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For Love & Money is a biweekly column from Insider answering your relationship and money questions.This week, a reader’s partner wants to put them on an allowance so they can pay off student loans.Our columnist says an allowance is a good idea, but only if both partners agree on the number.Got a question for our columnist? Write to For Love & Money using this Google form.
Dear For Love & Money,
It’s my fault my partner and I aren’t saving as much as we should. I’m one of those people who loves trying new things — new hobbies, new restaurants, the new coffee shop around the corner. I’ve messed up and overspent in the past.
I’ve dialed back now, but my partner wants me to stick to a tiny allowance so we can make larger student loan payments. I want a larger fun money budget, especially since we’re looking at paying off our student loans sometime around the time we’ll be sending our newborn to college.
Blame it on my adventurous spirit; blame it on my ADHD. Either way, I don’t want to completely give up this part of myself. I love the joy I find in learning new things and exploring our city. Am I the problem here?
Sincerely,
Financially Free-Spirit
Dear Free Spirit,
To answer your question, I’ll remind you of your first sentence: It’s my fault my partner and I aren’t saving as much as we should. So yes, you’re likely the problem, but that doesn’t mean the sole solution is to change your spending habits.
I’ve found that one of the trickiest traps in personal finance is the assumption that not spending is the best and only path toward saving. There’s no getting around the fact that life costs money. Sure, we can cut luxuries and shave our expenses down as much as possible, but when it comes to saving, at some point, we have to weigh our present against the future we’re saving toward.
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While levels of self-control vary from person to person, most people struggle to set aside their present happiness in favor of an uncertain future. While sweeping resolutions like “We aren’t going to eat out until we’ve paid off our student loans!” may sound responsible, they’re not probable. Whether it’s a social outing, the end of a very long week, or midway through a road trip, there are moments when eating out makes the most sense. Your budget can either reflect this reality or not, but if it doesn’t, you’ve overspent.
My alternative to going cold turkey on self-indulgence is simple — know yourself. I see a lot of self-awareness in your letter. This is a solid foundation for creating a lifestyle that is fulfilling in the present while being responsible for your future.
But you must go beyond knowing your desires. You must also rank them and contextualize their importance. The joy that living your best free-spirited life brings you is essential, but food, housing, and paying your bills, both now and in the future, are also quite important. So use your self-awareness to achieve balance, and because you are one half of a partnership, understand that much of that balance will mean honoring your partner’s deepest needs as well as your own.
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While your partner’s desire to put you on a small allowance is unacceptable to you based on the number in question, I think an allowance is still a great compromise. It will allow you to honor who you are within parameters that respect your partner and your shared future.
That said, you are an adult, and this is your money too. You and your partner should agree on the size of your allowance. Your partner alone deciding how much money you can be trusted with is as punitive as it is controlling, and it also has the potential to turn the entire dynamic of your relationship into a paternalistic nightmare. Instead, your partner must see their number as a starting point for negotiations, and you should meet one another halfway.
As an adventurous spirit, your role in these negotiations is to be as honest with yourself about the financial realities of your life as you are about how you find joy. And when you do land on a mutually acceptable number, stick to it.
Unfortunately, most of us can only afford a fraction of the things we want in life. We can make the most out of that fraction if we’re strategic. So get creative! Figure out ways to try a hobby cheaply for a while before buying all the gear. Turn your love of new restaurants into a standing date with yourself by making the last Friday of every month your restaurant night. That way, you can enjoy looking forward to it, but you also aren’t losing track of how often you treat yourself to an expensive dinner.
See Insider’s tips for how to save money »
Beyond agreeing on a fun money budget, however, you and your partner must also agree on a budget for paying off your student loans. Debt can become so heavy that it becomes the impetus to our freedom, and our fear of that can lead us to putting it at the very top of our financial priority list. But debt is also a tool, and to your point, you understood the long-term commitment you were making when you bought that tool.
Your partner’s urgency around paying off all your student debt to completely alleviate the burden of that debt is understandable. Still, your desire to slow down on that goal and stick with the original plan is also. The solution would be to compromise on that number, just like your allowance.
This may be difficult for your partner because it sounds like they have a lot of anxiety about your student loans. As such, they see prioritizing them as the responsible thing to do. Often, when one person in a relationship sees their priorities as superior to their partners, they see compromise as unnecessary. But that’s the thing about sharing finances. The money belongs to you both equally. Even when you don’t share money values, you still have to find a way to make things fair.
Rooting for you both,
For Love & Money