My partner loves to spend, but I love to save. What should I do?

My partner and I have different financial priorities, and it causes a fair deal of friction. I’m more of a saver, he’s more of a spender. I care more about investing for our future, he cares more about enjoying the present. We also prefer to spend on different things – like I value travel more, he values technology and gadgets more. We do save regularly, so we’re not doing poorly financially, but we seem to have different priorities and struggle to communicate about the finances in a harmonious way. How do we reduce the financial conflict between us?

Financial conflict in a relationship is often a symptom of the problem. So, that means the solution to this requires you to go a little deeper to figure out what might be really happening in the relationship. Here are some initial ideas that can help.

Financial conflict in a relationship is often a symptom of a deeper problem.Credit: Simon Letch

1. Do you each have some allocation for personal spending?

You are different people and will always have individual preferences. You’ll probably never care about gadgets as much as him, and he will probably never care about travel as much as you. So you will always have a difference of opinion around what those things are worth, monetarily.

If you have the mindset that you and your partner need to agree on everything, you are not leaving enough space for yourselves to be individuals. This can disrupt the emotional safety of a relationship if you start judging and criticising every purchase or choice they make.

You need to take a bit of a bird’s-eye view. It’s good to be on the same page about your overall direction and the long-term vision and goals you’re working towards, but there also must be space for each person to have some financial autonomy in the relationship.

Even if your finances are largely combined, each person should have some allocation for individual spending that they can spend at their own discretion. This will reduce friction because you have some space to spend without having to agree on everything.

2. What are the deeper needs that you are trying to meet?

Often, with financial conversations, couples get stuck on the practical, tangible things. One person wants a car, the other person wants to save for a house. One person wants a holiday, the other person wants to invest for future financial security.

If you go beneath the practical things, you’ll find that there are deeper needs that each person is trying to meet. Maybe one person is attempting to satisfy their need for fun, adventure, enjoyment and the other is more focused on security, stability and safety.

See if you can have a real conversation about the deeper needs each of you is trying to meet through your respective financial choices. It’s important that this conversation be a safe and judgment-free space – one person’s needs are not more valid or important than the other’s.

Treat your partner’s views as valid and important, understand their perspective, and try to find an approach that works for both of you.

In a healthy relationship, you want both parties to accept the other person’s needs as valid and important, and then work together to figure out ways to have each person’s needs met.

This puts you on the same team, working together towards catering to both of your needs, instead of pitting one person’s needs against the other.

3. Where are you making each other wrong?

One thing that causes a lot of friction in relationships is the tendency to assume that our way is the correct or better way, and our partner’s way is not. When this happens, you end up in a debate, trying to prove your point of view as correct, trying to convince them of your rightness and their wrongness.

This is how we tend to see arguments being won in societal settings – like politics or even workplaces. So, we think that the more well-reasoned approach should be the one that “wins”.

This approach rarely works well in personal relationships because personal relationships, at their core, are not about facts, they’re about feelings. By fighting to prove yourself right or your partner wrong, you are essentially trying to “win” the argument.

But why would you want your loved one to lose? Why would you want to defeat your partner? Aren’t you on the same team? You either win or lose together.

Instead, treat your partner’s views as valid and important, seek to understand their perspective and priorities, and try to find an approach that works for both of you.

What you’ll notice over time as you adopt these principles is that it’s not about fighting over competing priorities. It’s actually about cultivating an environment where you can both co-exist and flourish, and even use your strengths to support one another.

Paridhi Jain is the founder of SkilledSmart, which helps adults learn to manage, save and invest their money through financial education courses and classes.

• Advice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.

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