For homework, we asked you to take on a personal challenge to help change your narrative

Kayla: Bigger kids, bigger expense

Russy: I want to stop wanting

Elisheva:  Frugal mom of twin toddlers

Tamar: Bills scare me

Welcome back, ladies. For homework, we asked you to take on a personal challenge to help change your narrative. How’d it go?

Tamar

I took on a monthly spending plan — and it’s not going well. My husband wasn’t into it because his income isn’t steady, and he also knew it would make me anxious. I downloaded the apps and then chickened out. Like, Yom Tov came, and when I ordered Chanukah paper goods for our family Chanukah party, I figured I should also order packaging for Chanukah gifts. Before I knew it, I had a huge bill, and I thought, “I can’t put that in my plan.” I dropped everything.

Tamar, you’re doing amazing! The first step in a spending plan is to be more conscious of what you’re spending. To make it less overwhelming, let’s break it down. For next week, instead of tracking everything, just track one specific category. How much are you spending on groceries? Or clothing? Focus on one.

Kayla

My husband and I were discussing this, and we realized that we have no idea where our money goes. We decided we’re going to start tracking, which is beyond overwhelming. It’s a huge, scary task.

Budgeting is hard because it’s a low-dopamine task — you don’t get a high from seeing how much you spend. That’s why we suggest breaking it into something smaller that feels more conquerable.

You can also work on the mindset around the task. Instead of saying, “We need to see where all our money disappeared to,” try, “We have enough money. Let’s allocate it into specific categories.”

Russy

My challenge was to track spending on extras. I was planning to do it on paper, but my husband made a fancy Excel sheet we can use. If my daughter has a birthday party and we order pizza, I add it to the spreadsheet. It’s been manageable.

I chose this challenge because I wanted to see how much we spend on “extras” and because it motivates me not to spend. I was in the store, about to buy something, then remembered I’d have to log it. I thought, “Never mind, I’m not going to take that.”

Tracking extras is huge. I remember when I was first married, we had a category in our budget for “coffee and Slurpees.” I thought of it as a dollar here and there — until I checked in. Turns out we were spending $150+ a month on Slurpees and other miscellaneous drinks! We would never have realized that without tracking.

Elisheva

My goal was to make a spending plan where I have a certain amount to spend in each category. I tried to cut back on groceries. We still have a ways to go, but I did spend less the last few weeks. Most of that was because I was busy and didn’t have time to go to the grocery store, so I was forced to shop through my pantry. It was a huge wake-up call. I don’t need to go to the grocery store as often as I do.

When I did go shopping, I took something out of the cart because I thought it would take me over budget. At first I was disappointed, but I actually walked out empowered.

I feel you! A friend told me that every once in a while, she would decide to treat herself to pre-checked lettuce. She’d give the bag to the cashier, and when it would ring up for $10.99, she’d say, “I’m actually not going to take that.” This woman used to be embarrassed to put things back, but then she realized that neither the cashier nor the people behind her in line are paying for her groceries. She can’t just buy something because she’s embarrassed that someone might see her put the item back. She told me that when she walks out without falling for peer pressure, she’s always proud of herself.

For this session, we’re going to ask ourselves some tough questions about money and how it plays into our relationships with our spouses.

1. What’s the biggest financial hurdle you face with your husband?
2. What would it look like if you were on the same page?
3. What’s one thing you’d ask of him to improve your money relationship?
4. What’s one thing he would ask of you?

Kayla

My biggest challenge: I often feel judged about what I spend on the kids. Why do we have to get the name brands for everything?

If we were on the same page: I think a weekly budget meeting would be huge. Even 20 minutes to check in would be amazing.

Sometimes people avoid these meetings because they’re stressful. If that’s the case, ask how you can change that. Do you need to change the location? Time? Activity? It might be as simple as getting ice cream while you do it.

One thing I would ask of him: I’m not sure. I think it would be nice to know that he’s aware I’m doing the best I can. I shop at Walmart and Aldi, running from store to store to save as much as we can. I want him to see that we’re working on this together.

One thing he would ask of me: I do my best in terms of day-to-day shopping, but he has a lot of questions about the big-ticket items, like sending our kids to camp or flying our son to and from yeshivah instead of taking Greyhound.

Tamar

My biggest challenge: Probably that he does most of it. And we have different stress tolerance levels, which leads to some discrepancies.

If we were on the same page: We’d follow a monthly spending budget. Or maybe meet with a financial planner so I could give my input.

One thing I would ask of him: When he’s stressed about finances, I don’t want him to let me know. My husband is a newer business owner, so his salary is very low. A lot of our money isn’t from a salary, it’s from payouts, which are sporadic and unpredictable. So we’ll have an influx of money and we can pay everything off and be fine, but then we’ll have a few dry months, and he freaks out that he has no money. That stresses me out. I either want to be more involved the whole time and feel like I know the plan — or not to know when he’s stressed suddenly. It makes me nervous.

Actually, I want to have a plan so it doesn’t feel like fine, fine, fine — DISASTER. It stresses me out to feel like that disaster comes out of nowhere.

One thing he would ask of me: He’d want me to be more mindful of finances, and maybe to be more involved in the investments so it’s not only on him.

Wow, Tamar, that’s huge. Thanks for sharing. The immediate question is, “What’s the best way to have this conversation?” There are two parts. There’s the practical money plan — how do we even out our spending? And there’s a plan for dealing with the fluctuations — if our reality is that things go up and down, how do we make sure it’s not stressful? This part is 100 percent about your relationship. It’s sitting down to have a tough conversation that isn’t really about money, but about communication and managing expectations. You’re working together to answer this question: “How can we make this less stressful for both of us?”

Elisheva

My biggest challenge: My husband thinks I could spend a lot less, but I feel like I’m very frugal. I always tell him that he doesn’t understand because he doesn’t shop for the kids. He doesn’t know what they need. He also doesn’t cook. I feel like he’s not realistic, so we’re totally not on the same page.

Another thing is that he’s okay with buying everything cheap from Asian websites. I’m okay with that most of the time, but I feel like there are times when it’s worth investing in quality that will stand up over time. We have a lot of disagreements about it.

If we were on the same page: We would budget weekly and start saving for a down payment on a house. That’s our main goal right now, especially while the kids are still young and we don’t have high tuition bills.

One thing I would ask of him: I want him to understand that I’m doing my very best to save, but the kids also have their needs.

One thing he would ask of me: It would be to spend less.

It’s hard not to be on the same page. It means that someone needs to compromise. The bottom line is, how much does it mean to you? Does it mean more to you to spend on quality or more to him to only buy cheap? Something will have to give.

You need to have an open conversation. When you see it one way and I see it a different way, what do we do? Do we go to a rav? Therapist? Does one person take the lead? You need a plan before you get to the heat of the moment.

I know one couple that takes turns. Every time they have a difference of opinion, they follow a different person. One time they buy cheap, the next they focus on quality — back and forth. You have to work out what works for you. And be okay if it takes a while to figure out.

Russy

My biggest challenge: I’m conservative, more of a saver. My husband’s a spender. He always says that he wants to enjoy life. He likes taking our toddler to the store and buying whatever she picks, while I’m thinking, “Why would you do that?”

“Because it made the baby so happy!”

I’ve learned to accept that this is what brings him joy, and it’s helpful for me when he takes the baby out. But it does bother me when we’re trying to save, and he comes home with silly things.

If we were on the same page: Maybe I wouldn’t feel so guilty about not saving enough. I stress about the future when he’s more okay with living a little. If we were on the same page, maybe I wouldn’t feel this constant pressure to keep saving.

One thing I would ask of him: To help us get on the same page.

One thing he would ask of me: He probably wants me to stress less and enjoy more.

It’s interesting. You don’t want to change any spending habits, but your emotions. That’s personal work, almost completely disconnected from your husband.

Homework: Building on the challenges you took on, take out a pen and write down four things you’ve been pushing off — whether making a spending plan, opening an IRA, learning about bitachon, or discussing finances with your kids. What are your priority action steps?

Rivky Rothenberg, CPA, has experience helping families with money. Tsippi Gross is a business consultant and fractional COO who focuses on results. Together they started Ashir, a nonprofit financial consulting program to help families go from financial stress to money confidence.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 875)