It’s Have the Talk Day. What’s that, you ask? Have the Talk Day is a day to have the difficult conversation you’ve been avoiding. Whether you’ve been avoiding a conversation about money, relationships, discipline, or anything else, make a commitment today to have that talk.
Since this is a personal finance and frugality blog, I’m going to talk about how Have the Talk Day pertains to discussions about money. For you married folks out there, it’s important to get on the same page as your spouse in regard to your finances. And that’s not always an easy thing to do.
Having an open conversation with your spouse about financial goals and financial realities can go a long way toward fostering peace in your relationship. Money is one of the most frequent causes of conflict in a marriage. If you can figure out how to make peace about money, your relationship will certainly be smoother.
My husband and I have had many money problems, but we rarely fight about money. There are several reasons why. First, we talk about money a lot. Even though I do all of the bill paying, Jim always has a pretty good idea of how much money we have in the bank, what bills are coming up, and how much we can afford to spend at any given time.
We’re not independent. Though we spend small amounts of money without consulting each other, we discuss big purchases. In better financial times, I would call Jim before spending over $100 on something. Now that money is tight, I can’t imagine making a $50 purchase without letting him know.
We try to understand each other. Instead of getting angry when I see Jim walk in the door with a $6 Fantasy Football magazine, I try to look at things from his point of view. He enjoys Fantasy Football (and basketball, and baseball…), and in the grand scheme of things, $6 isn’t a big deal. So I let him enjoy it. And he does the same for me. I’m sure he doesn’t get why I love shopping at Bath & Body Works, but he gives me the freedom to shop without complaining about it. Arguments crop up when one person tries to take complete financial control. Marriage is a partnership.
Finally, we don’t keep secrets from each other. I’ve written about this before, but I think it’s worth repeating. Honesty is important in marriage. If you’re lying to your spouse about money, what else are you lying about? Even if the conversation is uncomfortable, give your partner the respect of a straightforward conversation, rather than sneaking around behind his back.
If you find that having a conversation about money (or any other issue is difficult), check out the Have the Talk Day website. Take the quiz to discover your communication style, or read tips for having that difficult conversation.
Also, I have two copies of Difficult Conversations to give away. Difficult Conversations is written by Douglas
Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen, members of the Harvard Negotiation Project. The authors walk you through what is really happening during a difficult conversation.
During any conversation, there are really three conversations happening: The “What Happened” Conversation, The Feelings Conversation, and the Identity Conversation. Difficult Conversations helps you identify each of these conversations and deal with the underlying issues. The book also helps you formulate what to say, so you get your point across in a fair and accurate manner.
To win a copy of the book Difficult Conversations, just leave a comment telling me what subject you have a hard time talking about. I’ll close the comments Sunday at 7 pm PST and draw two winners with a random number generator. The giveaway is open to anyone with a mailing address, but keep in mind I’ll be shipping the books the least expensive way, so if you’re not in the United States, the book may take a while to reach you.
Good luck, and set a time to have that conversation!
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I need to talk to my husband about his not telling me when we get a bill (I think he just forgets). I hate these talks because I don’t want to put blame, but it’s kind of his fault. So I’m going to figure something out. :)
I’ve been reading your blog for a while, but haven’t commented yet. So, hello!
My husband and I have a lot more debt than we’re comfortable with (right after the birth of our son, he was laid off and I was moved to part-time, so our savings were gone and we used the credit cards…). Now that we’re both working full-time, we’ve talked and are starting to turn that around.
Anyways, I would like to talk to my husband about giving regularly to charity. We stopped giving for a while and haven’t gotten back in the habit. Since our budget is pretty tight, I’ve been relunctant to bring it up, but maybe today’s the day to try to do that.
I had a difficult conversation today before I even read this post! My partner doesn’t realise that he spends more than he earns…so I sat down and calculated all his income and expenses for the last two months using his internet bank statements. In that time he spent over $1100 more than he earns. For me that was a difficult conversation, explaining to him just how much he spent, particularly on nights out drinking. We live together, we’re not married, we have a joint household account and it’s definitely a case of mine, yours, ours. But we plan to get married in the next five or six years and in that time he’ll go from a full-time job in the defence force back to uni and we’ll have bought a house by then. So part of the difficulty of the talk was telling him that this has to be nipped in the bud now before it becomes a problem later when it’s our money, we have a mortgage and we’re on one or 1.5 income!
I think the next difficult conversation will be actually getting him to write a budget…encouraging him to take that step from “good idea” to “let’s do it now”.
The most difficult conversations for me are when I am put in a situation I haven’t been in before, particularly meeting new people or being in that dreaded job interview. As best I can, I try to relate to something trivial or try to find familiar territory to break the ice.
I used to have a hard time talking about money. the blog kind of cured that. Although I’d like to figure out how to tell my brother he should save more for retirement without sounding preachy.
With the spouse, I can talk about most everything pretty comfortably. I’d say if there is one topic we need to work on, it’d be in the realm of intimacy of the adult kind. lol.
It is nearly time for our yearly “plans for money” discussion… I always dread it. It seems like we’re still never where we want to be. I’m going to try to bring it up tonight while we’re going through our yearly insurance documentation from work – making sure we have the right plans and amounts in place.
At this point in my life, my mother’s finances (uncontrolled, compulsive spending and deep debt) are the source of 99% of my difficult conversations. This is also the source of the majority of my stress these days — and with everything going on in my life that’s saying a lot! ;-)
My mother’s finances are not only a source of difficult conversations and a strained relationship between my mom and I, but they affect my marriage and my relationship with my three siblings as well.
Great post Lynnae!!!
It used to be money, but no more. We budget together now and communicate constantly about our finances. Made a world of difference.
I think the most difficult at this point is about our families and family related difficulties. We are each a bit protective and defensive about our families, so that leads to some “difficult conversations”.
These are awesome books, I’ve listened to the audio book twice.
Great post. I like the bit about being able to spend $6 on what you want without upsetting your spouse.
PS, since you’re into this, I was wondering if you would recommend the Dave Ramsey stuff. My SIL and her boyfriend are thinking about going since they are both bad with money. I, however, think that they should just spend the money on a session with a perosnal financial planner because they will get personal advice that way. Let me know what you think or make it into a post if you want.
Thanks!
@Heidi – are they thinking about doing Financial Peace University? I’ve never done that, so I don’t know whether it’s worth the money or not. If it were me, I’d probably pick up a copy of Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey and also see the personal financial planner. TMM goes through all the steps you’d learn at FPU, though probably not as in depth.
Sounds like a good topic for a “You Tell Me” post.
I am very open with my wife, so our relationship is very good. After reading your post and taking the quiz, I do recognize that I have to do better with my parents and employees. With the latter groups, I am not as effective with difficult conversations.
The constant struggle for my husband and I are his family’s on going financial problems, mistakes, and general foolishnes. His father ran the family finances into the ground with loans, while his mother contributed on the side of consumer debt. They even went as far as to activate a credit card in his name once while he was in college. When he recieved the $1500+ bill, he withdrew what little he had in savings and paid it in full and closed the card.
We have a firm resolution to never loan money to either side of our family, but know that in the coming years because of neither of his parents have amassed any substantial retirement that this will become much harder and bring many difficult conversations.
My husband and I see eye to eye on most things, so we don’t have too much trouble talking about difficult topics – except finances. It stresses him out so much, he just shits down. I have to be very diplomatic and careful with bad news (too much of that lately).
(To friends about) their children’s negative behavior
My husband and I have difficulty talking to each other about what we are each doing with our money. We are often too independent of one another.
I’d really like to talk to my sister about her son and how he’s being raised(which’s good don’t get me wrong)… Just a few things that I’m worried might grow into bigger problems in the future.
Finding it to be rather difficult to bring up the subject since I just know she’ll become extremely defensive if/when I bring up the subject.
Also would like to talk to her about her spending habits, but each time it’s brought up I get shot down.
So now I’m trying to lead by example I guess, hope it rubs off.
I have had so many difficult conversations about money and the lack of it in my lifetime that the idea of having to have any more almost always brings me to tears. The one I had with my dying husband, when he thought I would get my SSI AND his Social Security, the one I had with my younger brother when he wanted me to be in charge of what he thought he had as he was dying, the one that I had with my Father who wanted me to have his house and my older brother who said I had to give it up so that our Mother could sell it and then would have some money to live on. The one I had with my Mother when I found out that she was supporting both of my brothers,the one I had with my older brother after our Mom had died and he told me that the house was now his and I might get some money from my Mother’s estate and then he withheld some of the money. The one I had with my older brother as he was dying concerning his will and how he had promised our Mother that he would take care of me and then having to buy the house that was supposed to be mine and getting once again the short end of the money from the estate. See a patteren here — now I am having to have conversations with my son concerning our expenses and his wanting to cash in his 401 account. I HATE talking about money, and here’s what I have leaned about it — if it’s not in writing, it’s not going to work. So for all of you with husbands and wives, PUT IT IN WRITING, how much, how often, where it comes from, where it goes, who takes care of it, and what to do when you you die. End of problem, end of conversation. Now go have some fun together.
The hubby and I just began to get a grip on our finances. I’ve been reading your blog for a few weeks…..great site :)
Anyway, I used to get super angry at my hubby when he would spend money frivolously on what I would consider to be unnecessary. He would tend to spend a lot too.
With our new financial plan, we each get an allowance every month to do whatever we want with it. That has worked wonders for us.
We also make it a point, once a week, to talk about all of our other spending except for the allowance money.
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