Spendthrift Wife? Here's How to Control Her

Money conflicts are common to all households. But if your wife is spoofing off your hard earned money on things that you don’t even require, perhaps its time you drew the line.

Shopping comes pretty naturally to all females. But it could take the shape of a problem if your wife is finding it impossible to control her urge to spend, and in the process ends up purchasing a lot of non-sense.

Since you weren’t born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you better address this issue before your credit card debt assumes an astronomical figure.

Read on for valuable tips:

1. Talk About the Problem to Her
Often the solution to the problem lies in a simple heart to heart talk between the couple. Once your wife has understood and accepted the financial crisis, chances are that she would herself control her shopping expenditures.

Make sure you sound very calm and composed while talking to her. There is no point crying over spilt milk now, so decide logically what your next plan of action would be rather than getting into the blame game.

2. Make a Household Budget
Irrespective of whether you wife reforms through your talk, you need to have a household budget.

If you don’t have one already, probably that’s the root to all your financial problems and also the fact that she is overspending.

In order to get a household budget you will have to watch and note down all your expenses for a couple of months and then sit down and note down in black and white a practically doable budget.

While preparing a household budget, don’t forget to cater for your wife and children’s allowances and also keep aside some money as savings or emergency fund.

3. Determine a Financial Goal
It always makes more sense to save in accordance with your financial goals, both for the long and short term.

Besides, a financial goal also acts as a major motivator too. So, get one right away. In order to be an effective one, your money goal should:

-Be mutually acceptable to both
-Be realistic
-Take into consideration the debt (if any) accumulated over the years.
-Set a specific time period, say 2, 3 or 5 years, within which you wish to achieve your quantitatively defined short term goal. Similarly, the time period for your long term goal should be around 10, 15 or 20 years.

4. Some Additional Precautions
Somebody who is in the habit of splurging while shopping is bound to face difficulties in giving up an old established habit, on matter how hard she tries.

A few precautionary measures can go a long way in aiding you in putting a stop to her undesirable spending habits. Here is a list of them:

-Make sure your wife doesn’t have a credit card in her name. If she does, take control of it and keep its usage limited to transactions that cannot be completed without one.

-After she takes the ‘No indulgent shopping’ pledge, accompany her whenever she goes out shopping so that you can remind her of it if need arises.

-Encourage her to stick to cash purchases. Also make sure that she doesn’t exceed the allowance assigned to her.

-You could be required to check her from time to time to make sure she is not financially cheating upon you.

-Make sure you get an alert on your mobile whenever a certain amount is being credited from your/wife’s account.

Though it may sound more like spying and displaying distrust upon your wife, convince her that such measures are for your good.

If these steps are unable to bear any substantial results, it may only be logically wise to see a psychotherapist.