You will be able to describe your own money habits and where they came from, and spot your partner's.
Before reading on, write down one thing you were told about money as a child, or one thing you watched your parents do with it. A single sentence is enough. Money habits usually start at home, often at the dinner table, well before anyone hands you a pay packet.
Children pick up a great deal without being taught. They see whether the adults speak about money freely, avoid the topic completely, or raise it only during a quarrel. They see who settles the bills, who worries over them, and how the family copes when a large expense turns up without warning. Nobody sits down and chooses the habits that grow out of this. You take them in the way you take in an accent, without noticing.
Hui Min and Daniel are an invented couple. They have been together 3 years and are getting ready to apply for a BTO flat. One Saturday the aircon servicing bill comes in. It is S$180 in this example, for a chemical wash the two of them had agreed on. Daniel settles it on his phone in 10 seconds and thinks no more of it. Hui Min carries a small knot in her stomach all afternoon, and later asks if the chemical wash was really necessary this year. Daniel takes the question as an accusation. By dinnertime they are in an argument that neither of them could put a name to.
Either of them could have covered the bill, so the clash was between their reflexes. Many money disagreements between partners work this way. Two sets of reflexes, each formed before the couple met, come up against each other over a bill whose size and affordability barely come into it.
Hui Min's childhood home was a three-room flat. Her mother kept every receipt in a biscuit tin. Her father was a taxi driver whose earnings rose and fell from one week to the next. The family spoke about money openly, and always anxiously, and an unexpected bill could mean a week of plain rice with no outings. She carried into adulthood the belief that savings in the bank are the one thing that keeps a family safe.
Daniel's parents did not talk about money where the children could hear. His father quietly paid for everything, and nobody raised the subject. Daniel grew up believing that money gets handled without discussion, and that questioning a bill is slightly rude.
Many couples divide along the same line. For one partner, safety means a healthy balance in the bank, and any spending, planned or not, registers as a loss. The other treats money as something to live with, and an untouched balance seems wasted while there are meals to share, trips to take and relatives who could use help.
You may tilt one way, sit in the middle, or tilt differently depending on what the money is for. Daniel is relaxed about paying for a holiday, yet a S$40 restaurant bill troubles him a great deal. Hui Min puts money aside every single month, and still buys gifts for her parents without a second thought.
Neither style is wrong, and each carries its own risk. A home with only savers may never enjoy what it worked for, and may turn down things that would have been worth paying for. A home with only spenders may be one retrenchment from serious difficulty. When the two styles share a home, they can steady each other, provided both partners understand what is happening.
Problems begin when each of you explains the other's habit as a defect in who they are. To Hui Min, Daniel paying so fast looks careless. To Daniel, her question sounds like distrust, or like stinginess. After that shift, each new bill gets treated as proof, and the real amount drops out of the argument.
Listen for "always" and "never". "You always spend without checking." "You never let us enjoy anything." Lines like these describe the person, and nobody can win an argument about who someone is.
What helps is to choose a calm moment and tell your partner, out loud, what your habit is and where you got it. Naming the habit gives your partner a piece of your past to understand, so they can take it as information about you and not as an attack on them.
For Hui Min, that could mean explaining that a bill arriving feels like danger, since that is what it meant when she was growing up. Daniel can then take it as part of her story and stop hearing criticism. For Daniel, it could mean explaining that he pays quickly because his family's way was to deal with money and move on. Hui Min can then see a rule he was raised with where before she saw carelessness. When your partner tells you about their habit, take it the same way, as part of their history.
With both habits named, practical agreements become possible. Hui Min might agree that bills already in the budget are paid with no discussion. Daniel might agree to raise any unplanned spending above a figure the two of them set together. Neither person has to become someone else. They simply stop catching each other off guard.
You and your partner will compare notes in lesson 1.3, Run the conversation without it turning into a fight. Before then, take these questions somewhere quiet:
Did your parents argue about money, or stay silent about it? Who made the money decisions at home? What happened when there was a big, unexpected cost? What did you promise yourself you would do differently when you had your own money?
As you answer, notice which style you lean towards, and whether it shifts with what you are spending on, such as holidays, eating out or presents for family. You do not need your partner for the first part of this. Before you compare notes in lesson 1.3, spend a few quiet minutes with your own childhood and see which habit you brought with you into adult life.
Write three sentences on how money was handled in the home you grew up in, and name one habit you think you brought with you.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).