Are you ready to stop fighting with your spouse about money? Maybe you're tired, stressed, and sick of the bickering.

Or, maybe you don't fight about it necessarily but your spouse or significant others spending habits make you want to pull your hair out?

Take heart, you are not alone! Many, many couples struggle with getting on the same page with money when they get married.

Money and marriage matters are hard. It was one of our biggest struggles when we first married.

If you've been married more than 15 minutes, you probably know what this is like as well. 

It wasn't the abundance or lack of money that caused our struggles. Don't get me wrong, the fact that only I was working while Joe was in school when we first got married added financial pressure.

However, the biggest struggle as a newly married couple was simply talking about and agreeing on our financial goals and priorities and how we would reach them.

I became discouraged and was sick of stupid little fights about money and decided that we needed to make a change. Sure, we were putting a lot of money towards my student loans and were setting ourselves up for financial success, but Joe and I were not completely on the same page yet.

To him, I was controlling  and forcing him to do things my way.

To me, he was uninterested and irresponsible with money.

I realized that we had to figure something out and one of us had to change (I was banking on Joe of course). Turns out, we both ended up changing and meeting in the middle. I think they call that compromise? 

Here are my tips for how we learned to successfully handle money and make sure that we are on the same page!

Money and Marriage Tips for Couples

(1) Be Honest & Talk About Money Often

Never, ever keep financial secrets from your spouse, whether past or present.

Before Joe and I married, we made sure that we were aware of each others financial positions and any debt that either of us carried. We also talked about our different views about money and how we were taught to handle money. I highly recommend talking about your financial situation in depth before saying "I do."  This way, everything is on the table.

Money can be a sore subject, I get it. However, communicating about your finances is vital to your marriage. In fact, according to research, couples who talk about money on a regular basis tend to be  happier than those who don't!

We talk about money regularly. We talk about our budget ( see full post on budgeting here ), our dreams and goals, and our plan for reaching those goals.

(2) The Free Spirit & The Nerd: You Need BOTH To Make It Work

In almost every relationship, one person tends to spend more and one person tends to save more. Dave Ramsey refers to the spender as the free spirit and the saver as the nerd.

Neither is right or wrong.

I am without a doubt the financial nerd. I can't stand to not have our checking account balanced daily, I think of budgeting as a hobby, and I plan almost every single purchase.  Nerd.

Joe is a free spirit. When we were dating, he would have $50 dollars in his bank account and If I said I wanted something at the store for $49, he would buy it for me.  Free spirit. 

It took a while for me to digest the fact that it is OKAY that Joe is a spender.  Admittedly, I did have to repeat those words out loud one too many times and take some deep breaths before they took full effect.

Truth is, I should embrace the fact that he is a spender. Without him, I would never reward myself for our financial sacrifices and hard work! There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with saving up and buying something nice as long as you pay cash, are out of debt, and it is within your means.

In order to keep the free spirit and nerd on the same team we have the following:

(3) Don't Hold Financial Grudges

When we got married, Joe had no debt, I was the one who brought financial baggage to the relationship with my student loan debt - the REAL ball and chain, amen?

One thing that I'm grateful for is that Joe never held my debt over my head. Your marriage will not grow in any way if one person is bitter towards the other about the debt or other bad decisions they brought into the relationship.

When you get married, you also say "I do" to whatever financial mess your spouse brings to the table.

If your spouse or future spouse does have debt, stay positive!   Data shows that starting a marriage in debt has a negative impact on marital quality. So, if you are starting marriage with any form of debt (like we did!) and trying not to let in form a wedge in you marriage, you are trying to beat the odds!

Don't add to the stress by holding financial grudges against your spouse. You are in this together and need to attack any debt or bad financial habits either of you possess together. 

Anything worthwhile in life requires teamwork, and this is no exception.

(4) Combine Your Bank Accounts

In my personal opinion, having a joint back account shows unity in marriage. It forces you to make financial decisions together and communicate about your finances. Further, it forces you to clearly identify your  goals, passions, and priorities and then work towards them together.

Keeping one area of your lives separated can lead to other areas becoming separated or detached and thereby creating problems that didn't need to exist in the first place.

Having separate accounts also opens the door to other issues, like financial secrets (and possibly other personal secrets) or overspending by one spouse that is not known to the other spouse.

You are now ONE , so marry your accounts! 

(5) Hold Each Other Accountable

It is important that you both agree to hold each other accountable. 

One way that Joe and I do this is we consult each other on any purchases we are going to make that are over $100. I realize that $100 doesn't go a long ways and is not really a "major" purchase, but when you are trying to pay off debt, save, and invest, a couple bad and impulsive $100 mistakes adds up fast!

Another way we do this is whenever either of us goes away, we agree on an amount the other can spend or a vacation budget. We did this recently for my friend Chloe's wedding that I went to California for, and for Joe's trip to Washington for a camping trip with my dad and brother.

When you plan your expenses ahead of time together, there are no surprises and subsequent fights about how much either of us spent while away.

(6) Improve In Other Areas Of Your Marriage

The typical millionaire couple in America has been married 28 years. Considering that nearly half of all contemporary marriages fail , it seems to me that we could learn a thing or two from these couples.

In his book The Millionaire Mind (highly, highly recommend), Thomas Stanley points out that many millionaires give credit to qualities their spouse possesses as allowing them to have financial unity in their marriage.

These qualities include intelligent, caring, selfless, forgiving, patient, understanding, disciplined and virtuous. 

I found that when I started to work on areas that I could improve in our marriage outside of financial habits, it naturally flowed into all other areas of our marriage.

I became more patient with money, less irritable and controlling, and more understanding of Joe's opinions and perspectives. In turn, Joe was more willing to discuss money and create and stick to a financial plan.

(7) Don't Nag

Before we were married, I vowed to never be a nagging wife. Then we got married.Then we had to budget and make money decisions together. Then I nagged. 

Money has always been MY area. I love budgeting, saving, and crunching numbers. Naturally, when someone else came in the picture and I had to share MY area, I wasn't the happiest camper in the world. I found myself picking fights and constantly ragging on Joe for his habits (which really weren't that bad)!

Something had to change.  Much to my dismay, my brilliant tactics of picking fights and nagging weren't working as planned.

The humorous part about it all is that God revealed to me that I need to stop trying to change Joe (that's God's job) and I needed to work on myself.

The Bible says that  "It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife" (Proverbs 25:24).

Moreover, it says that  "A continual dripping on a rainy day and a quarrelsome wife are alike; "(Proverbs 27:15).

Did you read that?! I DO NOT WANT TO BE A CONTINUAL DRIPPING ON A RAINY DAY.

Nagging will not work. Plus, it's exhausting. 

These are just a few things I've learned along the way... maybe next I'll write about what I learned by sharing a bathroom with my spouse. I think I'd have just as many important points ;)