Money is a sticky subject even for married couples.

And some people are really not saving mindset. (School didnt teach, parents didnt teach)

I dunno if it helps but look up ramit sethi on youtube. He does talk about couple finance. And i like him for talking about both side, ie those who dont save enough and those who dont spend enough. And the emotional aspects of money etc. You probably need to look up quite many episodes

You still need to talk it out. But of course having a 3rd person to help out to mediate is great but finding the person is hard....

My situation is reverse
Myself and wife working

However:
100% my pay cheque goes to my wife, she’s the financial controller

While:
I’m also doing house chores, taking care our daughter (going to be 3 next month) - shower her, making milk, sending her to school, picking her up, spend time with her.

My wife:
She’s work and sleep and spend on bag, cute stuff, making herself pretty.

My opinion is your wife just want to have probably surprises, celebration on occasion, activities whether in daily or weekly from you. You know frugal lifestyle is damn boring, discipline and predictable.

Unnecessary to be luxury but meaningful and the quality of time with all together. Somehow we need some spark in our life once a while.

same situation like you.

Wife constantly want to spend money for holiday, good food, nice handbag.....

Especially when it comes to holiday trip, I have to end up footing the bill despite both working.

She thinks life is too short to being frugal and spend while it can.

My counter argument is, we are not frugal, going overseas 3 times per year with my salary is called financial suicide.

And the chance of me dying now and dying at my 70es is much much lower, hence I am saving for my 70es retirement.

Try to strike a balance. If she want to go holiday, propose a local one which within your budget.

If still can't resolve, hide your actual income and bonus.

Deposit it into EPF and somewhere else and give the rest to her. Let her managed the family finances with those funds.

This post has been edited by loui: Jan 22 2025, 01:37 PM

8K a month household income, single income earner with 3 kids in KV is very low and very dangerous. Most people with 30K gross household income in KV are just barely getting by. Don't know how you guys can manage?

Daycare/ kindie costs in our household already more than 2K monthly. And we only drive fully paid up old cars.

Scrap the thought of buying a new car. At least get yourself an affordable apartment if you're still renting.

This is a tough situation which u need to iron out. Otherwise it just get worse over time.

Perhaps try for a change by giving her extra allowance once a while like additional 1k half yearly. But don’t say as allowance but as a gift like anniversary or birthday what not. You’ll be able to see how she spent it. If it’s for the family overall I think that is still understandable.
Don’t forget all ladies want to pamper themselves a little and one extra bag a year wouldn’t hurt anyone.

Set a limit for your travel plans with her like once travel every 3 years of her choice with a budget up to 10k? Or mini trips of 3k each locally. If the trip didn’t happen, bank in the money into the joint account as token of appreciation and give her a little excitement of how she can use the fund for family holidays etc.

Modern family issues require modern society solutions!

Btw saving 100k every 3 years is a great achievement if I read this right! Keep up the good work. Perhaps u can consider using the dividend from the savings as a bonus to give you and your family a little pat on the back by YOLO that amount. Again! Stick to the budget planned and never go beyond.

Good luck!

As a former counsellor, I would strongly advise you against consciously or unconsciously using the forum as a place to "vent" or to "gather support" or to "find agreeable voices" if your end goal is to look for solutions that is genuine to solve problems as a pair of husband and wife.

People in general, do not take the time to understand enough the stories from both sides and tend to find the need of taking sides as well.

Many cases ended up with relationship in jeopardy because one side "gains" the support of the "general public", vented out during argument, let ego took the better of him/her, and eventually led to a disastrous and deteriorating relationship.

I would like to reiterate, that your goal, is to find solution. It might take an considerable effort, sometimes also compromise. But on the flipside, this decision on how to handle the dilemma, is as important, if not more important than your initial decision to take the marriage pathway.

It is normal and okay to vent out your frustration and make your standpoint heard. But from what I have been reading up and following up, it seems that the snowball might have begun. I would implore you to explore further on how to communicate and understand each other.

Hope it helps and wishing you all the best. Take sometime to calm your thoughts down and take a deep breath, focus on listening to each other. It might not work on the first try, it might even take a few tries, but this is the part of a healthy relationship that is not glamorous yet necessary.

tough issue.

Girls with kids usually the logic a bit out.

To them if u frugal they felt like they are failing their children. In their mind u are purposely giving them short stick to prepare for own retirement. Most humans tend to focus on stuffs that immediately impact them, rather than the long term. Now with kids, it's even harder for them to see further into the future. All they can feel is the children receiving less.

My suggestion.
- send kids away for 2 days. sit down with your wife and list out all your expenses. see how much is left after deducting the necessity. Then compare it to the recent vacation, see how many months of disposable income are required for that vacation alone.
- before doing all the heavy work. bring your wife to the nice restaurant. watch a movie. buy flower keep her happy. compliment her thank her for looking out for enemy. human reacts better with compliment. surprisingly huh?
- really, do heavy discussion without kids around. most important step here. send the kids away. highly not recommend to do it after kids asleep, because by that time both of u already dead tired and unhappy. bad timing to discuss bad news.

She is having the same thought as majority of the people. Enjoy life now, think of future later. She wants to enjoy her life. Unable to practice delayed gratification. A partner can sink your finances or help your finances to greater height. You need to sit down and talk to her.

That is why I screen out the girls I am seeing. Those who sorry to be blunt like your wife type, I screen them out. Finance is usually the problem of the relationship. So you cannot screen her out now, you can only talk to her about how you had no money in the bank and how dangerous it is.

Too frugal is not good oso. I understand your wife POV.

You are only in your 30's once. Yes, saving is important, but you also need to allocate some of your current money to have a bit of fun. You will not get back the time and energy today.

That is why I sign up for all the A races and travel to my preferred place before I get old or busy with kids , having no regrets.

What use for the saved up money if you are already old age when your body are not cooperating anymore.

The tricky part though is balancing , not too much YOLO but not too frugal. This however needs discussion with your wife and managing expectations.

duplicated

This post has been edited by msacras: Jan 22 2025, 12:58 PM

Dif ppl have dif expenses and risk appetites

Some may think they need 2-4M to safely retire, while others may settle for just 200-400k.

What’s important is to sit down and properly plan for how much you’ll need when you retired.

Though one thing Im kind of unorthodox on, which is freshie’s expenses. There’s really not much point to save mere RM200-400 when you're freshies. It don’t bring much to the table. What’s more important is to monitor and advance your career growth quickly/steadily.

This post has been edited by msacras: Jan 22 2025, 01:05 PM

i am in this POV where frugal is good, but moderation is the key. money can earn back, time and experience doesnt

remember this pic?


you dont have to spend a tonne to enjoy time with your family. granted i can see where OP is coming from, prolly OP's wife are influenced terribly by social media where everything seems to be dandier, everyone has more money than you and so on. but one must also face reality of things where its all a show

sounds like u need to be the adult. your wife is going to make your family bankrupt. you best explain this in a diplomatic way (not to offend), that your earnings can't keep up with the expenditure she has in mind.

She needs a dose of reality check.

Fine to keep her happy but she needs to be realistic. If you who is better at finance found an issue, then you need to tell her if she is overspending or being irresponsible financially.


or do what others here suggested for less friction. Just allocate your wifey a budget based on your earnings, she can do whatever she wants with it. The rest you spend on bills and for savings (this will be your responsibility, since the wifey isn't being responsible with the finances). If she uses up all the budget allocated to her, then that's her own fault. Explain that is the budget she has to work with, and you can't afford beyond that.

But based on what you said so far, sounds like, if you gave her a budget to work with, she will simply spend it all and not save whatsoever when allocating the budget, may tally that in as to write that off, cause you know she won't save any of it, so make sure the rest you allocated to yourself will be part of the savings as well.

Maybe you need to explain to her also the need for growing your savings for retirement, and also for your kid/kids college fund etc. A grown up discussion :X not to offend, but just to have the talk.

like one day you'd be like "honey, i don't think we can keep spending like this...." etc...






Ram has it nailed. It's not nice to hear, but it's the sad fact. You already dug your own grave *figuratively speaking, when you choose to marry this type of woman. Now you got to deal with it unfortunately Moral of the story, prevention better than the cure. Date a woman for a long while to get to know her, before tying the knot. Now probably too late

This post has been edited by Moogle Stiltzkin: Jan 22 2025, 03:00 PM

In general, most women are bad with finances because they never have to bare any commitments. So they think that one can live through life with just rainbows and sunshine.

There is another way.
Show her passive income (dividend stocks). Show her that by putting money to work, you have someone working for you and they will pay you instead of you paying them. They pay between 4-5%p.a RM100k can generate free RM4-5k which is kind of free. She is free to use that 4-5k for whatever she likes.

Girls usually like the idea of free money.

As a housewife, I think she is entitled to some allowances.

Being too frugal is safer.

Many people think about "Life is short". But have you ever thought about what if "Life is too long".

Die also cannot die.

I think the issue right now is not about allowances.

I'm sure OP is giving his wife some allowances. The issue is that OP's wife is demanding to spend more on external things. Eat out, travelling, materials etc because she knows that OP has some savings.

for your situation realistically there are only few options if you want to survive financially.

1. talk to your wife on the issue and downgrade her lifestyle, honestly speaking, don't think this is likely
2. you find a new job with better pay.
3. have your wife working as well to support and upgraded lifestyle.

This post has been edited by brkli: Jan 22 2025, 06:20 PM