Talking to Your Husband About Money

Talking with your military husband about finances can be hard. I'm sharing my tips and tricks on how to work together toward your money goals.

Last week I posted a question in my instagram stories. I asked if any of you wanted to hear more of our debt-free journey and learn how you can start implementing some of our financial tips and tricks into your own lives. When the responses to the poll flooded in with a resounding YES PLEASE I knew I needed to do a series here on the blog.

As I started brainstorming what I would share with you, I quickly realized this would need to be more than one post. I’m thinking we’ll be camped out on this topic for the next few weeks. Here is a breakdown of some of the things we’ll cover:

In this post I’ll share how to get started making financial goals with your husband and how to talk to each other.

Then I will walk you through how to break those big goals into monthly realities with our tried and true budgeting system.

Finally, I will share our personal journey with you and what it looks like on a daily basis to stay within our financial boundaries.

Sound fun? Well, maybe not, but sometimes the hardest things are the most rewarding. We have learned so much since the beginning of our debt-free journey in 2017 and I pray you can find the freedom that comes from trusting Jesus with your finances, too.

If you are looking to create financial freedom as a military family, then this series is for you! Let’s dig in.

How to Get Started Making Financial Goals with Your Husband

1. Set a Meeting Date

Before you get into the nitty-gritty details of budgeting and financial planning, set an initial meeting date. Talking about money, in a productive way, is never going to come natural. If you have little kids, set aside a time to meet after they are asleep at night. Get rid of distractions and be intentional with this first meeting.

Now that you have your meeting date set, don’t come unprepared! What do you need for this first meeting to be successful? Great question.

2. Long-term Vision [prep work, on your own]

Opening the conversation about money with your spouse can be overwhelming, especially if you have never tried to plan financially before. When you are preparing for your first planning meeting, I want each of you to come up with long-term dreams and visions for your family. Do this individually before you come together so you can see the desires of each other’s hearts. We’ll get to the compromising part later *wink*

Ask yourselves the following questions as you write out your long-term vision for your family’s finances.

Is living debt-free a priority?
Is tithing the full 10% a non-negotiable?
Is military life a full-time career?
What will our retirement look like?
Do we need/want to save for things like college, vacations, a home, vehicles, Christmas, braces?

You can get as detailed as you want here and this list could go on and on, but don’t be afraid to dream for your family!

3. Yearly Goals [during the meeting, together]

Long-term vision has a way of disappearing if it stays in the visionary phase. Once you are in your meeting (and you have both done your homework) it’s time to lay your dreams and visions out for the other to see. At this point it is important to keep in mind each other’s feelings. If you are doing this honestly, it can be hard to be vulnerable when money is the central focus. Give grace to one another.

Compare your lists and really start planning! This is the fun part. Where can you imagine your family in the next ten years? Create that vision with your husband and break down the big dreams in yearly goals.

For instance, if one of your big goals is to be debt-free, we recommend tackling that first. We used Financial Peace University as our guide and it was amazing. Even if you don’t agree with all of Dave Ramsey’s teachings, his debt snowball method really works. You can take your big debt-free vision and break it into yearly and monthly goals. This may take more than one year and it’s not easy work, but it becomes more realistic when you start taking action on something that was previously stuck in your head as a far off dream.

4. Compromise [during the meeting, together]

If you are finding it difficult to see eye-to-eye on everything you came to the meeting with, decide to tackle only one thing first. Compromise on one thing and work together to see if you can achieve that goal first. Working together and getting a quick win will boost your confidence and make you feel like you are a team again. Once you have this mentality you can move to some of the trickier financial obstacles.

Realize that you and your husband, most likely, view money differently. One of you may be a spender and one of you may be a saver. Take a moment and admit to each other which one you are. If you are a saver, realize you may struggle with the need to control your finances. If you are more of a spender, realize you may make irresponsible financial decisions sometimes. Neither one is better or worse, but if you admit to each other your faults, it’s easier to see how your character affects your decisions with money.

Talking About Money: That’s It (For Now)

I know that was a lot for this first post and some of it sounds like common sense, but I wanted to share what works for us in hopes that you can find financial freedom within your military lifestyle.

I’m excited to chat next time about the details of turning long-term vision into a reality through monthly planning and budgeting. Stay tuned for how we tackle our monthly budget.

Deep breaths, my friend. I know money talk is hard.

talking to your husband about money