Personal finance expert Dave Ramsey had some stern words for a married couple over the way they manage their “hobby money.”
A woman, who called herself Val, wrote to the money mentor about a financial problem she had been experiencing in her marriage.
“Dear Dave, My husband and I both work outside the home, and he came up with an idea for our fun money,” the woman wrote in an email shared with The Street.
“He wants us to open an account where we both put 5 percent of our income for discretionary spending,” the woman explained.
“I think the problem is that he has a lot more money to spend because he earns a lot more money than I do.”
Personal finance expert Dave Ramsey had some stern words for a married couple over the way they manage their “hobby money.”
“He says he thinks he should be able to spend more because he earns more. I’m not greedy and I don’t spend a lot of money on frivolous things, but I do think things would be equal.”
She added: “I think we should both put in the same dollar amount — an amount that’s fair to both of us — if we’re going to do this. What do you think?”
The Ramsey Show host gave the couple his down-to-earth advice and immediately refuted the husband’s calculations.
“This is not a good plan,” Ramsey wrote succinctly.
“I’m sure your husband means well and is generally a nice man, but it seems like he hasn’t thought this through yet,” he wrote.
“As it stands, the details of his idea play out as pretty immature and selfish. And something tells me you wouldn’t marry a man like that.
“Look at it this way: there are plenty of families where only one person works outside the home and generates an income,” the financial guru explains.
“Would it be fair to say that the person who collects the salary is the only one who gets to enjoy spending money occasionally? Of course not!”
“In most cases, partners who don’t work outside the home take on a lot of responsibility and have to do multiple things every day, especially if the couple has children,” Ramsey adds.
‘If you link a monetary amount to that, you can generate a nice income in dollars.’
Ramsey then explained his underlying theory about money in a marriage.
“Do you remember when you got married?” he asked the woman who wrote to him.
“If it was anything like a traditional ceremony, I bet the minister would pronounce you two ‘as one.’ As in everything and in every way.”
“Marriage is not an I proposition. It should always be an we proposition,” Ramsey told the questioner.
“That means you have one income, a joint income, and that is our income,” he added.
“If you own a house, it’s our house. It’s not his house anymore because he makes more money than you. Our kids, our marriage, our everything. Do you get the picture?”
“Marriage is not an I proposition. It should always be an we proposition,” he continued.
Finally, “You have to remind your husband of that.”