Do you have a nest egg?
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010 at
11:14 am
If your spouse is the sole bread winner, how do you set aside a nest egg? Does you spouse give you a certain amount of money every week for you to spend/buy what you need? Or do you have full access to all money earned by your spouse?
Filed under: Retirement Planning
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Married 20 years, we have a good nest egg.
My wife demonstrated a very high level of financial maturity before we married and stayed that way AFTER marriage. I was the sole breadwinner for 19 years. These were our rules:
- The only things we ever took on debt for were houses and one time a new mini-van . We paid off the mini-van in one year. And we did a 15 year mortgage. If we didn’t have the cash to pay for something we didn’t buy it until we did.
- We always maxed out my 401K and employee stock purchase plan.
- We always discussed any purchase over $300.
- I never said "no" to any purchase, but a couple times for big things I told her we needed to wait until I felt comfortable spending that much – 10K for a bathroom remodel, 35K for a new SUV.
Because my wife was so good with money, I just gave her my entire paycheck. She did a great job taking care of kids/house/bills/etc oh and a great job of taking care of me. So that made her my equal partner. When I joined a fast growing software company and my income suddenly quadrupled she didn’t change her spending patterns and our savings level went up by 10 fold.
It took me 5 years to figure out what my wife was doing – why she wasn’t buying a lot of stuff with the money. She was buying something for us – the best thing we ever "purchased" – peace of mind.
We bought one thing our dream home – and paid it off in 3 years. The rest just got saved/invested.
hell no-i wing it, very exciting at times.
im not even sure we have eggs in our fridge?
For reasons of coordination, usually the bread-winner gives the home-maker a set amount for the expenses.
Otherwise, one could never draw up a budget.
Now that is not to say that the home-maker can’t ask for additional funds if the budget is too small or there are one-time expenses.
Finances are a lot like cars…you need one person driving, and one person holding the map.
People who think that they should have unlimited access to all funds, probably think that two steering wheels in a car will double the performance.
It won’t. You’ll just have a car crash.
Regarding nest eggs…just make the nest egg another expense that needs to be budgeted and paid off each month (say $100.00).
And if your husband doesn’t see the value in having an emergency account, then you need to have a discussion with him about it.
Good Luck!
We save money here and there, but I wouldn’t call it a nest egg. Its probably not a bad idea to have one, but I just don’t think we need one at this stage in our life.
And we both have full access to the money earned.
we do not have a nest egg. my husband is the only one who works, and right now we are barely making it. i do have access to our money, we have a joint account.
Well, my husband makes more $$ than I do. I work for the government and I have an amazing retirement package. People put away (or should put away) ten percent of their paycheques. The government takes 10% off the top of my cheque and than matches it plus an extra $40 and stores it away for me until retire. So really I am getting just over 20% done to retirement. Myself I’ll be recieving $3,500 a month from that, plus my CPP.
My husband does the RRSP thing, He puts away $65 a cheque and his work matches him. It’s not quite 10% but with my package he won’t need to worry.
All the rest of the money that comes in, I stick chunks in different accounts for savings for big purchases (like a new car, vacations etc etc) one for property tax, and then a general fund for food gas etc.
We usually have about $600 left over after all the bills n stuff to play with, buy clothes, entertainment. I have full access to everything and so does hubby. We usually talk about the big purchases first before going ahead, but everything else is free game.
You should be saving 10% of your income to your nest egg. It’s the first thing your pay check should go to. If you can’t afford that cut expenses (live with in your means) or CONSISTENTLY set aside a portion of the check 8% or 3% just do it regurarly.
I think the stay at home person should have full access…since they would have more time to do the bill paying. However, this can get confusing. But, as long as you communicate what is spent and follow a good budget that’s fine. OR you can just take out a majority of the money for the bills and shopping for the stay at home persona and the bread winner get the set ammount for spending money during the week.
That’s what I think. I would never want to have to ask for permission for money and hate relationships like that. My husband put my name on his account. So, I don’t feel like in an emergency I couldn’t get help. I’m not a feminist I just think it’s a huge argument waiting to happen if the working spouse doesn’t appricate and value what the stay at home one does and is controlling of the finances.
Good luck!
Just a dab but that nest egg is cracking as I write this.
It flew the coop.
We have a budget with weekly allowances paid out in cash for both of us.
We have a joint account and both have our own accounts (with pathetic amounts of money in them, <$100.)
We use "bed mattress money"; we keep an emergency stash of cash on hand locked up in the garage.
We are also lazy as hell so pop-bottles are a secondary form of "income" should there be an extreme need. I have taken back over $400 worth of cans & bottles in a weekend before…
Interest paid on most debt other than a mortgage or a student loan outstrips anything you can make saving or investing. Pay off debt first then save and invest. We’re still paying off high-interest debt ><.
Spending less is the most effective way to "make more money".
Budget. Allowance. Stick to it.
Honestly you need to sit down and figure out your finances. That means figuring how much you earn and how much you spend.
Write it all down, do away with stuff you WANT (or just cut back on it) and put the money in the bank.
A lot of people can afford to put away money, however they dont like to, or dont have the financial discipline to do so.
As to the second question, i dont know. Both myself and my wife work. We each pay our own credit cards and such, but for other bills (housing, childcare) we picked one of us to be the one responsible for paying it. Currently we have it split so that we are paying about the same.
We have what is taken out of hubby’s check for retirement…I have a part-time job so I don’t have retirement yet.
When I get a full time job we plan on me saving more from my check into a savings account for emergencies or building for retirement but right now we don’t have alot of extra money so that is on hold
All the money goes into the checking account since we are equal partners in life. We each help in figuring what we can afford and spend. I can’t imagine it any other way and wouldn’t think that my wife would get an "allowance". That would be demeaning.