Truth Bomb: The Truth About Finances in Our Marriages

Marriage and money—two topics that individually carry enough weight to sink a dinner party conversation, and together create one of the last true taboos in our social discourse. When Sam shared her experience spending $1,650 on Daxxify without discussing it with her husband first, she found herself at the center of a social media firestorm, with commenters quick to label her marriage as toxic. But as this honest conversation reveals, the reality of married finances exists in shades of gray that TikTok's black-and-white thinking can't capture.

So let's talk about it! 
Sam and Zara chat about the unspoken threshold (often around $1,000) where purchases shift from independent decisions to conversations requiring joint agreement, to the profound influence of our childhood experiences with money, this episode unpacks the complex dynamics of financial partnerships. We explore how the transition from being a high-earning professional to a stay-at-home parent creates both practical and emotional adjustments, requiring explicit conversations about spending that may never have been needed before.

Whether you maintain joint accounts, separate finances, or something in between, you'll find validation and perspective in this judgment-free conversation about how real couples navigate money matters. Join us as we break the silence around this crucial aspect of partnership and share how our own approaches to finances continue to evolve through different life stages.

Have you established a spending threshold with your partner? We'd love to hear your approach to managing money in relationships. Share your thoughts and join the conversation about this often undiscussed aspect of modern marriage.

hartsone manor, money, finances, sahm, stay at home mom, motherhood, couple money, 

Chapters

• 0:56 DAXify Drama and Money Conversations
• 3:48 Joint vs. Separate Finances in Marriage
• 9:03 Adjusting to Single-Income Households
• 13:29 Setting Financial Boundaries Together
• 17:13 The Value of Unpaid Labor
• 22:53 Hidden Privileges and Family Support
• 25:58 Social Media and Financial Reality

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:28

Good morning, Zara, or good afternoon where you are. Hi, good morning, how are you?

Speaker 2: 0:34

I'm good, I'm getting ready for kindergarten tomorrow, so I was doing a complete overhaul of our playroom downstairs.

Speaker 1: 0:40

So I'm ready. That's yeah. That's the dreaded task for me.

Speaker 2: 0:45

Oh see, I think it's fun to just like clean it all out, but my hard part is just like getting rid of this stuff because I'm like I could just sell this and I could make some money. I think that's what's really hard. So I'm going to try to find a domestic violence shelter and go drop some stuff off, and if not, I'm going to have to just take it to Savers because it needs to get out. Did you see my TikTok? I did see your TikTok.

Speaker 1: 1:06

I saw your TikTok.

Speaker 2: 1:18

I saw some of the comments and how I'm just getting roasted and just like dragged through the mud. So for anyone listening who has not seen it, I posted about recently getting Daxify and I hadn't gotten it since. I have been a stay-at-home mom, so I have been staying at home. For I made a conscious decision, starting, I think, in January, that I was not going to go back to work, that I was not going to take on consulting clients, that I was going to focus on my reselling business and my vintage clothing business and the podcast. And so I went from making $250,000 a year, plus benefits in stock and all of those things, to not, and I get something called Daxify in my face. I started last year. I'm 42.

Speaker 2: 1:47

And if you've already watched my TikTok, this will be really brief.

Speaker 2: 1:51

But I mentioned that I paid $1,650 and I didn't want to talk to my husband about it, so I put it on our credit card and then I freaked out and I Venmo'd him because that I feel and my husband too feels, like a charge that's over $1,000 should be discussed with the family and I'm just getting absolutely dragged that I'm in a toxic marriage, that I'm kind of hinting at, that I'm being financially abused and that I'm way overpaying. The helpful stuff is that I've found out I'm way overpaying for my Daxify and so I've been able to shop around. So I'm still glad I post it. But my husband's like I didn't do anything. He's like I didn't even ask you for the Venmo.

Speaker 2: 2:33

But he's like we also talked about it afterwards and he's like absolutely not. Can you spend 1650? He's like, imagine if I spent 1650 going to Pebble Beach and golfing four times a year. He's like absolutely not. Like that is ridiculous. And I will say I do take GLP-1 and I just started my shot again because I had been off of it and that's $400 a month and he didn't say a thing about that. So to give a little bit more context, so I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

Speaker 1: 3:02

Well, I mean, here's the thing. I think in a TikTok, you lose all of this context. So I think it's important that we're talking about all of it on the podcast. I agree with you, I think that costs over. I say it's around $1,000 too for us have to be discussed by both partners. I also think that we're in a moment right now where people are really against what they call the 50-50 marriages and there's like a complete lack of nuance, right Like there always is on the internet, especially on TikTok, where I think people are either like the woman doesn't need to make a single dollar or it's a 50-50 marriage. The reality, I think, is like most of us are kind of somewhere in the middle of both of those extremes.

Speaker 1: 3:49

I don't know exactly how you guys approach finances, but I will say like for us, it was very important to me that our money was our money.

Speaker 1: 4:01

Like the minute something hits either of our bank accounts, it is ours. And I just wrote something for the every mom about this, actually, because there's a post going viral on Tik TOK from this woman who is crying and she's asking if it's normal to have to ask for money for everything. That's a very different situation than what you're talking about and I was, you know. I basically wrote about how, like being a journalist in this space for a long time no, it's not normal, but it's actually pretty common. It's actually pretty common for stay athome parents to not have, even if they have equal access to all the money and they're on every account, to not feel a level of ownership over the money that their partner feels, because they are still viewing it as his money versus my money. That that is the only way to do it, to say that everything is ours. But for me, I think that I just feel like that's the simplest. But I also think that everyone has to figure out what works for them and you're also a bit ahead of me, right?

Speaker 2: 5:04

You guys have had the discussion and you always wanted to be stay at home and we are very much a 50-50 household and always have been, even when we were dating and so we don't really talk about finances too much. Honestly, I talk about it with all of my girlfriends Not all of them, actually, but I do talk about it with a lot. Since I grew up so poor finances, I have a lot of money noise, and I never wanted to rely on anyone, and so we don't share bank accounts. We've always been separate. I do have our credit card. He pays all the bills, he does all that stuff, and then I do all this stuff for our son and all the summer camps, all of that, and this is the first time he's ever been like, hey, what is this charge? What is that charge now that I'm not contributing Because our credit card bill was high this summer because we had summer camp and all of these different things as I was trying to piecemeal it together.

Speaker 2: 5:54

So I will say we have fought about pretty much everything. Finances has never been something that we've ever fought about, and I know that's one of the things that most people I want to say it's like 50% of marriages end because of finance or something. It was something crazy, some high stat like that our therapist was saying, or our former therapist. And I think we're still getting adjusted to it because it's like I have, you know, I had a really high salary, but right before I, the week my son was born is when I paid off my student loan. So I paid off $135,000 from grad school and that's all because it turned into interest and so like, even though I had a really high salary, it's not like I was just like raking in the dough, right, and then you have daycare and nannies and all of these things, yeah, and so I think for us it opened up the conversation a little bit and it's just like okay, what should we talk about? What should you know? Our budget look like on the credit card per month, and absolutely not $16.50 DAXify, unless I want to figure out a way to pay for it myself. But if I find it cheaper, then we'll have that discussion.

Speaker 2: 7:02

But then I was talking to some friends about it this weekend and one of them was saying that her husband and her, when they were dating, they always shared money. A lot of people who, yeah, a lot of couples just share accounts. And when she was getting her Brazilians done, she was like, oh, I should pay for that. And he was like, no, that is very much a relationship expense that should come from our joint account. And we've never had that. But I really like that approach. I think that's like a really egalitarian way to look at it, to be like this is for us.

Speaker 2: 7:34

But, yeah, I'm really interested to talk to people about how they manage their money, because people say that they talk about money with their partner, but when you get down to the brass tacks of it, it's like oh well, this is my budget for the month as a stay-at-home parent, for groceries, for whatever, and we try not to go above that. But the money is our money. But some people aren't on the bank accounts. I'm not on my husband's.

Speaker 2: 8:02

All of our stuff is in an estate because for taxes and all of that, in case anything happens when you grow up without parents or parents who died early, you get estate stuff done really early and in California it's called a trust instead of a will. For anyone listening, it doesn't mean we're wealthy or whatever. It's just you get a trust instead of a will. So that's where we are and I'm really excited. Like you mentioned, offline it's hard to get people to open up and be honest about finances, but I'm hoping that our conversations in this podcast can focus a little bit on the financial situation. I know we talked to the Two Moms podcast Between Us Moms, the Between Us Moms podcast.

Speaker 1: 8:45

Who are wonderful.

Speaker 2: 8:46

Yeah, and they were really open about finances and kind of how they manage it, and so I'm hoping that I know you are too to like talk to people about finances and how they're making it work in this economy, cause it's it's crazy. It's really hard to have two, nine to five people and it's really hard to have a single income. Um, so how are people kind of making it work?

Speaker 1: 9:06

Yeah, and I think, even just like the few minutes that we've been talking so far, there's so many factors that affect how you're going to approach this. Like I was not making the kind of money that you were making, right, so when we lost my income, it really didn't change things. It wasn't this like we really need to reevaluate how we spend and how we look at money in our household, because, like most women I'm going to say, I've been chronically underpaid my entire career and my husband has always made a lot more money than I do, so it was never like this big financial hit that we had to weather. I also, I think the point you brought up about money noise. I never grew up with that.

Speaker 1: 9:50

I don't talk a ton about my financial situation because it's not just about me, and I think that's an issue we're going to run into a lot. I think that even when we were talking before, we got on about how a lot of married people don't talk about their finances, but single people are maybe more likely to. I get it because your finances implicate another person when you're married, right, and I think that you have to respect your partner's privacy. But I will say, like I, when you mentioned money noise. That's something that I've never really had and I won't pretend that I didn't grow up privileged, I 100% did and I think that that really affects how you come into this conversation too. I think that your formative years are formative in every way, and they form your relationship with money too. Yeah, so I think that's a big piece of the conversation.

Speaker 2: 10:41

Yeah and especially yeah. I think too. What I have noticed is people with money don't like to talk about it. People without money have no problem talking about it. At least that's been my anecdotal experience. But I'm really interested because it is something that is kind of like taboo, except with finance bros. It's like you get the Jason Tardik, or however you say his last name who, like, has a podcast about finances.

Speaker 1: 11:08

I was just thinking about that when we were saying we want to kind of get into more money. Talk here.

Speaker 2: 11:13

Yeah, you have that angle where it's like no, or like the Gordon Ramsey or you know, and that's just. That's not how things are. And I will also say I didn't make that high of a salary for that many years. I was primarily around like 175 plus stock, and all of that for most for like ever since I got into tech until I started moving up and I know that probably sounds really really like out of touch to anyone listening who maybe doesn't live in the Bay Area, but I was way underpaid compared to the men who were doing the same role. So there's a spectrum for everything.

Speaker 2: 11:52

And yeah, and I think for us it's. I mean, when you go from that kind of a salary like a dual income with those kinds of numbers, there is going to be some adjustment. And my husband had no idea I was spending that kind of money prior on my upkeep and you know. So it's a learning experience. But what I think is kind of cool is that we have the opportunity to kind of like I'm newly a stay-at home mom, right, and like if we can help other people have these conversations earlier or kind of feel less alone about it, because I think it is kind of isolating, to be like like, what are these conversations? And yeah, like things don't all also like talking with your partner about finances.

Speaker 2: 12:41

Also talking with your partner about finances, I know a lot of people who are maybe a little bit more type A sit down with a spreadsheet and they go through everything, but I don't know, I feel like most people are not like that. Is your family like that? Not at all. Yeah, so you either hear the type A people who are very much like this or the type like our households where it's like, hey, this is a little bit high, let's try to get it down.

Speaker 1: 13:03

Yeah, and we also had a situation kind of similar. My husband, about a year ago, surprised me with Taylor Swift tickets and it was the resale tickets. By the way, congratulations, taylor and Travis. We just heard about this before we hopped on. But it was the resale tickets. So it was like the crazy, crazy overpriced ones. And yeah, of course, I was like thank you so much for doing this Did you get your?

Speaker 1: 13:27

sweatshirt there. I did, yeah, but of course I was like thank you so much for doing this. But also, you can't spend that kind of money without having a conversation with me first. And that was a moment of like, and he's like you know, I only did it because I figured that if you were really uncomfortable with it we could resell them. But then when you look at all the, the fees and the transaction stuff, like we probably wouldn't have gotten even three quarters of our money back. So we did wouldn't have gotten even three quarters of our money back. So we did have to have a conversation at that point about you can't spend money over a certain threshold and I think we also set it as $1,000 without we're not going to say permission, but we're going to say a conversation and we're going to make sure that both of us are on board before we spend that kind of money.

Speaker 2: 14:12

And maybe that's where I went wrong in my thing is I said how do I ask my husband for this instead of a conversation? But it is asking because it's approaching it and being like, hey, what do you think about this kind of finance or this kind of charge? And so I think that was another thing I got roasted for, where it's like she's a grown woman, why is she asking? But I do think that is a conversation you need to have when you have shared finances.

Speaker 1: 14:39

Yeah. And I think it's different to say something like do I have permission to spend this money? Versus like hey, are you comfortable with this? You know I want to do this. This is how much it costs. Is that okay? Like yeah, you know this is our money.

Speaker 2: 14:54

Yeah, I mean it is. It is like because you're in a partnership, otherwise you know, yeah, and so if it were, yeah, we are very much a separate, separate money household. So it is an adjustment for us to move to not being that because, but again, I don't know how long I'm going to stay at home and, um, I think that's. The other thing is, like I don't know how long I need to stay at home right now. It's what's working for us and hopefully I can build this vintage clothing business to be I don't. I mean, I don't know if I can replace my former income, but it would be wonderful to do that. Or even you know half of it, so we'll see. And we do have a text option.

Speaker 2: 15:38

So if you are want to share any financial guidance of how to have these conversations or like have questions, or we'd love to hear kind of how you all handle your finances with your partner, whether you're dual income, whether you're stay at home, whether you work part time. The other thing that I've heard is that and this is what I'm going to be trying to do I don't know if you do this in your household is trying to earn money, so that that's the fun money. So I've heard a lot of people or, like the stay-at-home partner, tries to do something on the side to earn the fun money whether it's for Disneyland or things that are not necessities, through reselling or whatever you know consulting on the side. Have you heard of that before?

Speaker 1: 16:19

I have Doesn't feel right for me, but I think that if that feels good for other people, for us it's just like we're both making money and we're both putting it in the same pot. Okay.

Speaker 2: 16:30

So that's different too, because you are working, so it is even though you consider yourself stay at home, you are working. Yeah, I, even though you consider yourself stay-at-home.

Speaker 1: 16:36

you are working. Yeah, I'm a working stay-at-home mom.

Speaker 2: 16:39

And I mean you are working as like. We're all working no matter what, but like you are.

Speaker 1: 16:45

You are earning an income. I'm earning an income, yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:48

And so I think that's what's different, so it all goes in the same pot for you.

Speaker 1: 16:51

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 16:52

Okay yeah, you Okay yeah, would you do you?

Speaker 1: 16:59

think that it's. It would probably be the same amount as your fun money. No, I think I make more than my fun money would be Okay, I mean, yeah, like. What exactly would fun money be, though? Would it just be things that are just for me, or would it be like no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 2: 17:11

Like for the family, like going to Disneyland, Like I have a friend who her husband is staying at home right now and she's upset because he wants to do things like Legoland and it costs, you know, four grand for their family to go. Yeah, and she and I were speaking about it and she's like going through the finances, Um, and she was like and then we spent four grand on skiing, but that was my choice and I want to do do that and I make money and I was like whoa whoa, whoa, whoa whoa, if it's equal and it's your like communal money and so we were talking about, maybe he could make some fun money on the side.

Speaker 2: 17:42

So maybe like eight grand a year, 12 grand a year or something like that.

Speaker 1: 17:47

Yeah, I mean I haven't like pieced out how much we spend on the fun stuff, but I would say I probably make more than we spend on that. Yeah, but we also just don't think about it that way. It's just, you know, we're both working, we're both kind of doing equal parts. Yeah, my husband makes more money, but I'm also the default parent in our house, you know. So even if I'm not making the same amount of money, I know my contributions are just as valuable and our family couldn't get by without them. You know, I think that's how we have to think about it, because I think even in couples who say they're 50-50, it's not actually 50-50 when you really get down to brass tacks, because one person is carrying more of a load.

Speaker 1: 18:30

And I think we live in a culture that just doesn't assign any type of value to the invisible labor, to the unpaid labor, to the domestic labor, all of that.

Speaker 1: 18:39

But I think that if you have a dynamic like mine and you don't feel like there needs to be any kind of litigation around who is making more and who's doing more, I think that just pull equal weight, because you don't make equal money. I think start to look at what you're doing and start to really look at the contributions that you are making to your house, and if you want to put a monetary value on them, you can totally do that, because you can look at what a nanny would cost, you can look at what a house cleaner would cost a driver, whatever. We're all doing a million and five different things and I think it's completely impossible to even calculate all of the value there. But I think you can start to kind of look at that and if you're having a hard time wrapping your head around the contributions that you are bringing to your family, I would suggest doing that.

Speaker 2: 19:36

Yeah, I agree, and I think I mean that is why I stepped back too. I couldn't handle the demands of my job and the demands of the household as I just didn't have the emotional capacity for it. Because I do carry the emotional labor of the family, even though you know my husband no, my husband actually agrees with that he is very much 50, 50 in terms of physical, but the emotional part for sure, um, and you can't quantify it, can't show anything like that. And I know, you know Eve Rodsky talks about like the mental load, but there's like the emotional, like we like have to regulate our children and, and I just couldn't do that, I worked with salespeople which is like regulating children all day anyway, even though they're great people. I just couldn't, I couldn't do it.

Speaker 2: 20:20

So, anyway, we will see how this all shakes out. And, um, I still like really recommend, if you do have like real life questions, as long as you can keep privacy posting on TikTok, cause I got so much good information, even though I just like got dragged through the mud on that, um, because hopefully I'll get it cheaper next time. Um, I felt kind of silly for not looking around once I saw all those comments, so, but I imagine it's one of those things where you get it cheaper next time. I felt kind of silly for not looking around once I saw all those comments.

Speaker 1: 20:47

But I imagine it's one of those things where you get it and then you find out how much it costs, right? Or do they tell you beforehand?

Speaker 2: 20:55

Yeah, no, I mean, they tell you what it is per area, but it's like you don't really think about it, you don't really know. And I've only gotten this. I want to say four times, um, and it's always been this expensive and so and that was the other thing too we looked at my husband was like 1650 times four, or even times three, or even times two. He's like what are you doing, um? But like, on the other side, I didn't even ask him when I used our credit card points to book a very expensive resort for four days in Maine with one of my girlfriends, that was, you know, a little higher than than that. So I think it's just like, and there was no issue with that, right? So it's um, yeah, I think I'm really, I'm really interested to learn how people deal with this because, um, it's so taboo to talk about.

Speaker 1: 21:43

Yeah, and I mean I will say that I think if someone's listening and feels like I'm really like evolved in my view on this, like it's important to remember that I've been writing stories about these dynamics, about the value of stay-at-home parenthood, all of those things, for 10 years now, so I give this advice to people professionally. So, yeah, it's easier for me to take it myself. I think that this is probably not the normal approach to not making as much money as you used to or not making as much money as your partner does. I think it's probably more similar to yours, um, but I will also say that, like you know, the the money noise piece of it is is also important. Like I don't, I grew up never really talking about money or never really having to think about money, and so I think that now I just don't have as much. I don't know, I don't have as many feelings around it. I guess.

Speaker 2: 22:39

Yeah, totally. And if you didn't have student loans and have all that stress too like it's. I think if we talked about this kind of stuff more, it's kind of like motherhood If we just talked about this stuff more people would feel less alone and so.

Speaker 1: 22:52

Totally totally.

Speaker 2: 22:54

I'm excited.

Speaker 1: 22:55

Yeah, I mean I think that it's a very common millennial experience to have some sort of a help from your family and people don't talk about that. And so when I see people on TikTok like how are people buying these houses at 25? I'm like their parents are helping them and it might not be as cut and dry as writing them a check for you know, whatever the cost of the house is, but we're getting help in different ways in many, many cases in our generation and I think a lot of people one don't talk about it, but two, I think a lot of us don't see all the ways that we get help from family. I think that they can be. It can be as simple as just like I didn't have student loans. That's a piece of it too.

Speaker 2: 23:39

Yeah, yeah. And I think the other thing, too is like everyone online it feels like is lying, and when you see all these people, you have no idea their financial status, you have no idea what's in their bank account, you have no idea their debt or their financial help from their, their families, like you said, um, and I think that's really important to keep in mind, because it can be really disheartening to look online and you're like what? I'm 40 and I can't afford a home. Why is this 25-year-old doing it? And it's because they are set up different. Or maybe they got money from their bar mitzvah that compounded over time and they didn't have student loans, and so they get out with $100,000 that they can put down on a house immediately.

Speaker 1: 24:20

Yeah, or they were able to live at home, rent free for a few years and save up, or you know any number of things. Or their parents paid for their apartment for a few years out of college, or there's so many things that people just don't talk about.

Speaker 2: 24:34

Yeah, or they got their 529. Do you all do a 529 in your house for your kids? Yeah, we haven't done that yet. We need to set that up. So like that, because now they changed the rules, at least in California, where you can do 529 and it can go to a house purchase. So that is something new. Where it doesn't have to go to trade school or college, you can actually buy a house. This is not financial advice, but this is something that, like, I mean, look it up, I'm not I am clearly not a financial expert here, but you know like. So there's a lot of different ways that people are getting help and that you can set things up to help your kids in the future too and get creative so that they don't grow up like me.

Speaker 1: 25:09

I also think that the TikTok of it all. I think there are people on that app who will hear me say that what I make goes into our joint accounts and they'll be like that shouldn't be joint money, that should be your money. Because they love to say like what's his is mine and what's mine is mine now, and these women love to be like he pays all the bills and I make money, but it's like I'm you know whatever, but people hate husbands online I think that is something I've noticed is that whatever you post online, if it's about your husband, if they're not 100% Pookie and Jet, they're going to be hated.

Speaker 1: 25:46

By the way, Pookie's probably making more money than Jet.

Speaker 2: 25:48

Oh for sure, but there's like a difference between the Hearthstone manner. For those of you not listening, there's this crazy thing going on, TikTok where. Just look it up if you have, and I'm sure it comes up in the Google index. But there's like a spectrum right From that to Pookie and Jet and everyone else lives in the middle and it's okay. Like I would not like it if my husband treated me like you know, a princess but and carry me across the threshold every day. If you tell me that, your husband, if you prefer that, that's okay.

Speaker 1: 26:23

Yeah, that's fine. We really do want to talk to Princess Treatment, yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:28

Well, thank you for listening. We have some exciting episodes upcoming, including Emily Oster, including Between Two Moms I don't know. We have so many people Reshma all coming up before the end of the year, so we're going to be releasing them every week. We have a really exciting episode this week talking about grandparents and how Dee Dee speaks about how grandparents can be more involved and she really yeah, she actually has a guide to help grandparents be more supportive.

Speaker 1: 26:58

Yeah, and if you guys like this, we were thinking about maybe doing more episodes like this and calling them truth bombs and just sort of dropping them randomly whenever we have something that we want to talk about. So let us know how you like this.

Speaker 2: 27:11

Awesome. Have a good day everyone. Bye.