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I give mine $700 a week and she complains that’s its not enough and I just can’t wrap my head around that. Any thoughts??
I was trolling the park one day, in the very merry month of may….
A credit card. You abusive husband.
maybe the fact that you put your wife on an allowance like she is 16 is what is bothering her. Not that i would know but from what i hear is that marriage is a partnership. You and your wife should be equally entitled to the money. What you could do is have a “family” budget basically how much money the family spends in a week not just your wife.
Why are some of u getting bent out of shape? mochelli is right. A wife must ask her husband if she may spend money according to halacha. In fact if she doesnt and the husband didnt allow it, the halacha is the husband can ask the merchant for the money she spent him back and he must return it to him. Yeah, I know, halacha is soo primitive. People should learn it before commenting.
$15 a week, $20 if she cleans her room without having to be asked twice.
If there is a need to be frugal ($700 a week seems like plenty to me), maybe consider going to a financial counselor or financial planner with her. Prior to marriage, I think it’s a good idea for couples to meet with not only a mental health counselor, but also a financial counselor, to determine acceptable patterns of spending and lay all the cards on the table, so to speak.
For the sake of shalom bayit, I’d separate household expenses from personal expenses. For instance, allocate funds for groceries (make a shopping list every week), utilities, mortgage/rent, dry cleaning/reasonably-priced clothing, health and beauty aids, work-related expenses, Gas/MetroCard, etc. Once you’ve taken care of your necessities, than you can put remaining funds in another account for discretionary spending.
This question is unfair as we do not know the particulars. A family with 10 children requires a lot more than a newly wed couple. Also depending where you live expenses differ. We also do not know what is included in her budget. Without much more info it is unfair of us to criticize your wife. (To be honest it is not really our business.)
Thank you for moderating, mod 18. I was kinda wondering what was supposed to be paid with $700.
The answers (comments) here are mostly unfair. I’m well aware of what halacha says. But there is a “fifth” Shulchan Aruch. This one dictates that husbands trust their wives with many things (several of which are enunciated in the other four sections of the Shulchan Aruch). Women are to be trusted with calculating their own cycles, etc., and to ask shailos only when they feel the need to do so. Women are trusted in checking vegetables, and in running the affairs of the kitchen. The concept of treating a wife like a slave is foreign to Torah. To those who doubt this, revisit Aishes Chayil, in your zmiros, siddur, or in its source in Mishlei.
There are situations in which women are spenders that need outside controls, or have difficulty in managing budgets. The ideal responsibility for the husbands is not to control but to help. Marriage is a partnership, and it is not Torah consistent to treat it differently.
To restrict a wife from having money to spend is, in most cases, abusive, cruel, and demeaning. And if anyone feels that they are entitled to this, help is direly necessary. There cannot be shalom bayis in an environment where there is a slave and a master.
18, the OP is likely a bored bochur and has no idea himself.
The OP does not seem like a bored bochur. He seems very well entertained.
I’m confused… “Give your wife”? My dad gave my mom his paycheck and she gave him spending money….
We have separate bank accounts. She can spend up to what she earns and then whatever space she has left on her Visa.
My husband doesn’t “give” me anything. We make financial decisions together. He earns the money right now, but we usually run errands together. If I’m going grocery shopping without him, I’ll show him the list ahead of time (I usually don’t know how much something *should* cost, so he gives me a cap per item, but we don’t have a cap on the shopping trip as a whole).
I really can’t comment on specific amounts per week, because expenses vary widely based on the size and specific needs of your family, and especially based on your lifestyle and location. I suggest that you have an honest and respectful conversation with your wife, and try not to think of her desire for an expanded budget as “complaining”. If you show her that you are willing to have a serious conversation, I think you’ll find it significantly easier to reach a reasonable compromise. Much hatzlacha.
JF02: +1
Rav Shalom Arush, an Israeli chassidic Rosh Yeshivah and author of many best-selling books, recommends in his Shalom Bayis book Garden of Peace that the wife be put in charge of the family’s finances.
yytz— rather than having a respectful conversation about it? Seems to me like saving for every day life and retirement should be a mutual decision (with all due respect to Rav Arush).
My suggestion is for this couple to seek out competent and qualified financial advice from a financial counselor or financial planner.
It’s easy for an individual to flippantly spend money they don’t go out and earn themselves. I can understand the OP’s concerns. If both spouses were working, the circumstances would be different. It’s often difficult for individuals to stay within a budget, and when people are used to being handed everything (first from their parents, and then from their chosson) and not working for it, they fail to learn the value of a dollar.
Yes, of course spouses should discuss it, but sometimes it’s nice when one spouse (particularly the one who is more detail-oriented and conscientious) is in charge of paying the bills and such. That’s just my own thought. I don’t remember exactly what R’ Arush says — I recommend you read his book to find out more.
Popa, you’re right, I should have said, “formerly bored”.
So now he must be holy. Badum tsh.
That’s not fair!my wife doesn’t give me spending money!
Popa
Neither does mine, but thats because im not in kollel yet.
I don’t give my wife a budget. She can spend whatever she wants. I fully trust her to be able to judge whether something can and should be purchased now or if it can or should be pushed off to another time. She is free to spend our money as she likes.
To those of you who say that this isn’t the way a “Torah-true” home is run… well… I guess my home isn’t “Torah-true” then.
The Wolf
Well, MY husband goes to work and gives me a regular stipend for sitting and learning.
Mochelli, anytime your wife is ready to trade places with me, I’d love to have $700 a week, and she can live in my apt over a store on $700 a month!
When I was married, I remember a few times, my husband brought home $20 for the whole week’s pay. he said sorry things were hard this week. Maybe next week, g-d willing will be better. I remember going into the pushka to borrow a few coins to get a garlic and apples.
I am imaging you live in Boro Park. That she feels the need to stock the refridgerator full with all the top of the line expensive luxery food items few can afford and allow the kids to slurp back like water. Charging carelessly and randomly anything to your phone number. Then the kids probablly have $350 matching sister Italian wool shabbos coats. 4 girls x $350. Then your wife needs each month new shoes, and every other winter an updated mink. am I close?
T613: And what do you study, may we wonder?
I learn iyun and bekiyus of cooking and cleaning. And every so often I go to school to learn about how I can get a job that will hopefully let me cook and clean for more hours than I work.
Do you learn the cooking sugyos, or do you cook too? Velo hamidrash hu haikar elah hamaiseh.
Your wife recognizes and agrees that she needs to be put on a budget, but doesn’t like when you give her one. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around that one.
Why are you having a maid? There’s your first mistake. If your wife worked full-time, I could see it. But, there’s no reason why she shouldn’t be cleaning her own house, like any other self-respecting woman. If she’s lazy or jappy, than that’s a problem.
How to manage family finances properly varies from family to family. Money is one of the issues that can cause major shalom bayis issues. If a husband and wife have difficulty in arranging how to arrange their family finances they need to get advice from someone they both respect.
If she’s having a maid 3x a week 700 is not enough.
I’d suggest, first and foremost, that she either gets a job to pay for the maid, or that you have her clean herself. A wife has certain duties to perform and fulfill, and cleaning her house is one of them. Quite frankly, your wife sounds spoiled, chutzpahdik, and the type of woman I’d run away from. Be a man, put your foot down, and fire the maid, for the sake of your “kemach.” As far as groceries go, reduce your household consumption of dairy and meat products. Go over the shopping list with your wife, have her buy whatever she can at big-box non-kosher stores (a can of OU beans at Key Food is 99 cents, compared to $2.49 Gefen beans elsewhere). It’s stories like this that make me wary of marriage; a wife can send you straight to the poor house.
Your wife is a serious problem. I’d suggest speaking with rabbanim who are also trained in marital therapy. Finances are the number one cause of shalom bayit issues. In this day and age, two incomes are needed, and extraneous expenses need to be done away with. It turns my stomach when I see Jews hiring illegal aliens to clean their homes and raise their kids.
You try telling a woman that she’s wrong. Even if it’s done diplomatically, with tact, they shut down. I have yet to meet a woman that can handle constructive criticism.
I think you are the problem. If it would just be your wife who has issues, you would have never wrote what you wrote above.
rebdoniel- seriously?
A wife has certain duties to perform and fulfill, and cleaning her house is one of them
I couldn’t disagree with you more on this one. It is not the job of the wife to be a cleaning woman. Her job is to run the household and make sure everything runs smoothly. That does not mean doing everything herself. Since she is the spouse that spends most of the time at home though, she does have the most time available for doing the actual cleaning. If a maid isn’t within their budget, and she doesn’t like cleaning, she might want to take a part time job to pay for the maid. She does not however have to be the maid.
Rebdoniel:
You wrote, “Finances are the number one cause of shalom bayit issues.”
Absolutely not true. You cannot back that up with a single source. A valid statement might be that finances become an issue in nearly every struggling marriage. It represents an area in which there are control issues, as well as the need to partner to create and follow a budget. Most often, both parties have considerable activity involving shopping and spending in which they are alone, and these actions lend themselves to conflict. Often a couple in conflict will begin withholding money from each other, and using the incoming or outgoing monies in manners that are divisive. It is just one of the areas where conflict gets played out.
The number one problem in marriages and the number one cause of divorce is indeed, money.
According to an article by Ron Leiber of the New York Times in 2009, the odds of a marriage ending in divorce due to finances is approximately 45 percent. Many of the reasons behind this high rate are the lack of discussions couples have before they get married regarding their views on finances, what debt they are bringing into the marriage, experience they have with budgets, what they envision their financial future to be, and many more.
There are many sources to corroborate my claim.
A wife in Judaism is called an akeret habayit. A homemaker. A woman who doesn’t work needs to take care of her household and her husband and kids, and that includes laundry, cooking, and cleaning. What does a woman who doesn’t work or fulfill domestic duties do all day?
If the OP’s wife wants to work and contribute a second income, let her do that. My eitzah would be that they should only have a maid if the wife works and is incapable of cleaning, as a result.
I’m single guy, and I clean up after myself. I do dishes, scour pots, scrub toilets and the sinks and bathtub, do laundry, vacuum, sweep, Windex the mirrors, mop the floors, use Murphy’s oil soap on the hardwood floors, and even cook and scrub the range and oven about 3 times a week. Twice a month, I scour the refrigerator and clean the shelves. Why couldn’t a woman who doesn’t have a job take 2-3 hours a day reasonably to do all this?
I think the fact that there are lazy women who don’t want to be good wives and mothers is also a cause of shalom bayit problems, and the fact that Jewish women have such a jappy reputation fuels the intermarriage rate, in all honesty. A man needs an ezer k’negdo, not a headache and a drain on his wallet. Sadly, the OP’s wife seems like the antithesis of an eshet chayil, and she is not like all of the strong Jewish mothers and wives I know, in my own family and among friends, who go to work, and still manage to keep a clean home.
This thread is a joke!! No normal guy would be writing this on an anonymous website.
FYI $700 a week for a mid sized family for food and a cleaning lady three times, doesn’t cover it!! There’s no money for any leftovers…..
People would post anonymously when they face issues that they are ashamed of.
I am oh so kindly choosing not to respond to this thread:)
I think most women would object to the idea that a housewife should actually be a housewife and pick up a broom or wash a dish.
Rebdoniel, of course they CLAIM it ended over money.
They would rather say the problem was money, than admit that they have poor communication skills.
Hang on…
“3) I BEGGED my wife many times to take control of the finances. I told her I will deposit all income in her hands an she would be responsible for paying all bills an she would be free to spend as she wishes. She refused every time.
4) In reality, if I didn’t respectfully control her spending, she would rack up tremendous debts an the creditors would probably get screwed. She is the opposite of financially responsible, an she admits so herself.”
I’m confused. If your wife is “the opposite of financially responsible”, then why on earth would you ask her to take charge of the finances???
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