My Wife’s Not a Fientist
Whoa, that’s the first time I’ve actually written that down, “my wife”.
I apologize for being out of touch since my last post; I have been in Scotland, marrying my girlfriend of nearly 10 years. We have been there for the last few weeks, spending time with her family (she’s Scottish), visiting our friends, and doing a lot of last-minute wedding planning. Once my family and friends touched down in the UK for the wedding, things got even crazier so I have pretty much been offline since posting my interview with Mr. Money Mustache.
Because this is my first post after getting married, I figured I should make it about my wife (isn’t everything about her now?).
In my interview with Mr. Money Mustache, we learned that he and Mrs. MM both set out together to achieve financial independence and retire early. Hearing him describe their shared path to financial independence, it seemed like a great situation, since both husband and wife were working to achieve the same goals and were willing to make the same sacrifices.
Our situation is different.
She Loves Her Job?
My wife actually loves her job and wouldn’t want to stop working even if she had millions of dollars in the bank. Since she has many decades of wage-earning in front of her, it’s hard to convince her to make some of the same sacrifices I’m making in my effort to achieve FI as quickly as possible.
Doomed marriage? No!
Lucky for us, we have had separate finances from the very beginning.
We met when I was studying abroad in Scotland in 2002. Being a typical American, I insisted on paying for everything on our first few dates. She let me pay a few times but then told me that usually people in Scotland split everything 50/50. Since I’ve never liked spending money and had no intention of trying to impress her by throwing cash around, I was happy to comply!
Things soon became serious between us, I ended up moving back to Scotland after graduating, we bought a house together, and all the while we continued to maintain our own separate finances.
Joint Account
Being homeowners and living together, we had many joint expenses that we needed to take care of every month so we decided to open a joint checking account. We still kept our individual accounts open but every month, we would each transfer an equal amount into the joint account to cover our bills and then we were free to use whatever was left over in our personal accounts to do whatever we wanted.
This worked out great for us and continues to work well to this day.
Happy Coexistence
Since we are both contributing equally to the essentials, it doesn’t matter what we each like to do with what’s left over. She can buy or save as much as she wants and I can save as much towards FI as I want and it doesn’t cause any fights or disagreements.
Love and Marriage (and FI)
While it is probably better to have both people in a marriage on the same path to FI, if one partner is not up for it, it’s not the end of the world. If you’re willing to keep some of your finances separate, one person can work to achieve financial independence while the other can pursue his or her own goals.
What Works For You?
How about you and your loved one? Are you both on the same path to FI or are you in a one-fientist family like I am? Do you keep your finances separate or have you found an alternative way to make it work?
Well, I’m going to go fire up the grill and crack open a cold beer to celebrate America’s independence from Britain. Ironically, I will be celebrating with my British wife who, only a few short weeks ago, took a bit of this American’s independence away by putting a ring on my finger! Happy 4th of July, everyone!
Addendum – My wife is now a fientist! – An Unexpected Guest Post
Image: Pookitoots
My wife and I are pretty much in total agreement about FI and jointly review the steps we’re taking to get there. It’s interesting to see how you guys are working things out in an alternate scenario.
I suppose you’ll stop working when you reach FI, and she’ll continue to work, then? If so, how do you think this will affect the dynamic of the relationship (if at all)?
That’s awesome both you and your wife are in total agreement about FI! I am a bit jealous because I’m sure it makes making some of the more extreme frugal decisions a bit easier (sometimes it’s a hard-sell for me since she’s not trying to pinch every penny).
To answer your question, my wife will definitely still want to keep working after I leave my 9-to-5 but I really don’t think it will change our relationship. The main reason is because I envision being even busier after I leave my full-time job. This isn’t something I’ve written much about yet but I plan to in the future. I see my post-FI days as being even more active and productive than they are now (I’ll just be doing work that I want to do, instead of what my boss wants me to do). So to her, it will still seem like I have a job because I’ll be busy and will still be contributing equally to our expenses…I’ll just be in a much better mood!
That makes good sense; thanks for the answer. It’ll be interesting to hear your post-FI plans in later posts.
We also do the “yours, mine and ours” accounts. It works out for us. My wife is slowly coming aboard on wanting to retire early, but like your wife she LOVES her job.
The only comment I disagree with is the “hassle to setting up separate accounts.” It is really no more hassle on ING than adding a column to a spreadsheet. But, I also understand, different systems work for different people and yours works for you.
Also, just found your website. So far I am really liking it. I’ll have to add it to my read rotation at work.
Cheers!
Brian, I’m glad to hear you and your wife do the same thing! I read this article over at Budgets Are Sexy today and I started to think I was a jerk husband for having separate accounts!
I also appreciate you letting me know how easy it is to set up ING sub-accounts. I actually hadn’t tried it before (because I was using the spreadsheet method before I became an ING customer) so I didn’t realize how easy it actually is. I’ll probably still keep using my spreadsheet, since that’s what I’m used to, but I’ve updated the article so that people don’t rule out the ING method.
Thanks again for the input and thanks for reading!