Forget about budget commitment and managing your finances for a while
Ask yourself before trying to convince your spouse to stick to a budget commitment
Are you happy in your marriage?
Do you really love your spouse?
Is your spouse happy with you?
If there is at least one No to any of the above questions
You need a marriage counselor if you really want to save your marriage
But if your answer is yes to the first two questions and you get yes from your spouse on the last question
Great, you have a good basis with your spouse to start working together as a team on your monthly budget
There can be a real damage to your marriage because of money issues
Not being able to fulfill the basic household expenses and paying essential bills are really devastating
This happens when a husband couldn’t resist buying his Harley Davidson motorcycle or a wife getting dresses from Nordstrom
Anyway if you still have love to one another
Let me help to establish a budget commitment between both of you
Open your heart to each other
This is the best part in the whole article that can really turn your spouse to agree for a budget commitment
But remember you have to do it the right way
This can only happen by sacrificing and turning your ego off for a while
The key success to really get your spouse to open his heart to you is to stop defending yourself
If you feel your husband is not responsible please pay attention to his answer to the below question and don’t interrupt him or defend yourself
Ask him if you really fulfill his desires emotionally and more important physically
Same thing applies to you as a husband when you ask your wife the above question
Don’t rush for budget commitment until you resolve any issues between both of you
As it doesn’t make sense to ask for budget commitment while she is retaliating for neglecting her emotions and seeking attention from you
Or on the other hand side, he is retaliating for not fulfilling his physical desires
If you love each other and your relationship is built on mutual understanding
Then it is perfect time to open discussion why your spouse is reluctant to help in your household budget
Do your best to understand his reply back
Is it because he has personal spending that you want to cut?
does he view the whole budgeting as nonsense? perhaps due to previous budgeting mistakes that pissed him off budgeting
He is not into numbers something like Mathematical anxiety?
Use “We” instead of “Me”
The first step towards convincing your spouse who refuses budget commitment is that you have to trust each other
I hear real stories of couples who don’t have a joint bank accounts
If you want to manage your finances together and agree on a budget plan it would rather be better to switch your bank accounts to a joint one first
Always use “we” instead of “me” especially when talking about building a family budget
It’s OK to reassure him that both of you are in the same boat and you will never drill it as you will drown together
Same thing with Budget, you have to confirm with him that it is a “we” problem
Stop saying “you are not willing to stick to a budget commitment” or “you are responsible for what we are now”
Speak about the current situation as if both of you are responsible where you stand now
Understand the weakness in both of you
We all suffer from selfishness and love to possess discretionary items and that is normal
What is inappropriate when you blame your partner for his weakness towards something you don’t crave
Remember money means different things to all of us but the core purpose of money is for fun, investing and giving
We are all born with different perspectives when we think about money
For example if me and my wife get extra money like tax refund or bonus
I tend to think first about saving money and investing like increasing the emergency fund with this money while my wife thinks instantly about giving some money away to the Church
She has more faith than me but I put my trust in her decision
The good thing is that we both don’t think about using the extra money in the fun part unless it is really something that has been waiting for long time
My point here is to understand the weakness in you and your spouse
This can help address any issues that may arise when trying to convince your spouse to stick to budget commitment
Any conflict in finances where one is a saver and the other is a spender is one of the top common reason for divorce according to Huffpost
Create separate plans and review them together
If you opened your hearts to each other and addressed your money issues with the “we” scenario followed by fully understanding his weakness in how he perceives money
You can move to the next step by asking him to create a separate plan on how he allocates your combined income into the fun, investing and giving criteria
Keep in mind that fun includes all the fixed, variable and discretionary expenses
Also you have to create a separate plan for you as you have to compare your allocated amounts to his amounts
To make this exercise practical and interesting
Skip all the fixed expenses like mortgage/rent and all essential bills
Ask him to create a plan for all variable and discretionary expenses you can control after making sure that you already deducted all the fixed expenses from income
Now compare your spending plans together
The interesting part comes when you read how much your allocated amounts for his discretionary items against what he allocated to himself
Same thing applies to your own discretionary expenses which you allocated to yourself and what he assigned to you
I will say it again you should not taunt him for allocating high amounts for himself or for low amounts for yourself
Time to be more specific
This is a good time to compromise and come up with how to setup a reasonable amounts and ask him to stay committed to this budget
Budget commitment will not happen if he believes you slashed his amounts
Sit together and make sure any deduction you have to do it together
Best practice is to check percentages of what both of you spend on yourselves
I always believe you should attempt to smartly deduct from biased expenses that both of you don’t care if they got changed
See if you can get few savings to be added to his amounts to support him
If you want him to respect this budget commitment then show him that you can lower your own discretionary amounts in favor of keeping his amounts
Finally come up with a plan to pay off your debt and go for money saving challenges together
You can use the ultimate budget bundle to help you manage your budget
Let us compromise together
Even if you are the one who sacrificed to satisfy him
Make it clear that he should be content about what you both allocated to his discretionary amounts
It is time to state that you cannot manage your household budget alone
Be clear that you definitely need him dedicated for this budget commitment
Encourage responsibility
Now it is a good time to encourage him that he can work on his spending to keep it close to what you both agreed upon
Tell him that you will do the same for your spending
Ask for a weekly meeting to review your amounts and make sure there are no discrepancies from what you both planned for
If your husband shows any sign of budget commitment encourage him to keep up the good work
But if he is not showing any interest attending your weekly budget review or your monthly budget plan
Take it easy as long as he is following your plan
I would ask you to make to summarize your assessment and review it with him
Show him that you really miss his feedback and you expect him to join you next time
We can work it out
Remember focus only on what you can control like your spending and sticking to a family budget but not your spouse
Give him the space when it comes to the idea of living on a budget
Do your best to keep the communication open and never leave him and walk away
Be patient and understanding with how you present the budget idea to him
Show him how important to have a budget commitment for both of you
Definitely following the above advice will get him on board on your budget
Now it is good time to read how to manage your budget on low income and what to do if you are living paycheck to paycheck