Do Savers Marry Spenders?
October 10, 2009 by Karen Weideman
Filed under finances, financial matters
My husband is a spender and I am a saver. I think I’ve worn off on him a bit over the years. He looks for bargains, searches for product reviews, and shops online and in the stores for the best deal he can find before laying out the hard earned dough. He’s even known to haggle in the stores. Still, he is a spender and I try to clinch hang on to our money so that we can be financially secure for our future and emergencies.
According to a new study, savers are attracted to spenders. How can this be? With all of the fussing, arguing, and disagreeing over money, why would spenders and savers be attracted to one another? Most people say that they would rather marry someone with similar views on money management. Who wouldn’t? Despite this logical reasoning, people seem to marry their financial opposite.
Could it be that deep down we are longing for someone to bring out a balance in us? Without realizing it, could I be glad that someone encourages me to buy things and have a free attitude? Or did all of this just happen by coincidence?
What are your thoughts on this? Did you marry your financial opposite?
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I married the polar opposite from myself, he’d definitely a spender and I am the saver. Well I’m the saver when he allows me to be, he is one that couldn’t be caught dead with coupons, buys whenever he wants and hates shopping off a list. But gets upset when he runs out of money.
My husband and I were with spenders before we got together and we’re both savers. Yet I think you’re right: people are attracted to their opposite because they need that balance. It still works for us because we both want to spoil the other and make them happy and productive. Thus, while we hesitate to spend for ourselves, we spend for each other.
Interesting. My son’s dad was a HUGE spender and loved to shop. I HATE shopping, and like to save. However, my current guy is a saver, although he does like to shop too (a lot). He just shops smarter than my ex, but still, IMO buys some unnecessary stuff. Come to think of it, my first real long-term boyfriend was a shopper too. Maybe I’m attracted to shoppers! That bites. I’d rather go to the dentist than the mall.
We both tended slightly to the spending side in our 30s. I think it was a reaction to finally getting through the financially tight years in our 20s. Now in our late 40s we’re decidedly frugal. In fact I run the risk daily of becoming downright cheap. It’s almost become a game with me to see how far underbudget we can be.
Through all our phases we’ve stayed in perfect unison. This didn’t work well when we were both in a mood to spend and neither of us retrained the other, but it’s excellent now that we’re in frugal mode, and neither of us sabotages the others efforts.
Living frugally now is really very easy because of all the spending we did in our 30s. We built and furnished our “dream home” and finished up all the daycare years for our 2 kids. We’re not hard on our home or belongings so our stuff will become dated long before it wears out. At this point we have very few “wants” and only spend on the basics to maintain things. We replace things only when they wear out. We pay cash for used cars and drive them until they go to the wreckers. We live quite comfortably on 50% of our income, and madly pay down the mortgage and invest the rest for early retirement.
As long as we continue to remain in frugal mode together we should sail smoothly into retirement in a little over 10 years.