Why does wealth cause some people to treat others differently

Sometime I can't believe how people treat each other.  I'm hearing and reading about stories of people saying they will not give their wife her stimulus check of $1,200 because she will go spend it all. Instead she will get a few hundred. 

Whats is wrong with people.  Why do spouses treat each other like kindergartens. Why does the husband think he can mange their money better then his wife? Why does she have to have an allowance?

The problem is that she doesn't know or isn't allowed to know their financial picture. It is true in most couple one person takes on this pardon and the other either doesn't care/not interested or is excluded.

I work continuously to talk to my wife about our finances. I have varying degrees of success on this.  There are times she asking if she can I buy this $$$ thing or pay off this other bill.  I then got look at MINT and review our finances and tell her not this month or sometimes I give bad responses. One of my more famous responses "sure go ahead we have tons of money." What I really meant was based on how much we normally have in our checking and bills coming due we have an extra buffer before the next paycheck without transferring money out of savings.  Easy to see why says that can cause problems.

I have friend who are married and the keep their finances completely separate. Not sure how I feel about this, seem like it will causes more problems then it fixes. The big issue is people don't want to face the facts on how much they spend and what they spend there money on.  Either they don't want to do the work or don't care and feel like they work hard they deserve to spend their money. 

I think this sentiment is the reason why some people feel like they own their families money and only give their spouse an allowance.  Its like a marriage allowance for marring the person that they feel they are doing the right thing because their spouse don't have any self control like they do. 

If everyone has the same goals and talk through these goals having everyone stick to a budget is much easier.  Goals are defined

1. What you want to achieve   example (pay for college $150,000)
   
2. When you want to achieve it   example (18 years from now)
   
3. How are you going to achieve it    example (save $695 a month) or $160 a week or $22 a day (a price of a coffee at $tarbuck$)
   

The act of pivoting

Learning how to pivot then new information comes it is key to long term success.

Today I start my sprinklers then promptly forgot and let my dog outside.  Then he quickly chew off the head of the sprinkler.  So a minor flood happened in my backyard.  Now this isn't the first time he has done something like this.  This is the first time for something of this scale ( 6 of the 8 heads needed to be fixed).

I was frustrated because repairing these are annoying.  Not difficult or that time consuming just annoying.  So I pivoted and decided to use repairing the sprinklers as part of home school.  I got the tools out and show the kids how to turn on the sprinklers and how them how to fix the sprinkler heads with the special tools.   Was a quick 20 min learning exercise and the kids had fun. 

This is the same thing with your finances.  Heck even the most buy and hold investor Warren Buffet just sold all his share of airline stocks, because things changed when he first decided it was a good investments and the long term for airlines don't look good.

This can mean you need to change your eating habits or that vacation you were planning.  I was planning on going to Seattle with travel rewards to see a baseball game. We had to cancel that. Now it is looking like maybe no vacations this year.  Our vacation trips to see family are now in doubt.   Somethings are easy to pivot from while others are not. 

Right now change vacation plans aren't fun, but they are easy.  What happens when a birthday comes up or Christmas. Or long term things like saving for College.  If things are tight now what does it looks like next month or the month after that.

I know there has been lots of talk about stimulus or more stimulus money, but let me real.  What goes around comes around. And one day all this money is going to have to come from somewhere.  All I can say is start saving now.  Save a dollar a week for birthdays or Christmas.  Or start the conversations now that things are tough. Don't completely shield your kids they are smart and understanding.  Talk to your spouse and spending habits.  I'm going to have to do that soon.  One choice my wife decided was to help local business by ordering out once a week.   This has blow out dinning budget which is fine, but our grocery budget got a little fat as well.  We just need to refocus what we buy instead of buying acute things to make dinner for the next couple of days get stuff that can make multiple meals.