topic Re: GF problems in Relationships and Money

GF problems

squirrely2005 — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 02:16:12 GMT

Really didn't know what to title this. Anyway me and my gf have been together 4 years and lived together about 2.5. Been together since hs. Both 21(My bday was monday. Spent a decent amount that week and I guess this is where that's coming. We both did though).That's our backround.

We also work at the same place with the same schedule and make the same money. We also have a checking account together. I take care of all the money. Not exactly cuz I want to but because she doesn't want to help. So I find myself in "trouble" when she wants to buy something and we don't have the money for it and then i basically have to let her buy it. I spend money we don't have too, I'm not saying I don't, but it's hard for one person to budget for two people.

Anyway she's not understanding that. We've tried for her to do the budget and make payments but I don't think she evens knows how to make a credit card payment and so I end up taking over again. For some reason she doesn't want to do it together.

We're working towards paying off about $3000 in the next few months. It's going well so far but I'm stressing myself out realizing it might not work out as planned and I get in "trouble" again that I have credit cards. Whenever she talks to her family, which if I got into her family I'd write a book, she says "Brandon has to pay of his credit cards..." even though she spends on them too their apparently only mine. I'm the only one that overspends.

I guess I'm just venting that she won't go 50/50 on this with me and curious if anybody else has to deal with it and how they might deal with it. She literally never worries about it and ALL I do is worry about it. I also get a lot of crap about how my aunt has started to charge me insurance. She was paying for it when we were living at a house and paying rent but when we moved out I told my aunt i could help her out and so now my aunt asks for $115/month and my gf is SOOO upset about it. "We made a deal that she'd pay so why is she going back on it?"

She's also against using CCs at all. She wants us to close all the cards and use debit. I've realized credit is better and then PIF and I've learned a lot of self control from these forums. It feels great to pay a card in full every month like I've been doing with our cards lately(still owe on one card). I have 5( 2 CU, 1 Capone, Carecredit, Jcrew) and she has 1. I'm comfortable with where I'm at. I never spent more than about 200 at a time on the jcrew until she offered to buy her brother clothes and I kind of thought well I might as well too. Don't use carecredit, hate capitalone cuz it does nothing for me, and one of my CU cards does nothing either but it's my oldest card. My other CU card is NFCU cashrewards so I want to use it and PIF but she doesn't see any benefit. Does anybody want to reply and give reasons of why it's better to use a credit card and just pif to prove it to her? haha My ultimate goal is Amex BCP.

Her goal is a house and I keep telling her that it's gonna be a crappy rate with the credit history that she has.

Thanks for reading.

Re: GF problems

snsforever916 — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 21:47:43 GMT

I had a similar situation at your age. I had an ex boyfriend and we constantly had issues with our finances. I was responsible for our budget and finances. He would always overspend complaining that we never had enough money and would overspend and not inform me of charges on our account. I was furious with his lack of respect for me and our relationship.

I eventually ended that relationship and 10 years later I am married to someone who is much better with his finances. My husband and I both have made financial mistakes but he is willing to deal with set backs and discuss future goals. I still have mutual friends of my ex and he still has financial and spending issues. I am sure his wife loves that!!

Personally, from my experience, you are too young to be combining your finances and credit futures. You two are not married and though you may feel that your relationship is serious, the likelihood that you two will be together in the future is uncertain. My suggestion is that you suggest credit/financial counseling and tell her that you will no longer be taking care of both of your finances. You need someone who can take care of their self alone...Is this the person you want to babysit forever? What if you were to have children(additional emotional and financial burden/little blessings)? What if something serious happened to you? Could she take care of everything on her own?

You really need to sit down and think hard about the fact that you are coddling your partner. You're taking on undue burdens which is causing unnecessary stress! If she cannot do it on her own, is that really a person you want to share your life with? I decided no! I wanted an equal partner, not an individual that was looking for a parental replacement. 10 years later I am blessed I made the decision to end that relationship...His new wife is now dealing with that mess. 10 years later he is much worse. No job, horrible credit, judgments, tax liens, no chance to even get new credit, no driver's license, morbidly obese...etc Basically a waste and I am beyond happy that I walked away and made better choices!

Re: GF problems

madmann26 — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 17:38:17 GMT

Well,

I'll tell you what Suzie Orman said about couples and bills.

Each of you need to have your own checking account and one account for bills only. Each of you need to contribute a percentage of the total bills into the joint checking account.

Basically, it comes down to fairness. Let's take for example you have $3000/mth in bills. If you contribute $2000 and she only contributes $1000, you're contributing some 66% while she is only contributing 33%. The percentage formula works irregardless of how much you make. You're still only contributing X percent. It doesn't work for me since we are a one income household atm but when my wife finishes school, we're going to use this plan.

As for the CC's. Are the cards in your name solely or joint? If they are your solely, then you know what you are comfortable with spending wise. Tell her to go jump in an icy lake if she doesn't like it.

Protect your credit. No one else will.

Just my .02.

Re: GF problems

drkaje — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 03:04:00 GMT

This is a problem easily fixed.

Re: GF problems

webhopper — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 02:35:57 GMT

The problem with this scenario is that you are enabling her irresponsibility. You aren't helping her. She has the financial maturity of a teenager because you are enabling her to be that way. If this were me.... I would get seperate accounts TODAY. And she would pay half of all joint bills. If she cant pay half; send her home to mom and dad until she can. Seriously this is unhealthy and you need to stop.

Re: GF problems

jamie123 — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 11:57:58 GMT

webhopper wrote:
The problem with this scenario is that you are enabling her irresponsibility. You aren't helping her. She has the financial maturity of a teenager because you are enabling her to be that way. If this were me.... I would get seperate accounts TODAY. And she would pay half of all joint bills. If she cant pay half; send her home to mom and dad until she can. Seriously this is unhealthy and you need to stop.

+1 Great advice!

If you can't put a stop to her destructive behavior now, you need to get rid of her. Learn from my mistakes, I've been there and done that. To bad that it took me years to get rid of my ex-wife.

Re: GF problems

webhopper — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 16:35:10 GMT

Exactly... ive been there too. I have a spouse who; even though he doesn't pay the bills himself; he keeps himself engaged in our finances and is involved in major decisions.

So much better that way.

Re: GF problems

rootpooty — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 19:02:36 GMT

drkaje wrote:
This is a problem easily fixed.

OP seems your gf lives in the fantasy land that money grows on trees and your the one stressing over it. And what do you mean you "have" to let her buy something? Does she threaten to break up with you or something? What are her parent's input on this? If her mother has the attitude that you should be providing for her well then my word to you would be bounce now.

Your only 21 and you have perfect credit now that can be EASILY destroyed by her in seconds

Re: GF problems

Shogun — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 03:33:25 GMT

It doesn't improve when you're married. My wife was in charge of the finances for years. Didn't pan out well. I took over when it was time to start getting a mortgage so I had tons to clean up. She likes to spend, believe me she loves to spend. She always says, "I work too". Yes, in fact she does, but I make her yearly salary by March and basically I spend money on gas to work and back. That's about it. Occassionally I have to tell her to slow down, and she huffs and clams up.

Re: GF problems

MandaNic2005 — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 23:32:23 GMT

I had a similar situation, my husband was so irresponsible with money, 3 or 4 days after he got paid he'd be out of money asking for more, and pay days are every 2 weeks not every week! So I finally got so tired of it, I made him worry about it for a while. I made him sit down with me and showed him how much money we had, how much money had to go to bills, and how much we were left with, for BOTH of us. So now he gets a certain amount of money out of his pay every 2 weeks, and if he runs out, well that's his fault and he's out of luck until pay day. My advice would be to figure out your monthly bills, and than figure out what you need for yourselves between checks, and than put the rest in a savings account. If your GF is unsatisfied with that than I think you should find a better match for yourself. And using your credit cards is always a good idea, as long as you have the money to pay for it later. Your GF needs to come on this website and read a little bit, there are so many things that are affected by your credit score, she is going to regret it later when she's trying to buy a car, or get a mortgage.

Re: GF problems

Booner72 — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 18:44:17 GMT

Definitely deal with this now. Divorces and weddings are very expensive and if you are already dealing with this now, it will only progress and get worse. If she won't come up with a fair way to deal with this (financial advisor/counselor can be the mediator) then get your finances separate and protect yourself. Do not get any joint debt with her anymore.

GOOD LUCK!

(I want to go back in time and choke my younger self for the stupid financial mistakes I made with boyfriends). Don't be that way 20 years from now!

Re: GF problems

novabama — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:16:13 GMT

I totally 100th what all of these posters have advised. If she doesn't come around after a serious talk, you need to get out now. When I was 18, I "knew" about credit somewhat and knew I need to pay off and on time. Well the apt my bf and I lived in was only in my name because he couldn't get an apt (should have been my first sign but love really is blind I guess), so when I got pregnant (LIKE PREVIOUS poster mentioned) I had all these bills when he left and wouldn't take care of them.

Moral of the story is I got screwed over young by someone who didn't want the responsibility of bills (3 years older than me...) and I took them on and also let them buy things they "had" to have. Now, I just turned 24 and have a 5 year old and still no money from ex worse half, and am trying to scramble to fix all the awful things on my credit related to the time with him... not to mention the chexsystems ding because of an account that he overdrew (joint--DUMB), that I didn't have the money to pay after the fact, because to my knowledge it was a 0 balance, no access anymore and I had my own checking account by that point.

DOUBLE GOOD LUCK!!!

Re: GF problems

haulingthescoreup — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 06:39:20 GMT

rootpooty wrote:
drkaje wrote:
This is a problem easily fixed.
+1

OP seems your gf lives in the fantasy land that money grows on trees and your the one stressing over it. And what do you mean you "have" to let her buy something? Does she threaten to break up with you or something? What are her parent's input on this? If her mother has the attitude that you should be providing for her well then my word to you would be bounce now.

Your only 21 and you have perfect credit now that can be EASILY destroyed by her in seconds

The only thing that I (barely) disagree with on this entire thread is that she's living in a fantasy land, where money grows on trees.

In fact, the way it's working now is that money DOES grow on trees, and you're the forester, and it's your job to make this money come out of nowhere.

Maybe she's just immature, or maybe in fact she knows (on some level) exactly what she's doing and she's a user, but either way, this isn't a balanced, mature relationship, and you're being used.

--and I seriously worry about the bit about "Brandon and HIS credit card bills." I'm sorry, she sounds like someone who at a minimum lies to others, and maybe also lies to herself. Neither is a good sign.

Best wishes, but do take care of yourself. Truly loving people want only the best for each other, and work to make that happen. If only one of you is doing that, there are some serious problems going on, which need to be dragged out under the 100-watt bulb and examined.

Re: GF problems

FrugalRican — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 10:24:23 GMT

Brother, let me tell you something...

This isn't going to get better as time goes on.

Apparently she's still stuck in high school... and guess what, so are you.

That might sound harsh, but it's intended to be this way. If you are not looking forward to a life of you two living like this, then as drkaje implied, there's one easy way to be done with this. There are a million more women out there that are willing, ready, and able to be a bit more "frugal" than your current girlfriend is. I get the whole highschool sweetheart thing, but it's causing you more stress than anything else. Realize that a LOT of divorces and unhappy marriages have at the root... the problem of finances, and you are heading into that territory. Clearly, she has no respect for you when it comes to financials (as noted by how she pegs the debt as just YOURS and she can spend at will and you won't say anything). At this point, you are enabler even if you don't directly do so.

You might need to move on.

Just as I did once. I had to maintain another person for YEARS and all it did was create resentment. She'd have a checking account with nothing but 40 dollars to her name and come back with a new pair of shoes while that was 40 dollars less I could count on to help pay the rent. I would get mad at her, tell her about it, tell her to stop doing it... and then next month she'd do it again. I didn't realize I was enabling the behavior even though I was against it.

If she's not ready to become financially responsible, then it might be time for it to be HER problem instead of "OURS".

Re: GF problems

algorithmslave — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 07:11:57 GMT

squirrely2005 wrote:
Really didn't know what to title this. Anyway me and my gf have been together 4 years and lived together about 2.5. Been together since hs. Both 21(My bday was monday. Spent a decent amount that week and I guess this is where that's coming. We both did though).That's our backround.

We also work at the same place with the same schedule and make the same money. We also have a checking account together. I take care of all the money. Not exactly cuz I want to but because she doesn't want to help. So I find myself in "trouble" when she wants to buy something and we don't have the money for it and then i basically have to let her buy it. I spend money we don't have too, I'm not saying I don't, but it's hard for one person to budget for two people.

Anyway she's not understanding that. We've tried for her to do the budget and make payments but I don't think she evens knows how to make a credit card payment and so I end up taking over again. For some reason she doesn't want to do it together.

We're working towards paying off about $3000 in the next few months. It's going well so far but I'm stressing myself out realizing it might not work out as planned and I get in "trouble" again that I have credit cards. Whenever she talks to her family, which if I got into her family I'd write a book, she says "Brandon has to pay of his credit cards..." even though she spends on them too their apparently only mine. I'm the only one that overspends.

I guess I'm just venting that she won't go 50/50 on this with me and curious if anybody else has to deal with it and how they might deal with it. She literally never worries about it and ALL I do is worry about it. I also get a lot of crap about how my aunt has started to charge me insurance. She was paying for it when we were living at a house and paying rent but when we moved out I told my aunt i could help her out and so now my aunt asks for $115/month and my gf is SOOO upset about it. "We made a deal that she'd pay so why is she going back on it?"

She's also against using CCs at all. She wants us to close all the cards and use debit. I've realized credit is better and then PIF and I've learned a lot of self control from these forums. It feels great to pay a card in full every month like I've been doing with our cards lately(still owe on one card). I have 5( 2 CU, 1 Capone, Carecredit, Jcrew) and she has 1. I'm comfortable with where I'm at. I never spent more than about 200 at a time on the jcrew until she offered to buy her brother clothes and I kind of thought well I might as well too. Don't use carecredit, hate capitalone cuz it does nothing for me, and one of my CU cards does nothing either but it's my oldest card. My other CU card is NFCU cashrewards so I want to use it and PIF but she doesn't see any benefit. Does anybody want to reply and give reasons of why it's better to use a credit card and just pif to prove it to her? haha My ultimate goal is Amex BCP.
Her goal is a house and I keep telling her that it's gonna be a crappy rate with the credit history that she has.
Thanks for reading.

This is a very interesting tone-of-thought you expressed concerning your situation........a simple solution to a choatic situation. Personally, I would run to a galaxy far, far away and never look back or return, EVER!!! No one, and I repeat no one can help someone who does not want help let alone does not even understand that they need help. My GF now fully understands, after a very hard lesson, my financial future belongs to her if she helps to CONTRIBUTE. There is no "I" in TEAM, although there is a "M" and an "E".....but that does not matter....

Re: GF problems

lithium78 — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:05:08 GMT

I really feel that these kinds of issues wouldn't be as prevalent if we had some kind of personal finance classes in high school. I had a similar situation and it took a lot of pain to get myself on track.

Joint accounts are an endless source of pain, because they put you at the mercy of your significant other. No matter how much you love someone else, you shouldn't put all your finances at their disposal. You may feel 100% certain that you can trust this person with all your soul, but you have to protect yourself no matter what. You need to keep separate bank accounts and a joint account only used for bills. Each of you can contribute your portion of the bills into the joint account and you can make your payments from that account.

Keep separate credit cards. If your GF has access to your credit card accounts, she can run up bills and no matter what they are you will be responsible for them or your credit will be damaged.

Get some financial literacy classes for your GF. If your local credit union offers classes on personal finance, enroll her in them. Have her watch The Suze Orman Show on CNBC and get her a copy of her book "The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke." Suze Orman can work wonders in people who are financially literate and are afraid to learn what they need to know.

It may sound harsh to take all this advice, but it really shows that you love her that you want to help her gain the real world skills she needs as an adult and that you want to build a happier, healthier relationship.

Re: GF problems

localuser — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:29:28 GMT

Your too young to stress out about what another young person is doing. You're right to stress about your finances(probably not the best word butyou get my jist) Also if she is throwing you under the bus infront of her parents make a little spread sheet and track whats yours and hers spending etc... Pull it out and show them and make it simple. Numbers do not lie and they will know she buys "girl" items and you buy "guy" items. Let them see it prove to them that you are doing your part and she is not. I have also been a big adovocate and putting it all on the table to prove my point even if it makes me look like an a##

If they get upset then you will ALWAYS lose my friend and losing should never be an option when it comes to your finances. I found the right one at age 25, she helped me I helped her. She told me we need to get A B C taken care of and WE did it not her not me. I wish you the best of luck

Re: GF problems

FrugalRican — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 17:41:28 GMT

localuser wrote:
Your too young to stress out about what another young person is doing. You're right to stress about your finances(probably not the best word butyou get my jist) Also if she is throwing you under the bus infront of her parents make a little spread sheet and track whats yours and hers spending etc... Pull it out and show them and make it simple. Numbers do not lie and they will know she buys "girl" items and you buy "guy" items. Let them see it prove to them that you are doing your part and she is not. I have also been a big adovocate and putting it all on the table to prove my point even if it makes me look like an a##

If they get upset then you will ALWAYS lose my friend and losing should never be an option when it comes to your finances. I found the right one at age 25, she helped me I helped her. She told me we need to get A B C taken care of and WE did it not her not me. I wish you the best of luck

To me, this sounds like a whole lot more work than just dumping her.

Re: GF problems

localuser — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 17:50:37 GMT

It is but it will prove she is more at fault then he is... I like people knowing the truth.

Re: GF problems

FrugalRican — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 11:34:39 GMT

What's that going to prove to the parents?

They very likely know EXACTLY what she's like. Seriously, I know how my father would react if my brother-in-law came up to him and showed a spreadsheet of my sister's expenses to him.

And what do you think this guy's girlfriend is going to think once she sees he's keeping a score card of their spending AND taking it to her parents?