Financial advice for couples who can’t agree on money

Lots of financial advice seems to be written with single people in mind – or at least couples who agree on everything. But your financial situation can be greatly affected by the other people in your life – and people often have very different ideas on how to solve financial problems. So what can you do when you and your partner disagree on how to solve a financial problem? The Get Rich Slowly blog found this question at Ask Metafilter and I found the various suggestions it provoked to be quite interesting.

I want to start being more financially responsible. My husband doesn’t
want to hear it. Can I do this without hurting our marriage? How?

One suggestion was to find a way to separate the emotional side of things from the practical when you discuss and decide on money problems (“highlight that ‘I hate how unstable we are financially’ does not mean ‘I hate being married to you’”). And if you build in a little discretionary ‘fun money’ into the budget, it will probably be easier to stay on budget without feeling deprived and upset.

The other suggestion I loved was to sit down with your loved one every fortnight for home made cocktails, and spend half an hour working out your finances then. :)

So have you crafted any strategies for coming to agreement with your partner over money? Share tips in comments please.