Chelsea talks about how to navigate the tricky financial side of relationships, and covers the things you should never say about money to someone you love — even if you have a broke boyfriend. Learn more about tough money situations in this video:
Hey guys it’s chelsea from the financial diet and today’s video is brought to you by fresh books this week we’re going to be talking about money and relationships it’s something we’ve definitely touched on in the past but it’s so hard because there are truly a million things to talk about when it comes to money and love over on the pfd site i would say about 30
Percent of the submissions and the freelance posts that we get have something to do with money and people whether that’s friends or relationships or family members because honestly nine times out of 10 money between two people can be a real source of friction if both parties don’t know how to handle it and today we’re going to be talking about money between romantic
Partners now this can apply to really any couple but obviously it’s even more applicable if you live together or share finances at cfb we have heard and honestly personally experienced enough horror stories that we know some of the biggest landmines when it comes to money communication whether you’re just dating or married with kids the way you talk about money
With your partner matters so here are some of the things you should never ever say to your partner about money you don’t make enough money now let’s be clear sometimes a couple genuinely does not have enough money to make ends meet and sometimes people are not advocating for themselves enough when it comes to their salary or they’re simply not working enough to
Put in their share the idea of not having enough money as a couple is a real thing and for example when laura and i were starting tfd there was a year-long period where i was really not bringing home any kind of regular salary i brought home some money but it wasn’t reliable and it wasn’t enough conversations about how i was going to increase the amount of money i
Was contributing to our relationship definitely happened but the idea that i was not making enough never came up because here’s the bottom line saying to someone you don’t make enough money is the best way to make them feel ashamed and embarrassed and childlike chances are nine times out of ten if someone is not bringing in enough money it’s not because they don’t
Want to and sure if you look at a person and say oh they’re really not trying to contribute to this couple that’s another story but if you do feel that they’re trying their best and for whatever reason they’re not able to contribute enough shaming them is a terrible way to approach it if your finances are shared in any way you have to approach money as a team and
In a good team there is no such thing as shame and saying you don’t make enough money have a constructive team-based conversation about how can we increase the money that we have coming in every month maybe if something as simple as hey can i help you practice the conversation you might want to have with your boss to get that raise you’ve been looking for one of
The best parts about being in a relationship is that you do have that teammate and that partner to take on the world together you should be building each other up and encouraging each other to do everything that you’re capable of together not shaming them for not being up to snuff another thing you should never say is i get to spend more because i make more one
Of the most dangerous things in any relationship is a power imbalance and asserting that somehow you have more of a decision-making power in a relationship because you have a financial advantage is a really quick way to erode trust create that power imbalance and make the other person feel ashamed this kind of mentality doesn’t always lead to financial abuse but
It’s a slippery slope kind of conversation that we talked about in a previous video on financial abuse which we will link you to in the description basically any time someone is asserting their dominance in a relationship that way be wary it doesn’t matter if one partner earns ten times what the other one does in a healthy relationship earning more does not give
You the right to dictate the terms of the finances nor does it mean that you get to treat the person like they’re on a financial diet while you get to spend whatever you want and similarly you should never say it’s not your business what i spend my money on yes obviously if someone is tracking your spending or trying to keep track of every purchase you’re making
That’s a huge red flag and terrible but generally speaking in a healthy relationship there should be no purchases that you’re uncomfortable with the other person being aware of surprise parties and christmas gifts aside the point is having this attitude of like it’s not your business it’s not your business makes people start to feel secretive and even ashamed
About the money they’re spending and if you have combined finances to any extent both parties have a right to be at least moderately aware of where money is going yes if you have separate money or part of your money that is separate it is totally right and justified to spend that money however you want it whether it’s on books or travel or video games or whatever
But creating an air of secrecy around your money is not healthy it’s all about balance no someone shouldn’t be asking you about every detail of your spending but if you’re really feeling that secretive about your spending you should probably ask yourself why and some is combined in any way you both have a total right to know where it’s going i used to have a voicing
For example where we did not have combined finances but we had a lot of purchases that we went in on together and we would be in situations where we would both agree to buy something but he would spend on other things along the way that meant that when it came time to make that decided on purchase he didn’t always have the money and he would get really defensive
And tell me to my face it’s not your business what i spend my money on there were a million reasons why that relationship didn’t work out but the disrespect around what we agreed and committed to do together financially was definitely one of them if you guys as a couple have big financial goals that you’ve agreed to both work hard toward get used to the idea that
Your money is their goddamn business and vice versa now when it comes to reaching those financial goals saying things like how could you not know about insert ex financial term here is really bad chances are in any given couple one person is going to be more financially informed than the other there’s going to have to be a little bit of a learning curve for both
Parties and if you’re not ready to make a commitment to help someone in that learning process you are not ready to make the commitment to that financial goal with them shaming someone for not being quite as informed of you or for not being great on that learning curve is really unfair most people especially most women do not have a great financial education growing
Up and when it comes to things like for example buying a house for the first time that is going to involve a lot of basic 101 things like even just learning terms both parties have to be committed to the idea that they are learning together at the slower person’s pace and lastly in any healthy couple money is a shared open communicative thing and one key ingredient
To that is neither party ever feeling embarrassed about what is financially important to them and so that means that you should never say something like it’s stupid that you waste money on ex insert thing here for example mark enjoys spending his discretionary money on things like video games board games and computer stuff and something called a twitch stream and
Just all these things that i don’t even understand i would never spend my money on those things and i meanwhile love spending my discretionary money on zillions of pillows and plants and fresh flowers and things from my kitchen and stuff that mark would never spend his money on both of us make personal financial decisions that bring us joy and don’t affect the other
Or our common goals and while yes we are generally very open about how we spend our money a part of that is that we can’t ever judge the other person for it yes mark will sometimes tease me that i have bought most of the back episodes of real housewives of new york on youtube but he doesn’t think it’s bad he just thinks it’s funny and because none of it is ever
Secretive or that feeling of like it’s not your business none of us ever feels that weird sting of like oh i didn’t know you spent all that money mark doesn’t have to ask me when he buys a new computer part but he does it out of respect and vice-versa and if either of us were ever shaming the other person about how they chose to spend their money that would stop
The more your money life together can feel like an open fluid conversation and never like it’s competitive or resentful the better secrets kill a couple rarely more so than when it comes to money so the open never shane each other and when it comes to your mutual financial goals it’s both of your business so as always thank you guys for watching and don’t forget
To come back every tuesday for new and awesome videos bye this video was brought to you by fresh books as you guys know lorne and i run tfd which means a lot of number crunching and voicing and keeping track of paperwork and if you’ve ever freelance side household or has your own project you probably know what it feels like to get overwhelmed just keeping track
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Get paid faster and best of all it was designed with people in mind who are really bad with numbers like me and freshbooks is offering thd viewers a free 30 day unrestricted trial to try it out go to fresh books calm / psd or slash the financial diet and enter the financial diet and how did you hear about a section start getting paid faster with fresh book you
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Things You Should Never Say About Money In A Relationship | The Financial Diet By The Financial Diet