credit card instead of the $200 minimum payment. To help get your partner on board you need to explain why this is so important for you. For example, you can start by telling your partner that every time you make payment to your credit card it makes you sad because you’re using your money to pay for the past instead of paying things you can enjoy today. You can explain that if you pay the credit card debt off on this faster schedule you will save $830 in interest payments. Then, to make it even more clear to help your partner get on board with a budget, start to dream with them. When we don’t have that money going towards our credit card debt, what would you be excited to do with that money? Maybe you can go on an extra date night per month and then still be saving the extra money. If you get focused for one year, you can get out of this debt and move forward with spending money on things to enjoy today and saving money to enjoy the future.
When you and your partner can work together and dream about your future together, it can be a lot easier to work hard in the short term and achieve your financial goals. Whether you’re a saver or a spender, working together with your partner for your shared financial goal you’ll bond and realize that working together you can achieve your goals more quickly. Once you get your partner on board with a budget you’ll achieve your goals twice as fast.
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