Life is Better with a Financially Compatible Partner
- Xa Hopkins
- Jul 28
- 12 min read
In two days, we will be celebrating our tenth anniversary by flying to Los Angeles to watch the perfectly-timed Red Sox versus Dodgers series and then enjoying our first-ever one-week west coast beach vacation. Technically, our trip to Greece was our anniversary trip since we spent our honeymoon in Corfu, but the baseball trip beginning on our actual anniversary feels right since baseball is what initially started our conversation back in 2013. (You may correctly remember that the Red Sox won the World Series that year!)
When I think about the last ten years, I am fortunate to have two big takeaways. The first is that we have so many happy memories that remind me we prioritized the important parts of our lives. The second is how much better our life is now than it was ten years ago. Both being true is fortunate since it means we enjoyed the journey while also focusing on building our lives to become better than they were in 2016.
Like any successful journey, we have experienced much luck along the way. But luck only helps both partners if they share the same goals and enjoy the journey together. Shared goals usually mean shared financial goals, or at least a shared idea for how to spend money to improve our lives. If someone pictures a perfect life in a completely different way than their partner, the relationship is unlikely to make both partners happy because we all want to gradually work towards whatever we define as a better life.
To get to this better life with a partner, each of us should work to find a financially compatible partner. If you and your partner are financially compatible, you will generally have three qualities:
A common vision for the future
A common approach to financial decisions
Trust from both partners that the other is working towards the joint vision of the future
Stop with the Cliche Spenders and Savers Stories
Before diving deeper, there seems to be this prevalent belief that every “saver” ends up with a “spender,” starting a life of perpetual financial tension between partners. This is initially problematic because “savers” and “spenders” is an oversimplified way to explore an individual’s relationship with money. We all have different relationships with money, and understanding our own mindset around money should happen before we agree to spend our entire lives with a partner.
Beyond the oversimplification, this common joke often furthers sexism in heterosexual partnerships where women are the assumed “spender,” usually because they are responsible for all household shopping. Somehow, the woman’s spending at Target is all excessive even though half of it is for cleaning and cooking products, but the man’s spending thousands of dollars on a new boat or truck is overlooked.
If you or your partner joke that one is the spender and one is the saver, it may be worth looking a little closer at your individual money mindsets to explore what is actually happening. It also may be worth actually calculating your annual household spending since we sometimes overlook certain kinds of expenses. If there truly is a large discrepancy in what each partner spends, it may be worth considering why one partner is spending more. That may be indicative of a greater discrepancy in what you each picture for your ideal future together.
A Common Vision for the Future
This should go without saying, but anyone considering an enduring partnership should make sure their ideal life can exist harmoniously with their partner’s ideal life. This does not mean you have to do exactly the same things all the time, but it means your biggest priorities should not be in conflict with your partner’s priorities. If one partner wants to raise ten children in a large home where most money would go towards housing, feeding, clothing, and raising the children for thirty years of life, it may be problematic if the other partner’s perfect life involves being a nimble digital nomad exploring the world while staying in affordable housing as a couple.
Most of us do not have such extreme visions of a perfect life, but smaller discrepancies can prevent a common vision for our lives and our futures. The biggest discussion point by far is whether you and your partner want to raise children, and whether you prefer a large or small family. While negotiations can be made over whether to raise two or three children, I cannot fathom how anyone ends up in a marriage or long-term partnership where one person does not want children and the other wants four or more. Talk about this before you decide to be with someone for the remainder of your life because children are one of the most expensive financial decisions.
After discussing children, discuss what defines a happy life with your partner before committing to an enduring relationship. Many of the details of a happy life cost money, and being in agreement about what pieces of life you value enough to spend money can save a lifetime of unnecessary arguments. For example, Patrick and I both value travel and do not value having a fancy car. Someone who valued nicer cars and did not value travel might look at the last two years of our lives and wonder why we spent five figures of money on travel when we could have bought a nicer car with that money. To us, that sounds crazy because we cannot imagine erasing about six months of travel memories in the last 24 months when our 2017 Honda Civic works just fine. But neither view is incorrect—these are simply different financial values.
Being honest with your partner about whether you want to spend on home improvement projects, attending live sporting events, going to concerts, buying new clothes, dining out at Michelin star restaurants, investing in real estate, buying expensive gaming equipment, scuba diving around the world, building an artisan coffee brand, or literally anything else that you may spend more money on than your partner does will help you understand whether you can build a happy life together. While you should expect to have different hobbies and areas of spending, a lot of spending also shows how you want to spend your time, and knowing both can help you design a happy life for both of you.
A Common Approach to Financial Decisions
Particularly in areas where you may spend differently, having a common approach to financial decisions keeps your relationship free of financial arguments. This is true on both a macro and micro level of personal finance, so let us start with the macro level and move to more micro considerations.
There are a ton of debates out there about whether you should keep finances separate from your partner, completely combine finances, or choose something in the middle. We take the middle approach but lean more towards separate finances with a few joint accounts for common goals (like that big travel spending), but we also can each view the other’s investment accounts so we can easily track our approximate household net worth. We like to say that we have combined finances, because we work towards common goals with complete transparency, but separate accounts, which is also simply easier for us to manage. (If you are interested in a similar approach, platforms like Vanguard and Fidelity let you have an individual account where only you can initiate transactions, but you can opt to let your partner see how much money is in there so you can plan your financial future together.)
While I certainly advocate for a middle approach for those who are unsure whether or not to combine finances, all three are great choices as long as both partners agree to the decision! Additionally, if you decide on the middle option with some combined and some separate finances, determining whether you have mostly combined or mostly separate finances is worth its own discussion. Much of this conversation may be around your money mindsets, as well as areas where you predict one of you will be spending on individual goals that are less important to the other.
Assuming you have individual hobbies, it is a good idea to at least have separate high-yield savings account (HYSA) buckets dedicated to your individual hobbies that the partner with that hobby controls. Patrick and I have entirely separate HYSAs, but those with completely combined finances can replicate this with a joint HYSA that has designated buckets for each partner’s hobbies. I spend money on rugby that Patrick does not spend, and he spends money on running that I do not spend. Neither of us needs to consider every expense paid towards the other’s hobby, as long as it stays within our respective hobby budgets.
At the micro level, a HYSA with buckets can arrange most of your financial spending priorities to make sure you and your partner spend on what matters and save for what matters. But you also want to talk about what you want your save-and-invest rate to be in general. Make sure you are jointly contributing what you want to retirement, whether that is an early or regular retirement. If you want kids, make sure you are investing the amount you both want for their futures. If you have common goals like travel, buying a home, buying a car, or anything else, discuss your timelines and plans for these financial goals. Being on the same page with the timelines of financial goals keeps both partners committed to financial priorities.
Once financial priorities are set with agreed-upon timelines, discuss how you and your partner want to make spending decisions. Some partners have agreed-upon dollar thresholds where they discuss a purchase with their partner. For example, you may spend your money as you see fit but consult your partner if a purchase is above $500. Many couples use this concept regardless of whether they have combined, separate, or middle finances.
We do not have an agreed-upon threshold, but we both tend to hesitate before making big purchases, probably consulting the other person more than necessary before spending. If you and your partner are like us, you may have an arrangement where you each contribute to HYSAs and then encourage each other to just spend as long as there is money in the appropriate account. The money allocated to each area is furthering the financial goal you and your partner already set, so spend away as long as you are furthering that financial goal.
Trust from Both Partners that the Other is Working Towards the Joint Vision of the Future
Everything suggested above can only work if you and your partner are both committed to your joint financial vision, and you both work towards it with your financial actions. If you do not stick to the plan, the plan is useless. That scares a lot of people because they view a plan as restrictive of their spending. Your plan is the opposite of restrictive: Your plan is there to help you maximize happiness with your partner with the intent of living and building a happy life. At the very beginning of this article, I shared my two successes of the last ten years. We simultaneously made happy memories and built a better life than we had ten years ago. Both are possible, but having a plan prevents you from forgetting one of the two.
Either aspect can be forgotten. Most of us instinctually think of a person maximizing current happiness by spending frivolously at the cost of building a better future. This certainly happens, quite often. But some people also focus so much on building their future life that they forget to make happy memories in the present. This was Ebenezer Scrooge’s lesson from A Christmas Carol when he lost Belle because he kept focusing entirely on making money to build their perfect future. Scrooge forgot about making happy memories along the way that prioritized common goals. If Scrooge had prioritized going out dancing with Belle once a month, like they had danced at Fezziwig’s Christmas party initially, while building the wealth for their future, he and Belle may have lived a happy life that prioritized their goals.
In 2026, there are more cases of overspending in the present at the cost of building a better future. Having specific mechanisms in place, like categorized HYSAs, can mitigate some of the risk of present overspending. These mechanisms make it easier to stay on track. However, each partner needs to actually commit to spending according to their agreed-upon happiness priorities on a daily basis. This is the best way to ensure both partners can trust that the other one is committed to their financial goals to create their happiest future life.
Beyond spending, earning more can also bring us closer to our ideal financial future. Once partners set up a vision for what their ideal life looks like, working together to make that financial future a reality is the best way to bring that ideal future life closer to the present.
Bet on Each Other
When you trust that your partner is working towards the same vision of a happy life that you are, their successes become your successes. Both of you can trust that the other person is also working towards your common goal, so you experience joint successes. To emphasize: It does not matter whether you have joint, separate, or a middle approach to finances! If you both are working towards a joint vision of your future, your partner’s financial wins are your wins.
Patrick and I had no joint finances at the beginning of our financial journey. We started joint accounts once we started to accumulate more wealth due to salary increases, growing side hustles, and, unfortunately, receiving the payout of a life insurance policy earlier than we expected. Most of these increases came to be because we supported each other and bet on each other’s success.
In the fall of 2016, Patrick saw a posting for a federal clerkship with a judge. At the time, the job was temporary because the incumbent clerk was on medical leave. As advertised, the job could last as little as three or four weeks, but it could also eventually become a regular clerkship for a couple of years. I encouraged Patrick to take it. This was the foot-in-the-door he needed for his legal career to take off for years to come. He ended up clerking for that judge until he moved to work for the Department of Justice in 2019. That judge also ended up being one of the most intelligent and kind federal judges imaginable and has included us in many historic moments in her career. By taking a chance, Patrick improved his legal career and introduced us to someone who has changed our lives for the better.
On September 22, 2020, Patrick woke up in the early hours of the morning to learn his dad had died unexpectedly the evening before. We began arranging for travel in the middle of a global pandemic to arrange and attend the funeral and manage his estate. A few hours later, I received a call that I had secured a job that I considered my dream job with a high security clearance requirement. I had all but given up hope on receiving that job. I laughed when the call ended at the insanity of the day. They wanted me to start in October, but I had the courage to say that would be impossible given the death of Patrick’s dad, and told them I would start with the next training class in January 2021.
Patrick supported me taking the job, even though it came with a pay cut and meant we needed to purchase a car. He also supported the change when the training extended hours into the evening, something I had previously found unacceptable but accepted as a temporary restraint. From January to April, it became clear that my employer expected everyone in that job to make their jobs their entire lives. In April, I contacted my previous employer about coming back, secured a job on my previous contract with a $20K raise over my old salary, and submitted my resignation notice to what I thought was my dream job. All of these changes between September 2020 and May 2021 had consequences on the shape of Patrick and my life, but he trusted me to always be aiming for our ideal happy life. In the end, his betting on me ended with me securing a much higher salary a few months later.
In 2022, the Department of Justice tried to make Patrick go back to the office multiple days a week. He did not want to go back, so we made a backup plan. I had purchased phippentax.com for his birthday earlier that year in anticipation of this outcome. We started living off of only my salary, seeing that we could easily survive without his. We made a plan for him to leave the 9-to-5 life and take Phippen Tax & Financial Services full-time in late December 2022. I trusted him to grow his business, with a little marketing help from me, from the side hustle it was to the profit-generating business it became. We both trusted that my salary would cover us if needed, and I grew that salary significantly five months later when I lobbied for and received a promotion.
That bet is why I was able to leave the 9-to-5 life in December 2025. In just three years the tax business grew how I expected and more than Patrick expected. (I am the optimist.) We now support ourselves without working for anyone but ourselves, and we even have enough generated wealth to support ourselves in perpetuity, if we were willing to take less extravagant vacations. (We are not, but it is still a great safety net!)
We would not be in this place of freedom and wealth if we had not bet on each other again and again over the past ten years. We could bet on each other because we always trusted that the other person had the same vision of a happy life that we did. If you share your dreams with your partner and plan how to get there financially, you can achieve the life you want to create together.
I have had a wonderful first ten years, but our life is so much freer and more complete than it was a decade ago. I love the memories, and I also could not go back to our life back then. Ten years ago Friday, Patrick boarded a plane to cross the Atlantic for the first time. Today, he is picky about the quality of the beach and how clear the water is because weeks in the Philippines, Greece, and the Caribbean will change your perspective on what qualifies as a beautiful beach. Our life is a huge upgrade from ten years ago, and neither of us would have upgraded this much independently. Life is better when your partner is a financial partner as well as a life partner.
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