Dear Susan,
My husband and I have been arguing daily about the money we are spending this Christmas. My argument is that we need to dig into savings to have a nice Christmas, (we have big families and many children to shop for!) he doesn’t want to. Our fights are getting worse. I can understand compromise is a good thing, but I don’t want to look cheap either! It feels like this fight is about other things, but I don’t know what!
Donna, London
Dear Donna
With Christmas approaching, money is on a lot of people’s minds. However, what many people do not realize is that money is almost never just money, to many people it can represent love, power, happiness, security, control, dependency, independence, freedom and more. Researchers have found that people have money personalities, for example:
- Spenders are the consumers who often experience a rush of pleasure from buying. They’re adverse to budgeting, prioritizing and saving. Spenders also tend to be ‘givers’ in their emotional life.
- Hoarders have strict budgets and tend to systematically prioritize everything. Saving for them is feels noble and spending on anything but the most necessary items can seem frivolous.
- Avoiders generally shun or procrastinate dealing with money management because it can feel overwhelming to them. Since they don’t like budgets or keeping records, they frequently forget to pay their bills.
- Amassers stockpile their funds in order to feel safe and happy. They are the people who believe that at the end of the game, the one with the most toys, wins.
Can you identify with any of these personalities? Couples with different money personalities can often experience conflict. In your situation, while you may want to spend, in order not to look cheap, your husband may be feeling virtuous, for carefully managing your family finances. The secret is to understand each other’s underlying motivations. Discuss each other’s money fears and family of origin attitudes about money. Did your mother spend money on you to demonstrate her love to you? Did your husband have a parent who worried about money out loud? Does your husband feel that not spending money is a way to secure your future?
While you say your argument is about Christmas spending, do you have the same money arguments at other times? If so, chances are there’s more to the conflict than meets the eye and you may have some deeper relationship issues to resolve.