When you make the decision to start budgeting, it is such an exciting time where you are extremely motivated. You are convinced it will be life-changing, and see it as the best thing to do for your future. Then you talk to your husband about it, and he is totally against it or thinks it isn’t necessary. That is so defeating. It completely takes the wind out of your sails. How on earth are you supposed to get your husband on board to budget?
If your husband isn’t 100% on board, it can lead to you giving up on your budgeting dreams or even cause fights within your marriage. All in the name of trying to have healthy finances! To avoid losing an accountability partner, having your spouse sabotage your budget or growing resentment within your marriage; it is vitally important for you both to be on the same budgeting page.
So you know all of this, but how do get him to see things the way you do? How do you get your husband on board to budget? Well, I am fairly positive I went about this completely wrong, and I must be pretty lucky my husband is so tolerant of my annoying persistence. We were basically trapped together in a hotel room for a month while we were waiting to close on our first home, and I decided that was the perfect time to start budgeting.
My husband was against it from the first time the “b-word” came out of my mouth. So instead of following the advice I’m about to give you, I went about it in a totally abrasive manner of basically jamming the information down his throat. You can probably guess how effective that was. Looking back now, it was pretty comical how I read out loud to him when he couldn’t escape our room, or I would put on finance DVD’s for him to watch in the evenings (I think he slept through the majority of them), and I played podcasts whenever we were in the car together. Honestly, I think I’m lucky he didn’t murder me.
Instead of trying to force your husband to get on board with budgeting; here are some tips to help him decide he wants to begin budgeting of his own desire.
Find out what his dreams are.
Have a real discussion about what he wants not only for his own future but for your family as well. Once you know his dreams, talk about what it will take to get there. Turn some of those dreams into tangible goals. Talk about what steps need to be taken to achieve a specific goal, and make that part of the budget plan. Once he understands what the goals are, it will be much easier for him to find the motivation and inspiration needed to start doing things differently.
If your husband is dying for an ATV, camper or vacation for the family; figure out exactly what he is wanting, and the associated cost for it. Find out the timeline he would like to achieve it in, and then break down what steps need to be taken to achieve that. If he wants a vacation by next year, have him pick out what he wants to do, and get prices for it (he should at least be motivated to get prices because he is the one picking it all out). Then divide that into how many months until the vacation to determine how much you should be saving every month. Make it REAL for him. This should be motivation for him to want to work on the budget with you to find the money to put toward vacation every month. The goal of dreaming together is to find the motivation he needs to believe in the budget working for your family.
This method keeps everything on his terms, and he is deciding that he wants to budget to achieve his dreams. You are not forcing him to do anything. This is the best way because you will have a joyful and enthusiastic partner.
You might be thinking, “okay that may work for some husbands, but not mine. He doesn’t have anything he wants that badly, and if he does, he will just put it on a credit card.”
These husbands can be a tougher nut to crack. My husband absolutely fell into this category. If your husband is against budgeting and can’t be motivated by a shiny object, you have to find out what is keeping him from being okay with a budget.
You will need to ask him to be extremely honest with you and list out the reasons he doesn’t like budgets.
It is very common for you to hear:
- They don’t work.
- I won’t get to have any fun.
- I don’t want you in charge of my hard-earned money.
- They take too much time and effort.
- We don’t need one because we are doing just fine.
- It will be restrictive and keep me from doing what I want to do.
I heard all of these things from my husband. Instead of really listening to him, I dismissed his comments and kept reading out loud to him (I should have just been banging my head against a wall because I would have had the same outcome).
When you hear these comments, you need to pause and really acknowledge what he is saying. At the core of it, he is afraid he will be restricted, controlled and told what to do by someone else. This is a really tough thing to change his mind on. Most likely you won’t be able to change his mind. Instead what you can do is ask him to give you permission to try a budget for a few months to see how it works for your family. Give him the control by asking for permission. Let him know this is on his terms.
As a woman, I crave financial stability. I had to explain to my husband that I felt truly safe, secure and loved when we had an emergency fund and had knowledge of where every dollar we spent was going. It seems a bit insane to men because they can be comfortable without those things, but for women, it is just part of who we are.
After having an honest discussion about your husband’s concerns/reasons for not wanting to budget, ask him to love you by allowing you to budget for a few months. The most important piece of the puzzle at this point is, you have to ask for his input on the budget.
