by Sam E. Jones

Created on: July 21, 2010

It’s an age old problem, one that men have faced since the invention of commerce; how to get your wife to spend less money. It’s a good question, and one that is maybe even more relevant than it used to be as in most households today, the wife is earning a lot of that money herself. The reasons a husband may want to get his wife to spend less money vary, but it generally boils down to matter of saving something for the future, or being unable to, because of over spending, and in this case, by the female half of the partnership.

It’s no longer a matter of simply giving your wife an allowance; that went out so long ago it’s hard to remember it ever existed. It’s also not a simple matter of simply asking her to spend less so that the two of you won’t have to live in a cardboard box when you retire. It’s more complicated than that because when people overspend, especially women, it comes from a deeper place than just a desire to have the things they buy. In some cases, spending serves as a sort of security blanket that allows people to go shopping when feeling insecure about things in their personal life, even if those things aren’t necessarily in jeopardy. In other cases, shopping is a means of demonstrating to oneself that their life is not an illusion; they really do have a house, kids, a husband and all the things they own. They’re a grownup, and grownups fill their homes with things everyone needs.

To get your wife to cut back on the expenses, and keep it that way, you first need to look at the reasons for her overspending. And to do this, you need to talk to her about it in ways that are grilling, yelling, judging or complaining. You need to look at it as a shared problem that the two of you can figure out how to solve together. If she sees it as a deep seated problem, a therapist might help. If she doesn’t see it as much of a problem however, then you might have to resort to logic by pulling out financial papers and going over them together so help her face the seriousness of the situation.

At any rate, once the two of you are on the same page, you need to work together on setting up a system whereby the money that is spent comes from a smaller pool. The most common way to do this is by having money automatically deducted from a checking account and then put into a savings or retirement account. That way, it’s put somewhere where it can’t be spent.

But then that leads to credit card expenditures, one of the toughest issues facing many couples today. The answer here is rather simple, but it’s one few couples try. Get rid of your regular credit cards and buy secured cards for use instead. It’s what a lot of parents do to make sure their college kids don’t overspend, so why not use them yourselves for the same purpose. It has to be done fairly of course, whereby both parties give up their regular cards, and the amount to spend on secured cards has to be agreed upon by both people as well. But when you’re talking reasonably about your financial future, it’s not something that can be refuted.

So, that’s how you get your wife to spend less money, but working with her, not by trying to control her.

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