Ask any marriage counselor what couples fight about most, and money will be at or near the top of the list. Research supports clinical experience: Disagreement over finances is one of the strongest predictors of marital conflict, long-term stress, and divorce.
Now take that already volatile topic and add this to the mix: One spouse takes pains to open his or her wallet, while the other spends carelessly. One is Tangwad; The second one is expensive.
How do you handle a marriage where one of you hates spending money, while the other loves splurging?
Scott Rick, a behavioral scientist, has spent his career studying this dynamic, and in his book Tightwads and SpendthriftsHe shares research-backed advice on how to deal with this relational rift.
Spendthrift-Tightwad Scale
Rick has developed something he calls the Spendthrift-Tightwad scale. It’s a spectrum, and where you land on it depends on how much spending money makes you uncomfortable.
Based on his study, Rick estimates that about half of people live in what he calls the “undisputed middle.” Spending hurts them enough that they avoid buying random things they see on Instagram, but not so much that their toes start to hurt from worn-out shoes. These people do not have much trouble with the purse string being too tight or too loose. If this describes both you and your spouse, count your blessings, stop reading, and enjoy your reasonably priced life.
But as far as the other half of the population is concerned, about 25% land on the tight side of the scale, and 25% are on the spendthrift side. Let’s take a look at what’s happening with these people.
Tightwads: Spending money hurts
For picky people, spending money on optional purchases hurts. Literally. In fMRI studies, when buyers saw a price that their brains had judged to be too high, their insula lit up – the same patch of cortex that activates when you stub your toe. Buying plane tickets and stepping on Legos run on the same neural circuitry for tightwads, which is why they’re so clingy. Spending feels bad. They don’t want to feel bad. That’s why they don’t spend.
Sometimes stingy people express their stinginess by saying that they are just being frugal. But Rick’s research shows there’s a difference between frugality and harshness. Thrifty people get a chance to save – they get a little glow of satisfaction when they stretch their resources and find new uses for old paper towel tubes. Tightwads don’t enjoy saving money. They just hate spending.
“Well,” they’ll say, “I’ve just got a lot more self-control.” Rick actually classifies excessively tight clothing as a failure Self-control: Can’t overcome an irrational feeling of distress in order to make a purchase that will objectively improve their life.
So what makes someone a miser?
It’s not about how much money they have in their bank account. Rick has met a lot of incredibly rich people who aren’t able to spend themselves because it hurts them too much.
Some are born stingy – they have a natural tendency to find spending unpleasant. Thank your ancestors for this. But many are made. Rick thinks this temperament is common in people who grew up poor or in economically unstable circumstances. Because of his upbringing, he was already aware of the dangers of extravagance. Eventually they reach a better place financially, but their mind is not aware of it. They are living as if they are poor, convinced that their stable financial situation could collapse next Tuesday. Rick calls it “post-break-ness stress disorder.”
Tightwads look great on paper. High savings, no consumer debt, good credit. But Rick’s research shows that they are significantly less happy than people in the middle of the spectrum, because all the security is bought with deprivation. The tightwad skips family holidays because the airfare hurts too much, never goes out to eat or the movies, and takes cold showers because it’s too expensive to get the boiler fixed.
Expenses: Spending money does not harm
Spenders have the opposite problem: They don’t feel enough pain when they spend. Their psychological alarm over spending too much goes off either too quietly or too late. While Tightwad’s expense brakes are stuck, someone completely cut Spendthrift’s brake lines.
And the modern retail environment couldn’t be better designed to take advantage of someone with no brakes. Spending took effort – you had to drive to the store, stand in the checkout line, and hand the actual bill to the cashier. Now Shopify keeps your card on file, so buying Kayak takes about the same amount of effort as liking a TikTok video, and if Kayak seems a little expensive, the buy now, pay later service will cut it into four installments so small you’ll barely be able to register them. Spenders can take their toll on the couch, in the carpool line, or even on the toilet.
How do people become wasteful? Statistically women are slightly more likely to be spendthrifts, but this is a disposition that can be found in any gender. And like tightwads, income is not the determining factor – too many broke people spend money they don’t have through credit cards and buy now, pay later services.
It seems some people are just wired that way; It’s a personality thing. But parenting also plays a role. Rick feels that spenders often grow up in homes where parents spent freely and never set any limits. No one ever told them “we can’t afford it”, so they never developed the feeling of running out of money.
Being spendthrift has its advantages. Spendthrifts say yes to a last-minute lake trip, take the check at dinner, and buy good seats instead of nosebleeds. While the tight-fisted person is sitting at home in his sweater with holes, the spendthrift is out making memories. Yet Rick’s research shows they aren’t much happier. They carry a lot of credit card debt, don’t save anything for retirement, and feel a lot of pain about their spending—this only becomes visible after the purchase rather than before the purchase. The spender knows he has a problem and hates the fact that he can’t deal with it. This makes them feel bad, so they buy something to cheer themselves up. Wash. Wash. Repeat.
Why do tightwads and spendthrifts usually end up together?
You might think that stingy people will marry stingy people and spendthrift people will marry spendthrift people. they do not. Rick found that stingies and spendthrifts are actually more likely to marry their opposites.
The reason is that no type likes its own tendencies.
Tightwads are fed up with their inability to enjoy themselves, so when, say, a man meets a woman who orders an appetizer And Without even thinking twice, he finds sweets exciting. This girl knows how to live! Meanwhile, the spendthrift woman is stressed by her own spending chaos, so the miser’s stability is attractive. During courtship, each is a comfortable balance to the other.
But then they get married, buy a house, and have to decide if the Fast Pass to Disneyland is worth it. The qualities that used to draw them together begin to become disgusting. His “stillness” becomes controlling and joyless. His “spontaneity” becomes careless and irresponsible. And because every major life decision—housing, kids, retirement—has to do with money, they face the same battles over and over again.
But there is hope! Misers and spendthrifts can have a more harmonious marriage if they do some research-backed things. Here’s what Rick recommends.
Install “Translucent” Finance
Most financial advice for married couples recommends complete transparency. Both spouses should see how much the other spends. Anything less than that is “financial infidelity.”
Rick says that for a tight-spending couple, this is terrible advice. Tightwad gets a line-by-line readout of every latte, every throw pillow, every scented candle his wife buys, and he’s going to rave about it. She begins to feel as if she is living with an auditor. Pretty soon you’re having the fourth argument of the month over a $7 purchase, and the marriage seems less like a romance and more like your relationship with Bill accounting for your expenses.
Rick recommends a thing he only half-jokingly calls a “money-laundering device.” All income goes into a joint account. Everything that runs the household comes from it: mortgage, utilities, insurance, kids’ braces, food. Then each month a fixed, equal portion of the fun money goes automatically into each spouse’s account, which they can spend as they wish. No questions asked, no receipt required. One spouse may spend his or her entire allowance on a new wardrobe; Another might let his pile float around like Scrooge McDuck.
Rick calls this “translucency”: transparency where it matters, privacy where it doesn’t. Wasteful expenditure occurs even without conflict; Tightwad has fewer accounting audits eating up their bandwidth.
What about big financial decisions?
The allowance handles the cumbersome day-to-day stuff, but marriage still entails big decisions that you have to make together. Keeping a new car or an ’07 Honda Element? Staycation or take the family to Yosemite?
Rick says that the answers to these types of questions should be determined by what type of purchase is being decided upon.
Along with material goods – a new car, a kitchen remodel – he recommends giving more importance to the tightwad’s vote. Happiness research shows that material upgrades do not always provide lasting satisfaction due to a phenomenon called hedonic adaptation. The renovated kitchen thrills you for about six months, and then the new granite countertops are just that. . . Countertops. Tightwad’s reluctance, even if it’s illogical, points in the right direction here, so leave his foot on the brake.
With experiences – vacations, concerts, and so on – let the spenders drive. The joy of these doesn’t diminish like physical purchases do, as they turn into memories and stories that the family remembers for decades. The spendthrift will book the trip that the tightwad himself has talked about. Twenty years from now, no one will remember what it cost. They’ll just remember the times when Dad laughed like a little kid going down a snow-covered mountain on an inner tube.
If you’re tight-fisted, here’s a tip for really enjoying the trips your spouse wants: Prepay for everything you can. Book all-inclusive. When the whole thing is paid for in one lump sum before you go, you get your break in once, rather than having to look at every menu and tour price for a week.
push yourself towards the middle
You can also work towards the middle of the scale.
If you’re a spendthrift, add friction back into your spending. Rick suggests deleting your saved card information from Amazon and other retail sites. Having to get up and find the physical card every time you want to buy something can put off the urge to purchase. Creating a “mini budget” also helps; Instead of a monthly budget, create a weekly budget. Putting a limit on your spending in the short term can make a more solid financial compromise.
If you’re stingy, eliminate friction. Rescheduling expenses as investments reduces the pain of expenses. A vacation becomes an investment in your family, a good mattress becomes an investment in your health, an upgraded wardrobe becomes an investment in your career.
Accepting who you are and working with what you have
It helps to remember that your wife is not splurging out of spite, and you are not stealing money out of selfishness. You’re just two people with different minds bumping into each other. Rick’s research shows that while you can get yourself closer to the middle, you probably can’t turn your spouse into a different kind of spender, and you can’t completely remodel yourself either. So work with what you have. Organize your accounts and decision-making processes so that your differences stop clashing every day.
And when his spending drives you crazy, remember that his spontaneity, his free and easy way with money, was part of what attracted you to him in the first place; This is just one side of the same coin of character, and the other side still delights you.