Is your spouse/partner causing your financial downfall?

Do you and your spouse fight over to much spending?

You went shopping again? 

If you have ever checked your joint bank account statement at the end of the month and are confused as to what some of the purchases are, you are not alone. Sixty-four percent (64%) of couples put all of their money in joint accounts, and many identify one person in the relationship as a spender. While it may feel comforting to know you are not the only person facing this, studies also show that husbands and wives typically spend about the same throughout the year but on different things.
Instead of feeling like your partner is ruining your financial lives, come together to create new financial processes and solutions for your relationship.
Maybe  these suggestions help your situation

Create a spending account.

You just can spend money and not tell me!

No one wants to feel like they are being watched for every dollar they spend. Consider keeping your joint accounts for things such as bills, savings, and activities for the kids, but create separate accounts for spending with an agreed upon amount for each of you. This way you both have the liberty to save or spend how you like, but from a limited amount of money and with no chance to overspend or short the bill money.

In my BAD experiences. Joint accounts is like having two exit doors to one small room and each person has a key... to their door. when you use your key ( debit-card, cheques) and the other person use theirs you deplete the account twice as fast. So every time  each of you check your balance it will not show the  actual  amount because, your or yourspouse have  other debts  pending.  It is the most difficult thing to keep control of. It become a personal attack when one person ask:" what did you spend this money on?"

Set some ground rules.

We agreed to cut back on spending
on things we can do with out!

Agree to a few parameters for your household. Discuss whether it’s OK for one person to decide to save all their personal money and make a large purchase without consulting the other. It’s not about asking for permission, it’s about promoting and maintaining a healthy level of communication with your spouse.

In my BAD experiences: Rules are meant to be broken in relationships. the best ground rule is to keep money matters under control. Keep it Simple to avoid causing  fights. Agree to put a fixed amount in an account for household bills, and go shopping for food together, send out the mortgage first, then pay the utilities.... Keep solid control to avoid  out of control spending. 

Be transparent.
The purpose of a personal spending account is not an excuse to keep financial secrets. If you purchased something new for $500 and you saved to buy it, don’t lie and tell your spouse it only cost $150. You also don’t want to use your personal spending account as a way to hide debt. All debts should be paid from the joint account, which means both parties need to be aware of its existence. The same goes for income, there should be no bypassing of the joint account for your personal spending. All of these situations breed financial mistrust, which is extremely damaging to relationships long term.

This was my actual pool table I bought without telling my then , now ex-wife
 it was a very BAD decision on my part.....
mainly because it took up more space than she liked...
but my sons  entertained many of their friends using it.
So they were happy I bought it. 3 out of 4 were happy!
But one unhappy wife can make the husbands life miserable. 

In my BAD experiences: everyone sees things with different values i.e. a pool table for $2,000 was a good deal to me, but not to my then spouse. A purse that cost $500. is not a good deal to a man but to woman it is all in the value of the brand-name.... Men are from Mars , women are from Venus. It's never going to be simple.