3 Solutions to Common Money Problems in Marriage

1. Blow money

The first thing that we have in place to avoid those money arguments is blow money. This is fun money or blow money, whatever you want to call it, that each spouse is allotted each month to spend on whatever they would like guilt-free.

Me and my husband get the same amount of money each month, and you will have to determine what your budget can afford in this category, but this just saves us from all sorts of unpleasant interactions.

Maybe you are saving toward a big goal, and ice cream is not part of your normal food budget, then that's what you have blow money for.

So if somebody wants ice cream, if somebody wants Taco Bell, they are totally free to spend their own money on that, spend their blow money on that, and no questions asked.

So this means we are not checking in with each other every time we decide to go out with a friend or buy that book or, for my husband, buy that flashlight. He doesn't need to ask me at all.

We don't have to give each other permission. It's just one less conversation that we have to have every time there's a money decision to be made. We want to be on the same page about our money, but we also have a little bit of money where we don't have to be on the same page at all.

If I want to have a Hallmark movie subscription, that is totally up to me. So this is just guilt-free spending for each of us. My husband normally spends his on ice cream or fun foods that are not necessities or flashlights. I normally spend mine on books and clothes and cute stuff like my sparkly phone case. Stuff like that.

So you get to be totally free with your blow money and do whatever you want to do with it. I find this saves us from so many arguments because I don't get an opinion about what he's spending his money on, and he doesn't get an opinion about what I'm spending my money on.

2. Communicate right away

The more we put things off, whatever it may be, the more likely that someone will feel like they didn't hear about that, and they're like, why didn't you tell me about that?

So if you just have the rule that you're just going to tell the other person right away whatever happened, like, hey I just bought this, hey I just did this, hey the kids needed new pants, hey we just got the power bill, and this was how much it was.

We're always texting each other or sending each other pictures of random things that we spent money on so that we can always know what's going on right away so we don't forget to tell each other about what happened that was important.

This has saved us from so many arguments because when you find out later, you're like, why did you do that? Why did I not hear about this for two weeks? That understandably can make anybody mad or upset. So if you just talk right away, you can avoid that problem.

3. Track your money

Last but not least, you buy it, you track it. This has helped us avoid a lot of money arguments about where's that receipt from last week? Didn't you go to the store? Wait a minute, I thought you spent $50 here, but like where did that go? So if you bought something, you get to do the task of recording it or putting it in the correct spot.

Part of our money accounting system is that we put our receipts on the side of the fridge. So if I went to Fred Meyer I've got to put that on the side of the fridge. Or if I spent money buying the kid's books, I need to notate that somewhere either in the budget or on the whiteboard that's on our fridge because I spent the money on Amazon.

I'm responsible for tracking that because it's almost impossible to go back through everything and be like, oh, did we account for that? Oh, did you account for this? Oh, wait a minute, you wrote it there, but I didn't write it there. There is the potential for so many issues.

So if you buy something somewhere, it's your responsibility to deal with that transaction and make sure it gets recorded somewhere.

Money problems in marriage & their solutions

Share in the comments with our fellow couples; how do you avoid money arguments? What helps you? Share your ideas for money problems in marriage solutions.