In this episode, Kate & Eric discuss how to have better financial conversations between partners.

Topics:
➡️ How to talk openly about money.
➡️ The difference between budgeting and tracking expenses.
➡️ Managing financial stress through communication.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Kate MacDougall
We're talking about today, finances, which is another thing that stresses me out. Oh, my God. I just feel stress.

Eric MacDougall
I like it. I like it. So today we're in my bod. We wanted to give listeners a bit of a plan or insight as to how to have tough conversations about money.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, I guess I know, you know, when you talk about the top things that, you know, couples fight about money is right up there. You know, everything else. But what do couples not fight about? Let's be honest. But no, but like money is definitely one of the top things couples fight about. And it's also one of the worst kept secrets in a relationship.

Eric MacDougall
Song won't share if we spend money and a lot

Kate MacDougall
of people have like secret stashes of money put away or secret accounts that their spouse doesn't know about. Or like, you know, funds, just in case funds. You know, like, yeah, that's a thing. Oh, yeah, I won't name names. But oh, my

Eric MacDougall
gosh, alright, so I'm kidding. So I really wanted to kind of make the most out of this conversation, which is for us, it's when we think about, you know, how we approach our finances. And again, it's different for everybody. To be honest, I think we could be pretty upfront that Kim and I were not like super financially literate. Like we're like, sitting down and talking about finances all time is not like super fun for either of us, right? It's not like, hey, let's have a conversation about money all the time. I think we both grew up a very to two very different beliefs about money. Yes. And that impacts the way we have conversations. And I think for me, I'm okay with spending large amounts of money and having no money. I think for you, you're a little more frugal, and you like

Kate MacDougall
having an example of your money in my bank. Yeah, a buffer, but it's like, man, the amount of money I want in my bank, just to sit there just in case fund is like enough to like feed an army for six years. Like, right, it's, it's not necessary, but it's just this belief I've made for myself like that, oh, my gosh, unless we have X number of money, we're broke. And it's not true,

Eric MacDougall
like, but psychologically luxuries and lower stress. Yeah,

Kate MacDougall
but you know, but I was also raised in a home where my parents, you know, my dad came from no money. And so when he did start making money, it was like, hold on to that money, like, just in case, you know, just in case and same with my mom, she grew up, you know, with a single dad who was on disability for a long time. And then he started working again, and it was just, money was not easy for both my parents. So they became like money hoarders, right? And so, you know, the talk was always save, save, save, invest, invest, invest. And so that's kind of what was drilled into me. And whereas you grew up in a home, and you had no money and you guys had an amazing life, and your mom found ways to Penny pinch and make extra money when she needed it, and she was very open to asking for help. from the community and from organizations and like, like my parents wouldn't be found dead asking for help from it because they're like, very like proud people when it comes to that, and then not that there's anything wrong with asking for money, but for some people, that's a very hard pill to swallow. Yeah.

Eric MacDougall
So I think what I really wanted to help our listeners understand is that you and I have different beliefs about money. And in most relationships, I'm sure Yep, exactly. We don't always agree on how we spend money, right? We have different ways that we spend money, but

Kate MacDougall
in different ways we talk about money, too. That's right. Yeah. But one

Eric MacDougall
of the things is that we have cultivated in our relationship is we hardly ever fight about money. Right? And so yes, it has happened where we've had conflict about money, especially when things get a lot tougher, we have had conflict about money. But for the most part, we openly talk about money now. And it's not always like heated or blaming or anything like that. We're often on the same page.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah. And I think understanding our core beliefs around money, understanding where that comes from, and how we were raised and things like that. I think that really helped us with the fighting. Like, before, I didn't really know where you were coming from, you didn't really know where I was coming from. And so, you know, before we understood that, of course, we thought about money, because I was like, you obviously think like me, and I obviously am supposed to think like you like that's just how you

Eric MacDougall
were like, Why are you spending money? Yeah. And I was like, Why are you always obsessed with

Kate MacDougall
saving money, right? And, and so it was like, okay, like, once we got on that page, and was like, Ah, I get why you get this, that really helped the conflicts, and it really dialed everything down. And now we talk about money more in like, a business kind of way. Like, it's more of like transactional conversations like, Okay, here's this, here's the, here's the money situation that is, so we'll kind of share, you know, what we do to stay on track and keep those conversations flowing peacefully. Yeah,

Eric MacDougall
and we really want to break it down into kind of four steps. So if you feel like you're having you want to have a conversation, your partner about money, but maybe it's, you think it's gonna be kind of tough, you can kind of go through these four steps. And I think it'll help you open up about the financial situation. And also, you know, try to move it in a certain direction, which I think is helpful. Yeah,

Kate MacDougall
but just you know, before even going through those four steps, make sure you understand how your partner was raised around money, but their core beliefs are around it. And then these four steps will kind of seem less daunting, maybe seem less stressful, and maybe you'll have a better understanding of, you know, when your partner might be getting a little frustrated during this conversation or get, you know, my emotions get high, you'll kind of understand where it comes from. Yeah.

Eric MacDougall
And so the first step is to really understand kind of what your current worries, stress, etc, is about your financial situation. And then bring it to your partner and share it with your partner in a way that is really about you, what you're observing, you know, what you're thinking and feeling about that. The way you want to purchase conversation is not about blame. No, it's just about what you're currently experiencing, and essentially inviting your partner into what their experiences. Yeah,

Kate MacDougall
and I think it's even better here to kind of go through the experience group cube, right, like, talk about it as a fact, Hey, I saw our bank account went down suddenly, from this amount, this amount in the last month, that's got me really stressed out. But this is a fact I can prove it in a court of law. I see it, it's on paper, I see the money go down, you know, so to say, you know, oh, you're spending so much money lately, like, Well, can you prove that? Is there any way to prove it? Or is this just your opinion that your spouse is spending money, and even

Eric MacDougall
the way you're framing it right? That even if you factually say like, just very different than say, Hey, I saw the other day you spent $600, that's very different than, Hey, I saw there was a charge on a credit card for $600. You know, are you willing to share maybe what that's about or etc. And again, you're not now pointing the blame at your partner, you're already into a collaborative idea of like, hey, let's figure out what this expense is and talk about it. Right, exactly. And so how you're framing and really, the way you open this conversation is gonna be really important. Because the whole idea is you want to you and your partner to work together as you move forward. So whatever that is, in order to do that, you have to kind of see where your partner is at. It's not just like, here's what I'm freaked out about, here's everything you need to change to make myself feel better. That's not about you and your partner that's actually just about you. Right? So that's the first step is, again, I love the idea of walk through the experience cube right at the fact that you're observing what that leads you to thinking or the story. You're telling yourself, how you feel about that story, you're telling yourself, and then what you would like, which is oftentimes in this case, you know, an invitation to open up and talk about your financial situation,

Kate MacDougall
right? I'm worried and I would like to talk about our financial situation so we can kind of get on the same page. Yeah, the second step, second step would be to start sharing goals. Ya know, what is it exactly that Where is it exactly that I want to go?

Eric MacDougall
financially? We're always talking about moving towards Yeah,

Kate MacDougall
you want to move towards something so, so maybe your bank account did go down five grand last month or whatever, like, who knows, like, whatever that number is for you that that all of a sudden you're like, Whoa, like, that's huge numbers like, so. Okay? To some people that might be pennies, like they're like, whatever went down five grand, that's like, my average weekend, but to other people that might be like, Oh my gosh, like, we're not going to be able to pay the mortgage. And so what is happening? So you can share a specific goal, you know, like, I want to make sure that every month we have X amount of money in the bank so that we can pay the mortgage food. And, you know, our daycare.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah, it oftentimes these, you know, when you're in this situation where you have to have this conversation, your goals are going to be focused on your priorities first, and then your desire second, right. And so you can share both. But if you feel like you're in a situation where your finances need to be, essentially, like, taking control of your wealth, and things need to change drastically, well, then you need to focus on the goals that are priority in this what you're saying, which is, you know, food on the table, roof over your head, like all that stuff, your your family's health, like, these are the priorities, the priorities are not going on a vacation to Mexico, right? That's like I'd like to, but that is not playing, again, depending on the conversation. Now, if you feel like you're in a really great place, and you're you want to have a trip to Mexico, and that's the priority, but you realize that you're just spending frivolously every single week, well, then maybe the conversation about the goal to the trip to Mexico is, hey, I'd like to save to do this. That's what I want to experience, etc. Now, again, you're always thinking about what you want to move towards, and what are the priorities? So it's not like the conversation about we need to stop spending money? Well, no, that's make any sense. You need to spend money.

Kate MacDougall
Why do I have to

Eric MacDougall
stop spending money? Yeah, it's probably would be better to say, what do we want to focus on spending money on? And what is how the goal might be? How do we limit our spending in those specific categories? Right. So I want to make sure that we have enough money for the mortgage, and the food, to have the kids and the kids school stuff, and health, etc. As I'm kind of thinking it's this amount of money per month, you know, maybe you have some information or things that aren't really a priority for you, right? And then that's where your partner would share their own priorities. Okay, based on that this is kind of the money that we need to have set aside every month. So can we just look at our finances and make sure we know where that money is coming from? How do we get to that amount, etc, how we hit those goals every month, in order for me maybe to lower my stress to feel good about where we're at financially, and to make sure that our family is safe and secure.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, and you're already jumping into the third step, which is create a budget, put it on paper, put it like pen to paper, or we love using Google Sheets like they have, they already have like a million templates already ready. Like, you just fill in the blanks, see where your money's going, make sure you're keeping track of it. If you've set goals, you know, when you say, Okay, we're only going to spend X amount on groceries every month, well, every month at the end of the month, like are you respecting that? How can you go differently to spend that money, you know, and being realistic with your goals. Also, it's better to aim higher than to keep disappointing yourself and to you know, like, if you're if you're saying oh, we're going to spend two grand on groceries, well, that in our day and age, that is not realistic for families,

Eric MacDougall
how big your family is, depends what you want to eat, etc. And, and I really want to stress here that, you know, having a budget like setting a budget, and tracking your spending and income, those are two very different things. And so for some people, you know, when they hear budget, that seems like oh, wow, that's like, I don't know if I want to do that. And so you can start by just tracking, just be aware of where your money is. Yeah, exactly. Just every time your money comes in, look at your bank accounts, write down in a Google Sheet write down on a piece of paper, this is amount of money. So the other month, you're like we made this amount of money. This is money that came into our hands. And then what amount of money left our hands, right. So what did we spend on and look at all your spending, just by tracking that, you know, we often say what gets measured gets improved. And so just by tracking that, you're gonna be aware like, oh, wow, like we were spending more than we made?

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, sure. Yeah. And where? Yeah, maybe we're spending more than we made. Okay, so where are we spending the most? Wow, okay, we spent like this much money in groceries like was that truly necessary? Like maybe there was a few frugal moments where we bought extra food that we didn't really need that month, or just we spoiled ourselves too much.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah. And so you can start a tracking that's like a really good idea. Budgeting is a little different, where it's you actually, the beginning of the month, set a certain amount of money that you're gonna spend, right? And so in that case, if you're like, you know, I don't know we're spending $100 on going out to restaurants. Well, if you end up one week into the month, and you've already spent $100. That means for the rest of the months, you're spending $0 Meaning if your buddy's like, Hey, let's go for a cup of coffee, you're like, Dude, we have to have it in my place or you got to buy the coffee, because I already you know, bounce my budget. And so that's the idea of a budget. So really think about where you're at, if you're already tracking your spending, maybe move into the budget stage, right. But if you're not doing either just start by tracking what's coming in what's going out. So you can start to get an idea of like, okay, this is where I need to cut in order to make those goals that we had talked about, right.

Kate MacDougall
And, you know, going back to relationships, because this is what we're good at, right? Finances, not, not my forte, but relationships I can talk about. So if you're kind of the person in the relationship like me, who gets stressed out about, you know, budgets, and once those budgets are in place, I'm like, Ah, and that's all I can think about. You know, it's very important that you continue to share with your spouse like, this is causing me stress. This is I'm very nervous about this to keep that communication open. Because what happens in our relationship, because I'm more of like, the high strung like, oh, like, stressed when it comes to money, and Eric is very, like, whatever, it'll be fine. It'll be fine. Like, legit. I grew up with, like, $1 in my pocket. It's fine. Like, I survived a long workout. Yeah, that's it like, so. having those conversations, it does bring me down sometimes, like, not down, like sad, but like, bring me down from my, like, panic mode back down to like, you're right, we're gonna be okay, we're gonna be okay. It's fine. Like, so make sure that you're talking to that person. Like, it might not be your spouse, maybe both of you are like, ah, like, talk to other people who have a different point of view on money, who are maybe more comfortable with, you know, money and spending it and being okay with, like, having a little less for a little while, like, yeah, for sure. Partner.

Eric MacDougall
Sorry, just jump in. From the partner who typically is a little more chill about finances and money. You know, if you're not a partner, have some grace for your partner who's stressed. You know, for me, what I used to do is try to get you to like, Stop stressing out and chill out. Relax, like, look, you know, and I tried to get you not to be stressed. And then I couldn't stop. I couldn't save you from being stressed. I would get pissed off. Yeah. But really now it's like, it's okay that you're stressed. It's fine. Like, just be stressed. Like, if you want to just sit here me stress, fine. What can I do to help you like, I'm happy to talk about it, we can bring up our finances right now. Literally, whenever you need to help you. I know, we'll be fine. You know, and I'll make sure that our family is safe and secure. And then financially, we're okay. And if you want to just be stressed out or worried for a bit, you can do that too. Yeah. Right. And so if you're the partner is little more chill, allow, like, hold space for your partner. Because what you don't want to do is your partner to feel like, oh, like, every time I'm stressed out, my husband freaks out or my wife freaks out. So I better keep that to myself. Right? Right. Because that's what used to happen. Every time you were stressed out, I just like stuffed it back and be like, You need to stop being stressed to chill out. So what happened? You just kept all that in?

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, right. And once in a while, I'd like absolutely blow up like big tears, like we're dying. We're not gonna be at all feed our family. And you're like, alright, let's sit down and look at the budget.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah, good. And you don't want that you want your partner to be able to feel safe to open up to you about whatever stresses they have whatever words, because that's what you can do as a couple as you can help each other. Lower those feelings of stress and anxiousness. Yeah, that's what being in relationships all about.

Kate MacDougall
Exactly. And that's kind of where the fourth step comes in, which is keep constant communication about this when making it Yeah, checking in when it comes to money in our home. Like, I have to keep track of it that makes me feel comfortable. I know, it helps us. So I have a time set on the calendar every single week where I just go into my Google Sheet, I fill out where all our money's going. And then that helps me see like, okay, we're doing good. Like, maybe I made this idea in my head that oh my gosh, last week, misspoke. We must put like $10,000 in groceries. But when I sit down and I track it, and I look at it, I'm like, You know what, we only spent like 100 bucks this week, like, who Okay, so that helps calm me down, that helps me, you know, reassess the situation and not panic about it so much. And then Eric and I will often sit down, we'll look at our finances together was that which means we'll look at our accounts, we'll look at our credit cards, make sure what needs to be paid off is paid off, make sure we have the money in the right accounts. And then everything

Eric MacDougall
our goal is exactly where we want our money to go reassess.

Kate MacDougall
And then, you know, all of a sudden, this came up, you know, and I'd really like to start this specific course or take a specific class, where can we cut? What can we say no to so that we can say yes to this thing that I really desire. Or all of a sudden, you know, I'm really feeling a trip down south somewhere. So where can we cut back so that we can make that happen? And so having that constant communication, actually putting time down on the calendar to talk about your money? And honestly, it lasts like, what, 15 minutes, not even like, especially if you're doing it weekly? It's not hard to do. It's just a very quick conversation. And what it does it just kind of He sets the bar for the rest of the week. And we kind of know where we're at, kind of know where we're going understand our goals, understand, you know, what, what we want. And then we can just move on with our week and not have that in the back of our mind stressing ourselves out.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah. And I think I want to share kind of as we're wrapping up here, maybe a word of caution or warning here, because one of the things to recognize is that, you know, if you're the person that's like, worried about money, and you're stressing out, and you see your partner's just spending frivolously, right, they're just spending on Amazon packages, just, you know, taking up all your doorway. Instead of like, just being mad and keeping all that in or instead of even just blowing up at them and accusing. Try to understand what's going on for them. Right. Like, seek to understand, like, for me, like, you know, if we were at home, and all of a sudden, there was like, 40 Amazon packages in the front door. Like, I'd be like, hey, like, what's going on? Like, is everything okay? Like, what are you planning? Clearly?

Kate MacDougall
Are you trying to

Eric MacDougall
kill people to go there? But it's like, no, no, no. Do

Kate MacDougall
you think that right? Don't

Eric MacDougall
say it out? That's, that's probably what I think. But, but the idea is like, okay, there's some clearly there's some information that I'm missing. Yeah. Right. And so, in those moments, seek to understand, hey, you know, I came home and there's, there was 38, Amazon packages in front. Are you setting up for something big? Like, are you planning I'd love to understand kind of what's going on. Because for me, that kind of put a lot of warning bells in my head and under just want to make sure I mean, I trust you. I trust you make great decisions, such understand kind of what your plan is. Right? And it might be like, I don't know, you, I was super stressed out, I just kept clicking the Buy Now button on Amazon, who knows, right? But then you can, then you can help your partner say, hey, let's talk about this. We got to return. Let's,

Kate MacDougall
let's maybe take the credit card off Amazon, take the one click option off, like, so that it makes it harder for us to buy things off Amazon, you know, let's, let's give ourselves a goal of not going on. Not a goal, but like give ourselves a challenge of not going on Amazon for like, sure a couple of weeks, like work together and see and seek to understand what is happening in your partner's life. Yeah,

Eric MacDougall
because in these moments, you really want to make sure that you're working together on this common goal, this common challenge, instead of, you know, putting yourselves at, you know, against each other, and essentially blaming each other because when you get to that place, it's well, the person who prioritizes saving is always angry at the spender and the person who prioritizes spending and wants to like experience great things is always pissed off at the saver. And that is not a good dynamic for your relationship. And I think that's where most of the conflicts come up in relationship is that the person who wants to spend his pissed off the saver and the person who wants to save his pissed off at this vendor? Well, instead, think about how you can work together where you can both get what you want in a way that feels good instead of limiting.