Dear Ralph: She will finish my money

Dear Ralph,
        I am a family man with 3 children. My wife and I have been in love since our university days until now. I still love her very much but my problem with her is that she plans on finishing my money. I don't know if she does all this on purpose or if she just has no idea how serious this is. We have a joint account that we use to drop savings.
I work and she works too but I earn much more than her. We opened this account so that we would save up for the children, for when they want to start their schooling. But if my wife keeps up what she is doing the children might not make it through secondary school. She spends too much and she act like she doesn't know that we have plans for this money. I might just be in the office and I'll receive an alert on my phone. I would check only for it to be yet another withdrawal from my wife. By the time I call her to ask her what she is doing with the money she would tell me one story or the other. On getting home she would have bought something point,es with it. It is always shoes, clothes, bags or other things that are not relevant or important to the family. I have sat her down and spoken to her so many times and it seems she just doesn't hear what I am saying. She would nod and tell me she won't do it again and the next day she is at it again. I am really tired, I love her but she can't keep being this careless with the family funds. I don't want to withdraw her name from the account because I know it would cause a problem between us. Please do you have any tips or advice I can use? I am only glad the kids are still young but they grow up so fast. Please advice me, thank you.

                                                                                                                                                          Femi










Dear Femi,
         I think your thought of splitting up the accounts should be reconsidered, I personally feel it is the best way to stop this from happening. From what you have described it seems she really does not know the seriousness of the matter, I really can not tell for sure. When you want to split it, you can just explain to her why you want to do it and what you hope to achieve. You can allow her to receive alerts on the phone but remove her privilege to withdraw. So that way she can monitor the account in case you decide to withdraw, which would help you resist the temptation even further.
And at the same time still help you both save the necessary amount needed for your future plans. Instead open a separate account for her and let her put her private savings there and anything extra you decide to put there once in a while, that is if you are into that. I think this method of splitting things up would work for both if she is doing this on purpose or if she really has no idea what she is doing.

I also think that just once in a while, you should surprise her with something nice. I think that should help her and reduce the appetite to go get new things every time she feels she can, especially if she feels that you just don't pay attention to her needs. She would slowly reduce the habit and look forward to your gifts instead if you do it the right way. I know a couple of  people that have complained to me about this, although with more severe cases. It mostly turned out to be because the wives felt they weren't being given any thing by the husbands. So they took it upon themselves to go withdraw the money and spend on their own.So do not give her a reason to that, just do what you have to do.

 Sometimes you just have to pretend like she doesn't know and keep reminding her of how things are. Keep reminding her of the kids and how you both need to make savings for the kids. She would definitely learn with time.

                                                                                                                                                 Ralph