Spouses and $$$$-what do you think-how do you handle it?

I bet #1....

Kind of a weird vacation set up for the couple, but I am not going to judge what other people decide to do with vacations. Sometimes people work together and want time apart or have family vacations that spouses don't want to attend.

But... spouse #1 has spent their money. Spouse #2 saved. Spouse #2 doesn't have all the money. They got the same amount of money and one already got the goods.

If this same thing happened to say your two kids, would the advice be the same?

I agree with paying back the spouse who saved. That is only fair if the other spouse wants to attend.

I also agree that they need to add a vacation line into the bills if the other spouse wants to go. (My guess is Spouse #2 isn't all that happy about having to give up his/her saved money to support the other spouse's "gaming/toy" habit.)

I go on vacations with my family/spouse, but I also love going with friends too. There isn't one right way to vacation. We've been married for 33 years and different things work for different people.

We pool some of our money for everyday household expenses, but definitely each have separate accounts too that we aren't accountable to each other for. (We married at age 50 and both had bad previous experiences financially with partner's money management skills - or lack thereof.) We do lots of trips together, but we definitely travel separately, too. He has paid for some of our joint trips and I have paid for others. It's probably not typical for most couples, but it certainly works for us.

BUT, we've talked about it many times and agreed on our approach to it -- and we revisit those decisions periodically to be sure we're both still on board. It sounds like your friend's marriage is lacking good communication skills. That's where they need to start. This vacation dilemma is merely a symptom of a much larger problem.

What a very weird situation to have got to this point without having spoken about it 🤔

I agree that it's really all about communication. My husband and I married young, so some of our early expectations around money were formed by our parents habits - good and bad - until we developed our own habits that matched our resources and goals. One of the early surprises was around cars - I grew up in a household that drove old cars forever. My father was handy and more than able to do repairs. I was surprised when my husband started discussing replacing his vehicle that was only 5 or so years old. His family never drove cars past when they felt they would require expensive maintenance/repairs. We had to figure out what worked for us and budget accordingly. The more you discuss your needs, wants and dreams and budget accordingly, the less conflict around money develops - at least imo.

I think you were a good friend in this situation, and right to suggest marriage counseling.

The whole thing seems so petty and energies focused in weird directions; there's more to talk about between them here. I'm sensing resentment and a lack of priority of the relationship. 

I hope the vacation is drama free!

That sounds like a screwed up relationship.

I live by myself and even I have a separate bank account for vacation money. A part of every paycheck goes in it and it is only for vacations- I don't allow myself to use it for anything else. I also have a separate savings account that is used for other things and I'm thinking about getting another savings account for a 3rd purpose.

I don't know what you do if you are in the situation they are in right now because that sounds like a marriage counseling situation. I think from here on out they should have the separate bank account that both contribute to every month so when it comes to vacation time there is something saved up.

Sorry, spouse #1 gets to suck it up and not go.  Why does spouse 2 have to pay since he doesn't want to save?  I would say that if spouse #1 has the money now, she pays the fee and spouse #2 pays her back monthly until it is paid back.

Then start a damn vacation fund

I would absolutely stay away from telling any spouse that is not your own what to be doing and who pays for what.

Offer empathy and a shoulder—otherwise you are asking for trouble!!

The money aside, i'm struggling with the fact the vacation part. Is this a guys trip that she's wanting in on, which would be weird...or is this a couples trip that he doesn't want her to attend because she's broke?

I suppose he could just be looking for some down time at a cabin by himself, i'm wondering what the dynamics are, who is going?

I’ve been married for almost 31 years. In all that time DH and I have maybe taken ten actual vacations or less together but have gone on countless friends trips independent of each other. My friends and I like to do different things than he and his friends like to do, and neither one of us is into most of the other’s hobbies or interests. He would really rather not be dragged along to a scrapbooking retreat, a rubber stamp convention or CookieCon and I would really rather not be dragged along on a fishing or hunting or snowmobiling trip. As long as we each get what we need as far as time away from the daily grind, it has always worked out for us.

Plus we have always had anywhere between 2-3 dogs at a time (and later a kid), which means that if we’re going anywhere together we have to find someone to come in and take care of our pets. Also, all grandparents are gone, the rest of our family members are either not local or totally dysfunctional so we have never had anyone we could leave our kid with for an extended time. If we both go, that means we ALL go which is why those vacations have been pretty limited. (And now that you have your own little one, you will pretty quickly learn that a vacation with a kid isn’t a vacation at all for the mom. It’s just not. That mom meme about going to Target alone being more of a vacation than a vacation with your family is sadly pretty true!)

The only way we could usually make our vacations work is to go separately with friends leaving the other behind, or simply not go at all and that second option has never been an option I could live with. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

ETA: I forgot to answer the OP question, which is if it’s important enough for both people to go on a vacation together, then vacation needs to be a line item in their shared budget. Since the game and toy person blew all their fun money all along, it’s kind of too bad that was more important to that person than saving up for something better.

So, your friend is the wife, and she's a spender.  She and her dh have bad communication, so he thought that leaving her at home was a good way to tell her that she was spending too much?? 

And she thought that there was some magical joint fund for vacations? Or did she know that they each of them needed to be saving within their "fun money" if they wanted to take a vacation?
 
I can't really understand their dynamic, but I'm sure that's true of many marriages.  Maybe money is really tight, and they need to have a conversation about the fact that they just can't afford to take a vacation and still have the amount of separate fun money they're used to having?  If vacationing is important to them, they need to have a vacation fund, which is a savings account, not a bill, and reduce their fun money accordingly.

The key here is that at some point when agreeing to go to this cabin, that neither had a plan of how it was going to be paid for!!!


They should not have agreed to go until they had a plan on how to pay it!

If they cant afford to go in on a cabin rental for a vacation then the need to revisit their financials... that doesn't really seem like it would be that much...

I do like artbabe... i have "several" checking/savings accounts... some in both names n some individual accounts...

This is the 2nd marriage for both of us and we both came in with different baggage..

So I have my own personal checking account that my paycheck goes into... i put money into a long term savings... i have 12 sinking funds that i put money into each week.. and we have a joint checking that i put money into for our monthly bills..

When we vacation we decide what we wanna do... where we wanna go... i make the plan... tell him his part and he gives me his money to make payments...

Besides money and communication... i think they have some issues that you as a friend can not help with...