Money Goals With A Spouse

Well, in case you missed it folks, 2023 has arrived! Although I’m not a fan of New Years’ Resolutions, I am a big proponent of goal setting, and I happen to set my goals around the start of the New Year. Thanks to a busy holiday season, I’m just now starting the process of reflecting on 2022 and beginning to think about my goals for 2023. While there will be more to come on those details, today I’m starting with another goal-related post. I’m reflecting on how my goals have changed now that there’s another human being in my life: my spouse. I sometimes forget that it was just me and me alone for so long. I did some good work on myself before Mr. Dink came along, and it’s sometimes surreal to think about how different my goals would be if I was still single. Does anyone else feel this way?

As I was drafting this post this week, I was also listening to a Bogleheads On Investing podcast episode where JL Collins (author of The Simple Path to Wealth, the book I recommend to anyone who wants to get started investing or asks me about my investing strategy) was interviewed.

Among many other topics, host Rick Ferri asked JL to comment on one of his key guidelines that he asks his readers to consider right off the bat, in the introduction of his book: “Avoid fiscally irresponsible people. Never marry one or otherwise give him or her [or their] access to your money.”

Rick Ferri was referring to this quote as something many people feel but don’t say, and JL supposed he was right but also couldn’t believe that more people won’t say it. I had to chuckle as I knew the post I was writing this week.

When I met Mr. Dink, I felt this quote to my core. As I alluded to above, I met Mr. Dink much later in life than most of my friends met their spouses (or fill in any other long-term life partner term you prefer here). Not only had I done a lot of work on myself, but I also had my personal finances in order at that stage of my life. Going back into the dating scene again after a breakup, I felt much more confident in what I wanted in a partner, what I was willing to compromise on, and what I wasn’t. One thing I wasn’t willing to compromise on was dating someone who, in the vaguest terms possible, “wasn’t good with money.”

So, I brought up the topic of money with Mr. Dink early and often. And I recommend that everyone else in a relationship do this too. Even if you don’t feel like you yourself have all your financial ducks in a row, no matter. Still bring it up. It doesn’t have to be in a serious way either. Ask your partner their first money memory. Ask them when they first realized that money was something they really needed in life. Let the conversation go wherever it takes you (and if it gets emotional or uncomfortable, don’t be afraid to table it for another time).

It’s scary at first, money is an emotional trigger no doubt. But trust me, it’s worth it. Again, bringing up money doesn’t have to be official or extravagant. Mr. Dink and I didn’t have our first “official money date” until after we were married! But we still knew everything about each other’s money situations before we got hitched (we even discussed whether a prenuptial agreement made sense for us; for those curious, we decided [together] that it didn’t) because we had numerous “unofficial” conversations.

Ok, now that that rant is off my chest, on to the remainder of the post 🙂

If you’re curious about some of the other posts I’ve written about goals, feel free to check these out:

• My Current Financial Independence Goal
• How Part-Time Work Became My Goal
• How I Set My Goals
• How Goal Setting Helps Me Make Decisions

I’ve also written about how Mr. Dink and I manage our money in this post.

But today, I’m sort of merging the two topics and reflecting on how my goals have changed now that I have a spouse. For starters…

I wouldn’t have a house

I always knew that I didn’t want to be a homeowner if I stayed single. In fact, Mr. Dink and I were just joking about this the other day.

Before I met him, I was perfectly content on renting forever. I know, I know, there is SO MUCH debate in the FIRE (financial independence retire early) space about whether folks should rent or own the place where they dwell, but I’m telling you, I planned to rent forever. Or at the very least, maybe own a condo. And I saw nothing wrong with that.

Before I moved in with Mr. Dink, I was happy as a clam in my 2-bedroom townhouse. I finally had my fancy dream Professor job, and I told myself I would never live above or below anyone again. Next to? Totally fine. I found an end unit for rent in a small condo association complex with walking trails right out my back door. The condo association took care of everything on the outside, I just had to keep my little back patio in “acceptable” condition. I know there are many woes to living in associations like this (I got an email from my landlord telling me that my neighbors were complaining that my patio was “unsightly” because I couldn’t keep it looking “neat and tidy” when I was recovering from knee surgery…sigh…I’m so sorry for staking a couple of flower pots on top of a chair…). I can see why it wouldn’t be ideal for some, but for me? It was worth the occasional hassle, and I absolutely loved it.

I had a carport that kept my car in tip-top condition (not to mention I never had to shovel snow off of it). I don’t garden, so I didn’t want a yard to tend to/take care of anyway. My neighbors were pleasant and yet not around all the time. I hosted get-together for my friends. I was less than a 10 minute drive from work. It had all the perks I needed as a single, introverted socialite.

But with a partner? With someone to share the responsibilities of homeownership with? Oh, how I love our house. It makes such a difference to have another person who 1) wants a house and 2) helps you take care of said house. If you’re a regular reader of the blog, you know we had a house fire, and we chose to rebuild rather than relocate because we loved our house so much.

And yet, I can say without a doubt that I would not own a large house or property without a partner.

I wouldn’t have kids

Ha, and I still won’t, but that’s just because Mr. Dink also doesn’t want kids.

Before I met Mr. Dink, I was always open to the idea of having kids if it was something super important to my partner, but I knew I didn’t want to pursue having kids if I was single. So, this was something I knew could really change depending on the partner I found myself with.

Since this was a big deal for me, once again, I brought up the topic of kids early and often with Mr. Dink. I knew myself, and I knew I would need plenty of time to prepare physically, mentally, and spiritually to have a baby if it was something my partner wanted.

When I first asked Mr. Dink, point blank, whether he wanted kids, the question gave him pause. I didn’t tell him how I felt before he answered. He gave it some thought, and answered that he always assumed he’d have kids, but when he really thought about the question, he didn’t think he wanted them. When I responded with how I felt, that I wouldn’t have kids on my own but I would if it was what my partner wanted, I could tell he really heard me.

Since then, we have had countless conversations about kids, and I love that we can be open and honest with each other. Not having kids has thus become a shared goal that we check in on often. After all, who really knows what life has in store. What we know for sure, right now, is that we are absolutely over the moon to be becoming an aunt and an uncle this year!

I wouldn’t have united goals

For so long, it was just me. I was the only one I needed to worry about when it came to setting my goals. What did I want in life? What did I want the year to look like? What did I want to do to better my life?

I didn’t meet Mr. Dink until I was 29, and by that point, having shared goals with another human being was a completely foreign concept to me. I had never had that serious of a relationship, and my last relationship before Mr. Dink ended after 2 years because we wanted different things, so we never even had a chance to make united goals.

For awhile, Mr. Dink and I didn’t actually set goals together. It didn’t make as much sense in the earlier stages of our relationship. Even though we were completely open about money, we kept our finances separate (and still do), and we didn’t have the need for setting mutual goals. But once we moved in together, started to share household finances, and decided to get married, having united goals came onto our radar.

In fact, the bus dream is really what started us down the path of having shared goals. As I listened to Mr. Dink tell me this (what I thought of at the time) ridiculous pipe dream, and then slowly realized he was serious, I saw the need for some shared goals. I knew myself, and if we were going to have this lofty, crazy but awesome-sounding dream of living on a bus part time, I would need some structure around that.

It took having many conversations about mutual goals to decide what we wanted from our bus specifically, to decide we were in no rush at all.

I really think the bus dream was the launching point for our goal conversations. Now we have goal conversations around what we want our life to look like 3, 5, 10 years down the line. This includes things such as where we want to live, what type of dwelling we want to live in, what we want our lives to look like, what we want to be doing, etc.

Oh, and trips! Vacations! I’ve found this to be another goal that has changed drastically since sharing goals with a partner. When I was single, I was in charge of my own vacations, where I wanted to go, and who I wanted to see.

With a spouse, and with limited vacation time while still working a 9-5, I now have to be very strategic with my travel. I’m not going to lie, I sort of miss using COVID as an excuse not to travel, because let’s be honest, I think everything is better at home anyway. But I learned from a recent trip that I do still actually like to travel, and when I’m intentional about it, I have myself a pretty great time.

But I’ve also found it pays to be proactive with setting goals around traveling. For example, because of COVID, we have known for awhile that once things start to open back up, we’ll be obligated to see some family who live far away (eg, we are in Vermont and Mr. Dink’s dad [and mom in winter] live in Florida), and that has turned out to be the case for 2023. We knew we’d be expected to go (and Mr. Dink also told me it was important to him), so I had it on my radar and could plan. In addition, my extended family is quite close, and we haven’t gathered together in awhile because of COVID, so when we were invited to a family reunion this year, we knew we wanted to go. Last but not least, one of my best friends and also my accountability partner is getting married this year, and we will be taking time off to attend that wedding in North Carolina.

Because we know ahead of time that this year is going to be filled with family and friend-related vacations, we can once again plan ahead. I let Mr. Dink know that because of this, I would like to take a trip just the two of us the following year. He wholeheartedly agreed, and because there’s plenty of time, we have time to daydream about where we might want to go, set a specific goal, and start the planning process nice and early.

Another reality of having shared goals is the likely chance that these goals will change (after all, when Mr. Dink first told me about the “bus idea”, it was actually a fire truck he wanted to build out…). It is one thing to have a personal goal and have it change, but when you have a shared goal, you risk the chance that the other person will change their mind, and you’ll be left with disappointment. It’s good to recognize this early. And because all these united goals and dreams may change, we find it really helpful to continue to check in on these shared goals. Often. The more you talk about it, the fewer surprises and disappointment there will be when one person inevitably forgets about a goal or decides that something else is more important. This is life, and the reality of having a spouse and united goals.

But while we’ve embraced the process of setting united goals, we also know that it’s important to still have separate goals. And in addition, we’ve learned that it’s equally important to discuss these separate goals with each other.

I’ve read many a time in books and seen many a social media post about keeping your big dreams to yourself. The main reason is that no one will understand your dreams but you, your dreams aren’t as important to anyone else but you. And while that may be true, I would argue that one caveat to this is with your spouse/long-term life partner.

When I first started this blog, when I first thought about going part time eventually, when I think about my Financial Freedom List (the list of things I want to do/try when I gain more time), I didn’t want to tell Mr. Dink. It’s scary to get vulnerable with the people you love about things that are important. We don’t want to be judged, and we don’t want external pressures to influence our internal wants and desires.

But I’ve found that the more I keep from Mr. Dink, the less he understands where I want to go with my life, and the more I do tell him, the more supportive he is of my dreams. If you keep your dreams from your partner, you risk growing apart (or growing away from them, without them). I am so excited about this blog and my side passions (much less so than I am about the work I do for income). What’s the good in him never being a witness to that side of my life? Sure, I didn’t want to get judged. But by being vulnerable and risking judgment, I now have a partner AND a cheerleader.

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If you have a spouse, how have your goals changed since being single? Do you have separate and united goals? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear from you!