Hey RPChristian men, I have an interesting situation that I'd like some thoughts on. I have been dating this girl for the past 4 months. We are attracted to each other and there's good momentum, but one point of contention between us is finances.

My Vision - FIRE

My financial vision is to have the ability to retire in my mid-40s and use that financial freedom to spend time with people I care about and be generous to them. To pull that off, I have pretty aggressive saving habits, saving >50% of my take-home income, on top of tithing 10% of my gross income.

Her Vision - No vision

For my girlfriend, she has not yet crafted a financial vision for herself yet, so she goes with the flow of how everyone else around her (saves ~22% of her take-home income). From what I’ve observed she seems like she spends like an average girl. Not crazy, but also not thrifty, and likely to suffer from lifestyle creep.

What I'm doing about it - Leading and Teaching

We have talked about finances since early on in our relationship. I told her that I will manage the money in our household if we end up marrying, being head of the household. I also know that people divorce over finances, so I want to make sure that we are aligned on that ASAP. But she thinks my spending habits will lower her lifestyle in the near-term, which it will, but I think she simply doesn’t understand the future payoffs that await if she's disciplined.

We’re currently at the point where I’m essentially selling my vision to her because right now she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know about long-term financial stewardship. One thing I know she deeply values for her happiness is her parents. I’m selling to her that aggressive saving now allows her to spend time in her 40s and 50s with her parents while they get old, instead of having to work a corporate job where you only get 2 weeks of vacation a year (her parents are in China and we’re in the states). Since it’s obvious she can’t handle the discipline now, it's more reason for me to manage the finances so that we can achieve our financial vision.

So to help her learn, I’ve given her some reading material to show her my mindset (The Millionaire Next Door, Random Walk Down Wall Street, MMM blog) and we will discuss more in depth about how we really want our futures to look. If, after learning more and losing her ignorance around the subject, she doesn’t want to follow my financial vision then I’m going to break it off with her because this vision is critical to me.

So that’s a bit of context for me. For those that are married, I have a couple questions for you:

  • What’s your financial vision in a nutshell?
  • How do you talk about finances with your wife?
  • How do you manage financial disagreement between you and your wife?
  • Do you have any feedback or advice for me in my situation?

Thanks and happy Thursday.