This post is part of a series based on Laine’s Home Economics: 50 Ways We Paid Off Our House on One Income. Previous posts in the series are listed at the end of this post.
Currently, my husband gets $30 in cash each week as walk-around money, plus $30 for gas for his car. I don’t get any walk-around money, nor have I ever had any type of allowance for myself during our marriage.
Neither one of us has felt that I needed it since I do the spending for the family anyway, and my husband hasn’t had any issues with my buying the occasional book or magazine for myself. My clothing needs come out of our clothing budget; my food wants come out of our grocery budget. I don’t feel deprived in any way, and personally I prefer not having any cash in my wallet that doesn’t have a name.
So, I’m turning this over to my readers everywhere. What do you do in your marriage – do you have spousal allowances?
Previous Posts in the Series:
Tithe
Give to the Poor
Pay Back All Debts
Save, Save, Save
Make a Budget
Freedom Account
Utilities
More on Electricity
Electricity Again
Cooking from Scratch
Make Savings a Bill to Pay
Phone, cable, and internet access
Good food, Quality ingredients
Waste Not Want Not
How Can I Be Thankful and Content?
It’s not the amount of money that comes in, rather how it goes out that counts.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes we do. We have always had pocket money, that we can do whatever we want with. When I worked full time, we each had budget items that we were responsible for, ie: I took care of gifts, Christmas, my gas, my daughters needs etc. It has worked out well for us. Now that we’re retired we still have pocket money but everything else in the budget comes from one source.
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My dh and I just talked about it again this morning. He uses his money for cigarettes, the occasional lunch out, and the occasional food item if he wants to cook something that I don’t have in stock.
Me, I’m just not sure I need an allowance. I’m trying not to buy stuff, and I don’t buy coffee because the caffeine bothers me too much.
It’s fascinating to me the different ways couples handle finances!
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I personally think all spouses should have an allowance. If the allowance money has leftover at the end of the week, then they could put this towards a savings of anything for themselves (IRA, get a tooth fixed etc.)
The pocket money should be the same for a husband or wife regardless who is the working spouse. It is not right that one person has complete access to all the money and the other person does not have any visablity.
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I probably need to clarify the money access in my post. In our family, I handle the money so I do have access to all the money, even though my dh is getting regular spending money. I just don’t feel like I need or want money as an allowance. I actually prefer not to have money to spend because I’ve been training myself out of spending money without much thought. That’s just how I see it. I’m sure other people feel differently.
However, you brought up a great point about making sure both spouses having access to all the money. My dh is hands-off when it comes to handling the money, and he leaves the details and planning to me. This can be frustrating at times, too since one spouse can feel like they handle all the responsibility for the money. As a result, for us, I’ve started sitting down with my dh weekly to go over how we’re doing in our budget. I’m also going over where everything is and how to access information about it. If anything should happen to me, then my dh can step in and pretty much take over the finances.
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