She's Frugal but He's a Big Spender. How Do They Make Their Relationship Work? - Your Money Briefing

Wall Street Journal

18 hours ago

You can pick your partner but you can't choose their spending habits. It's a common dilemma : one person regularly shops second hand and the other gravitates towards the 'market price' section of the menu. Host Oyin Adedoyin talks with WSJ Personal Space columnist Katie Roiphe about how she and her husband are making it work.
Full Transcript
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Oyin Adedoyin: Here's your Money Briefing for Friday, June 13th. Oyin Adedoyin for the Wall Street Journal. Relationships are all about give and take, but what do you do when your partner is a big spender and you only shop when things are on sale?
Katie Roiphe: It's never fun to be the person who's policing how much money everybody's spending. That voice of the sensible person, even if you're in the right, it's just not very appealing to be that person.
Oyin Adedoyin: We'll talk with Wall Street Journal personal space columnist, Katie Roiphe, about how she and her husband navigate being polar opposites when it comes to spending. That's after the break. It is often said that opposites attract, but what if you and your partner have completely different relationships with money? Wall Street Journal columnist, Katie Roiphe, joins me to talk about how she navigates this in her own marriage. Katie, can you describe your spending style to me and then describe your husband's?
Katie Roiphe: I would put myself in this sort of frugal, neurotic category where I'm constantly imagining cataclysmic financial ruin. I like a sale, I like a bargain. I hate a restaurant where an entree is $43. That just does not feel fun to me. So, I would say I'm just cautious and my husband is the opposite. There's some shockingly expensive pair of socks that he absolutely must have. On one of our first few dates, he ran out of dog food and actually ordered a hamburger from a really expensive Upper East Side Bistro. For the dog?
Oyin Adedoyin: For the dog.
Katie Roiphe: Yes, for the dog. And that could have been a red flag for some people, at the Bowman. It just went past by me. But that's his instinct, I would say.
Oyin Adedoyin: And you call yourself frugal. I'm curious about what makes you thriftier than the average consumer in your opinion.
Katie Roiphe: I was a single mother for 10 years, so I just lived carefully financially. I don't think I'm necessarily super frugal. It's more in the contrast that I appear to be frugal, and that's one of the things I write about in the piece is just in a marriage, people come to occupy these roles. So, he was occupying the role of extravagant person and I was occupying the role of a thrifty person.
Oyin Adedoyin: You described the frugal person in the relationship as drab, boring, lacking in joie de vivre and the extravagant person as fun and exciting and energizing. I found that so relatable, and I was wondering why you chose those words.
Katie Roiphe: I just realized oftentimes you feel like the role you're occupying is actually not one you would choose. You don't really want it. It seems kind of a drag. And the person who's always like, well, I don't know if we can really afford that extra three entrees with the takeout, that person is not very fun. And my husband has this warm, generous, energetic, joyous way of being in the world, and it's contagious. It's really fun for everybody. It's never fun to be the person who's policing how much money everybody is spending. That voice of the sensible person, even if you're in the right, it's just not very appealing to be that person.
Oyin Adedoyin: You also talk about some solutions that you guys have worked through over the years, including separate bank accounts. What are some other ways that you two have navigated these two distinct roles that you play in this relationship?
Katie Roiphe: I would say the biggest one is that thing of separate bank accounts. We don't have children in common. We have separate children, so it makes it easier. He can do what he wants, I do what I want, and that's definitely creates a kind of atmosphere of sanity in our household. But other than that, I think one huge thing is humor. And I feel like the jokes that we make about this makes you able to navigate what could be actually disturbing conflicts. He's constantly telling me, oh, that steak cost $1,000. And I just think it's cute and laugh, and that's how we get through our days.
Oyin Adedoyin: I love that. There's some debate within the financial world about how best to manage finances as a couple. You talk about separate bank accounts working for you two, that's this huge debate. I'm curious about whether you and your husband do have a shared account and how you both decide when to use which account.
Katie Roiphe: We have no shared accounts, literally and no shared property. So, we really take this to quite an extreme. I feel very strongly about financial independence for women and especially, I think, it's very different if you have kids in common, but we got married 10 years ago, we met each other later in life. So, for us, it really makes sense to just have these separate spheres and keep the distinction. I think just having your own account where if you feel like doing whatever you feel like doing, it's your own business. I think that kind of independence in a couple is really healthy.
Oyin Adedoyin: You've noticed that you and your husband over years have picked up each other's spending habits. How so?
Katie Roiphe: It's just funny because I think that neither of us would admit it, and we both really feel like we are 100% in the right, but I think that kind of unconsciously, without even realizing it, we've just edged closer together. And it's really strange how that happens because as I described in the piece, he once got me this bouquet of flowers. I don't remember what it was for, but it was the hugest, craziest, most extravagant bouquet of flowers. My dining room table, which is enormous, did not have space for anything but these flowers and their glory. It was crazy. Normally, I would be like, why did you spend so much money on the flowers? In my head. I wouldn't say it, but I would think it. But I just found myself... Suddenly, I was like, oh, this is so great. What a amazing thing to have these crazy flowers. I think that I've started to be able to appreciate a burst of extravagance. And likewise, I think he's started to see that actually saving money is fun and useful and there are all kinds of good things about it. So, I see him looking for the cheaper options sometimes now. So, we sort of have ceased to occupy these roles that were very defining early on in the marriage. It's hard for me to explain how it happens. It's almost like how dogs come to resemble their owners. I think you do just naturally move closer together when you're living together.
Oyin Adedoyin: That's WSJ personal space columnist Katie Roiphe. And that's it for Your Money Briefing. This episode was produced by Ariana Aspuru. Additional support this week from Coleman Standifer. I'm your host, Oyin Adedoyin. Jessica Fenton and Michael LaValle wrote our theme music. Our supervising producer is Melony Roy. Aisha Al-Muslim is our development producer. Scott Saloway and Chris Zinsli are our deputy editors. And Philana Patterson is the Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. Thanks for listening.