Women's Money Wisdom

Episode 229: Tightwads and Spendthrifts with Author Scott Rick

• Melissa Joy, CFP® • Season 4 • Episode 229

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The way you or your partner spends money can have real impact on your relationship. In this episode, Melissa Joy interviews Scott Rick, author of the book 'Tightwads and Spendthrifts: Navigating the Money Minefield in Real Relationships.' They discuss the different approaches people have towards spending money and how it can impact relationships. Scott defines tightwads as individuals who experience distress and anxiety when thinking about optional purchases, while spendthrifts are more present-oriented and tend to regret their purchases later. They also explore strategies for navigating financial differences in relationships, such as having joint accounts and setting tiebreaker rules for spending decisions. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the influence of parents' spending habits on their children and future research topics in the field. 

Listen and Learn: 

  • Strategies to navigate financial differences and how set rules for spending to help with decision making  
  • How parents spending habits can influence their children’s financial behaviors and how it is important to be mindful of the messages we send about money to our kids
  • When it comes to financial psychology, we explore topics such as prenuptial agreements and how couples can better resolve financial disputes. 

 

Resources:  

 

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Melissa Joy:

Welcome to the Women's Money Wisdom Podcast. I'm Melissa Joy, a certified financial planner and the founder of Pearl Planning. My goal is to help you streamline and organize your finances, navigate big money decisions with confidence and be strategic in order to grow your wealth. As a woman, you work hard for your money and I'm here to help you make the most of it. Now let's get into the show. And I'm here to help you make the most of it. Now let's get into the show.

Melissa Joy:

Do you have a certain way that you approach spending money? Either you hate to let that money go, or there's just never enough, and you can always find a way to spend it. If so, then you're like me and this episode is perfect for you. We're going to be talking about tightwads and spin thrifts, after a similarly named book that was authored by Scott Rick and. Scott is a professor at University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, where he teaches marketing. He studies individuals and couples and their financial decisions, and his new book, tightwads and Spendthrifts Navigating the Money Minefield in Real Relationships, is just so jam-packed with evidence-based information about how people approach money. It identifies, perhaps, your spending type and then also and this is an added degree of difficulty. Talks about how you can navigate your spending with someone else in a relationship. Scott, welcome to the podcast.

Scott Rick:

Melissa, thanks so much for having me.

Melissa Joy:

I love this book. I'm going to be using it frequently. I especially like just the definitions of who is a tightwad, who is a spendthrift? But how did you find yourself writing this book and doing this research? Who is a spin thrift?

Scott Rick:

but how did you find yourself writing this book and doing this research? Well, you know, the long answer is kind of a strange childhood, where my grandparents kind of got bored of living with their grandkids in Houston and they moved out to Vegas and we got to go visit them for weeks at a time over the summer and they didn't go out there for Hoover Dam or any of the sights and sounds, they went for the casinos and the show.

Melissa Joy:

The cha-ching.

Scott Rick:

Yes, and so I got to spend a lot of time wandering around casinos and, you know, watching people pursue happiness via money. It was very interesting to watch, kind of up close and personal. And you know we didn't go overboard, but you know there were some questionable decisions around me. But you know, as I would come back to Houston and hang out with friends and their families, I would see that they approach things very differently and would probably be kind of horrified at what we were up to. And so, yeah, I think I got interested in these very different orientations, what we were up to. And so, yeah, I think I got interested in these very different orientations and I got to start to research that when I was in grad school. And once I got married to someone with a very different orientation, I got interested in how that works. And so it's all very me search based.

Melissa Joy:

Well, it's great when you research something you're passionate about and you identify with right. And I hear that judgment when you said you know people might be horrified the other kids in Houston when they saw the way that your family behaved. I think so much of this conversation does involve, perhaps, judgment. I also married someone who has a different money perspective, as we all do, but let's get down to some definitions in case assumptions aren't fact.

Scott Rick:

Tell me what a tightwad is. Yeah, so there are many different ways to kind of spend conservatively, let's say. Some people are very frugal, they enjoy saving. They enjoy kind of saying, oh, don't throw that away, I can do something with it, I can make something new, and they just believe in it. They don't have a ton of desire for new material things and they're happy and that's great for them, I'm happy for them.

Scott Rick:

That is a little different than a tightwad mindset. A tightwad is someone who they feel a lot of distress and anxiety when thinking about a lot of optional purchases. You know they feel that way about required purchases too, but some things they just have to do. But when there's optional things like should we take that vacation, should we do something fun, they will often recognize that I can afford it and I probably should do that, but they just can't bring themselves to spend the money. It's too anxiety provoking and so that can cause them distress passing up on these purchases that they think they should be making, and it can certainly cause a lot of distress to the people around them who can sometimes suffer with them.

Melissa Joy:

So interesting because there is so much emotional and psychological built into spending decisions. And it's also interesting during phases of life because I work with people both when they're accumulating money, where it may not feel as painful to spend money, versus when you retire and you don't have that paycheck. That perhaps is somewhat fair game, where my role sometimes is like no, it is okay to give yourself a cost of living adjustment, or it is okay to spend money when there's not a burning thriving purpose for the money after your life, but it just doesn't feel comfortable maximize it. No, I think one theme of the book is that there's lots of stuff you can talk yourself into whether that's I can't afford something, or but it just doesn't feel comfortable maximize it.

Scott Rick:

No, I think one theme of the book is that there's lots of stuff you can talk yourself into, whether that's I can't afford something or cannot, and so outside perspectives are great, whether that's a spouse and or kind of an advisor, a planner, financial therapist, someone you trust, and that is good. Understand yourself first, but then kind of seek outside views.

Melissa Joy:

Well then we have the other side of the coin, the spendthrift, and the name, as you mentioned in the book, is a little bit of a like well, thrifty, Doesn't that mean I mine my money? Tell me about a spendthrift.

Scott Rick:

Exactly. It's a very weird name. The origin is like oh, a parent or a grandparent saved a bunch of money and then you go out and spend it. That's the idea of that name. But so you know, I like to use a car analogy. So, tightwads, it's as if they're driving with the emergency brake on Spendthrifts, it's like someone cut the brake lines for us. We just don't have I say we because I'm a spendthrift and just not enough distress about oh, what am I giving up later by spending the money now Like I wish I had better breaks, and we're kind of present oriented, whereas tightwads are very kind of future oriented and yeah, so we end up buying things that we come to regret later Like, yeah, I probably didn't need that. And so both of these approaches, these extremes tight wads and spin thrifts there can be some frustration at the end of it.

Melissa Joy:

Definitely. And then you have a quiz in the book where, basically, you rate yourself and the decisions that you make, and either you could be a tight wad, a spin thrift, or there's something in between the unconflicted consumer. Is that right?

Scott Rick:

Yeah, yeah, they don't get an exciting name because they are. You know, they're happy. They're less interesting, I mean, from a psychological perspective. I'm interested in the people who are kind of, you know, struggling with something, but yeah, the unconflicted people. That's really where you'd want to be ideally, where you have just enough distress when considering money, not too little, not too much, but yeah, they're kind of at peace with more, or less at peace with what they're, how they're using it.

Melissa Joy:

Well, I think my intrinsic nature is spendthrift, but I test it as unconflicted. It's self-report, but I do think that there are ways, as we'll discuss, where you can modify. For me I have certain areas as you described. I love to shop, I love clothing purchases, but I always avoided. Because of the way my parents kind of implored me to, I always avoided debt. So I've always operated in kind of a cash world, even when I had significant constraints when I was younger in terms of the cash that I had available.

Melissa Joy:

But you know, I too. If there's one group who is more societally judged, I would say it might be the spendthrifts, and I certainly am a financial planner who also likes to spend money. So we're not here to throw stones at other people.

Scott Rick:

Oh no, no, I mean, there are virtues to both. I would say yeah, and I think we'll get to the marriage part. But I think kind of having different perspectives is good, Well, let's go there.

Melissa Joy:

So the book is written in terms of navigating relationships and I really feel like this is a 2024 theme for the podcast. We recently had a financial therapist. We've had a lot of episodes talking about yours, mine and ours navigating money decisions in context of a relationship. That's a lot of the people that we work with and it just ups the degree of difficulty because you do not just think in unity at all periods of time at least, most people don't, and I, you know there may be issues if that's what you do as well. So what happens when you get into that relationship, when we're, you know, thinking about these different extremes of how people approach money?

Scott Rick:

Yeah, and we do find it's quite common for this one place where you kind of see opposites attracting, there's a lot of tightwad, spin, thrift mixed marriages out there.

Melissa Joy:

You don't wear that on your sleeve, you know, like when you walk in the room.

Scott Rick:

Yeah, but you talk to them long enough, you could tell yeah, and so it's just.

Scott Rick:

You know, you might have noticed it when you were dating them and you're.

Scott Rick:

Maybe it was charming or funny at first when the stakes are low, but then you get into a longer term relationship and something you might have brushed off before, now the stakes are raised, it can really start to get irritating, especially if you're like influencing kids and like I can put up with it if it's just you, but you're creating versions of yourself and we have to put a stop to this. So the money related decisions are just unavoidable. You know, there are things that are explicitly about money, kind of what kind of mortgage can we afford, or car, but then there are things like how do we spend our time, which have a gigantic financial component, like what sports are the kids going to play? Well, they have very different price tags. You just can't escape this, and so if there are these underlying differences, they will find a way to kind of manifest themselves and without having an idea of how to manage it, if people are just left to their own devices, you can get a lot of friction and arguments and regrets and can be handled it just.

Melissa Joy:

So what are some strategies if you're on and I want to talk in a minute about the people that are on the exact same page, like the spin thrift met the spin thrift or the tight one met the tight one. But for those mixed perspective couples, what are some of the ways that you can navigate in a more healthy, in a way that provides for more familial wellbeing for lack of a better word?

Scott Rick:

Well, having some tiebreaker rules can be good or kind of suggestions, not rules. But so one thing I recommend is that when there's disagreement about a new material purchase should we upgrade the couch or the TV or something like that and there's like disagreement with that, I say well, maybe side with the tightwad on that. We just know from a lot of research that there are a lot of material purchases that don't bring lasting happiness. If there's disagreement about an experience family vacation kind of novel, you know once in a lifetime thing and there's disagreement, I say there, maybe side with the spendthrift, err on the side of going for it with the experiences, because we know that those can bring lasting happiness. Memories, learning about each other, in kind of novel settings, there's only so much you can learn about your partner in kind of the day-to-day who's going to let in the refrigerator, repair person, like those kind of administrative conversations, like you really learn about your partner when you're doing something new.

Scott Rick:

And so that's why I say that could be one way to kind of balance the scales there.

Melissa Joy:

I've heard of some couples too where they had a certain dollar amount where things were kind of fair game if everything was in good shape financially, so that joint decisions were made for bigger ticket items. But it wasn't like you needed permission for you know, an alert for every credit card spend. Why did you go to the gap? You know.

Scott Rick:

No, I mean, and that gets down to how you set up your accounts. And that's why I think there can be room for both. Well yeah, so account setup.

Melissa Joy:

I think you mentioned that, research-wise, joint accounts tend to be better for a relationship than separate. Is that right?

Scott Rick:

Yeah, I would say, if you have to choose between only joint and only separate, I would go with only joint. You know, we did an experiment with newlyweds who had separate accounts and they were undecided about how to handle their money moving forward, and so we randomly assigned them to keep it separate or take the plunge into joint or just do whatever you want. And so we followed these three groups over the first two years of marriage and we would check in with them every now and then Are you still talking? Do you still like each other? Happy, you're getting married. And what we found was that the couples who we prompted to go for it do the joint account. They maintain their initial kind of newlywed level of happiness.

Melissa Joy:

Well, that's pretty magic.

Scott Rick:

That's pretty magic. And then everyone else. You get the normal kind of decline where that's typical, like the wedding day is happiest, and then there's a little coming back to earth. But we think a joint account is good, turning your money and my money into our money. You want to reduce scorekeeping as much as possible, kind of who's bringing in what? There's almost always going to be an income difference between partners.

Scott Rick:

A joint account is good for kind of blurring those differences and kind of pushing them further out of mind if at all possible. So kind of just pooling the money and getting it you know, kind of unlabeled, where it's coming from. It's just all immediately are and you know it's coming from. It's just all immediately are. And you know it prompts discussions. It can get people on the same page and if you are looking to reel in your spending it can't help to have someone looking over your shoulder. If that's your goal I'm not sure that should be everyone's goal, but if it is, joint accounts can help with that. So there are a lot of benefits to the joint accounts.

Melissa Joy:

Well, a joint account is a titling, but I think the unspoken, you know, kind of companion to that is that hopefully you're both proactively engaged with your money. That doesn't mean that every decision has to be made in a committee format. But I think also, you know, there's higher well-being when you have knowledge and not just a passive, like I have absolved myself of any financial responsibility for better or often for worse, where you feel like your partner has things taken care of, but then, oh surprise they're. They don't have the skills that you thought they did. So, you know, if you can be on the same page, have some communication style that involves communication, all of these are probably great companions to those joint accounts.

Scott Rick:

Yeah, you don't necessarily want one person who kind of specializes in all financial matters and the other person is kind of blissfully ignorant. Because what if something happens to that person who knows everything and the other person has to like jump in and they're lost?

Melissa Joy:

and you know that could be a really bad situation well you go on to, in this kind of area of talking about how partners make decisions, to talk about two different types of relationships the communal relationship, where you know the money is it's for the family purposes, the money is there to support the family, not any particular individual versus an exchange relationship, which is much more transactional keeping score, et cetera. I super struggle with those exchange relationships where there's just untenable. You know differences. And hey, we got the utility bill, you're going to need to pay $53. I need that money and things like that. Tell me what you found in your research about these two different types of relationships.

Scott Rick:

Yeah, A lot of romantic relationships start off with a communal orientation I help you because you need it, not because I'm prepaying for some favor later, you because you need it, not because I'm like prepaying for some favor later. So in a communal relationship you might say can you do the dishes tonight Because I'm really tired, Like I just need the help. Whereas an exchange orientation, which is something that can happen to couples, you've kind of fallen into scorekeeping. The request might sound more like can you do the dishes tonight Because I did them last night and it's your turn. That's that kind of tit for tat reasoning can really kind of create distance between partners. And, yeah, scorekeeping is never a good thing and we think by pooling the money, by taking away the labels to the money, that we help them stave off scorekeeping with that joint account.

Melissa Joy:

It can be really interesting. This isn't the exact same topic but it's quite related. It's easier to be autonomous in your working years because the rules of the game are pretty much. You know there's a stream of income for perhaps each of you if you're both working. Many of the people we work with are in a relationship both working you get to retirement, and there's different rules for different times that you can take money out. The tax considerations are not just. You know you got paid $100,000. That's what your report on tax is, and you know life expectancies are different. There's a variety of circumstances that are codependent, though, and it becomes so much more difficult, without the context of what this other person living in your home is planning to do with their money, to functionally plan as a practitioner, and so you know it's much better, if you're younger and listening to this, to practice now versus thinking that you can just, like you know, retire on your own without any consult from that other half of you know the ownership and the relationship.

Scott Rick:

So much gets thrown up in the air at retirement. But even given that hopefully you can have some good systems and norms in place going into that to hopefully ease the transition, yeah.

Melissa Joy:

Otherwise you might need that financial therapist to be engaged in addition to the financial advisor, or for or for you to, you know, kind of the, the CPA or whoever.

Scott Rick:

This might be a yes, and situation right. Good norms and good advice.

Melissa Joy:

Well, we skipped over, but I I want to make sure that we talk about when people have the same perspective in a relationship. I sometimes I find that can have a magnifying effect, whereas patients might be needed for the spin thrifts. But if, if you're each kind of accelerating the other's instincts, then, um, that can be challenging. And for tight wads it's just like versus that completely impatient perspective, it's just like decision fatigue. There's just no way you can get to a decision to spend anymore, even if you need it. What have you found in your research about those you know kind of same orientation families?

Scott Rick:

Dual spendthrift couple is kind of the most precarious. You know that could be an explosive situation. You know, if they have plenty of money, you can live a kind of fun life as a dual spendthrift couple, but it is a dangerous thing. And what I will say, though and perhaps surprisingly is that if you're trying to predict, okay, how much are they going to fight over money, I think the couples that fight most are where there's a difference in their approach. Even though two spin thrifts might kind of, you know, be in unison, kind of spinning themselves into a bad situation, at least they're both kind of be in unison, kind of spinning themselves into a bad situation, at least they're both kind of on the same page. And so you get this disconnect between what people look like on paper and how they interact.

Scott Rick:

There are dual spin thrift couples that are quite comfortable with each other, the partners are okay with each other, but it can be dangerous, of course, whereas a double time-wide couple, you know, we find that they score pretty highly on kind of old-fashioned measures of marital well-being. So some of these old-fashioned measures would give you a really high score if you both say, yeah, we'd like to spend time at home together and have a quiet life. There's not a lot of novelty to it, but it's kind of steady. There's not huge risk of disaster, but maybe there's not a lot of fun and interesting new things either, and so that's the risk that a lot of double tightwad couples face, which is kind of letting life pass you by, and that's a real danger too.

Melissa Joy:

It's interesting.

Melissa Joy:

What does contentment mean to you, I think, for the double spend thrifts, the challenges that, with lifestyle creep which isn't necessarily a negative thing, as you, you know kind of hopefully accelerate your earning potential that the supposition that you can do anything turns into you can do, or do everything, I should say, turns into you can do anything but not everything, because you used to make $600,000 or $800,000 a year and you got used to spending most of that and it's just not sustainable over retirement, which at some point comes along the way, especially if you've been predisposed to not save along the way.

Melissa Joy:

And I also find sometimes and I don't know if your research finds this when one person kind of falls out or wakes up and says, oh, I see a problem. They may still not have the tools, but they have the anxiety starting to emerge. And then the partner either may not see the same problem, and that can kind of in similarly minded couples, but then you know where there is, you know, kind of a warning light on for someone. There's not the tools, there's not the resources, there's not the habit, and then there can be some real anxiety.

Scott Rick:

I do think the proper account structure can help a little with that, so that we both have a very clear view of how the household is doing in general. That's why I like the joint account there. But I will say that it's okay, I think, to have a combination of accounts. I think there can be a role for separate accounts too. You know, we each get to use some of our money without the other person kind of looking over our shoulder and saying do you really need that latte? Or if you can avoid arguing over tiny stuff, that maybe doesn't add up to too much, that could be good. But as long as we both have a clear picture of how, overall, we're doing, I think that's essential.

Melissa Joy:

Well, and if you're saving first, if you've had that expansive kind of growth in your capabilities financially and you keep the inflation for your saving in check with your spending or try to expand it, it creates a lot more safe zone for that spending. And if you can have a check-in where everybody agrees, like you know, there's still money in the accounts every month, there's still cash on hand. You know, for me and my spouse, we he and I were in our 30s when we got married, so we had our own accounts and each other's name were put on to each account. But then you know, like we still know who's his. We own them together, but I've got mine and he has his different institutions.

Melissa Joy:

So it's a little bit of a compromise where we didn't have to say, you know, it's all in the same pool and then and then we were ramping up at the same time. So that keeps that safe zone for the spendthrift versus his, you know, kind of prefers to spend less.

Scott Rick:

Yes, yeah, no, as you say, saving first, ideally, saving invisibly, automatically, and so it doesn't even. There are all kinds of things that I've arranged in the background so that I never get that money in front of me to.

Melissa Joy:

Well, and what the beauty of behavioral economics in the last 40 years to provide some of those resources, whether it's auto escalation for your retirement plans and all of these types of things, can really just profoundly benefit the safety and success of families. So you, as we're wrapping up, I want to talk about one more added complexity to you know, managing the people in your lives. Do the children of tight wads turn into tight wads and the children of spin thrifts turn into spin thrifts? Or let's talk about that next generation?

Scott Rick:

Well, I'd want to know kind of who they spent more time with. But we do find a pretty solid relationship between kids and parents. It might not be obvious to you as a parent when the kid is like graduating high school and ready to go out on their own. There are certain things that kids just can't copy right away, like they can't copy getting a bad mortgage or doing some of the things they were exposed to right away. But when it's their turn to come to that in life, they often will mimic what they saw earlier. They kind of come back home, so to speak, and you know kids get a lot of mixed messages. I might tell the kids like oh, you don't need to spend that birthday money that grandma sent you right away. Just save it Now. Hold on, I need to buy the new iPhone, I'll get back to you in a minute. But so they get mixed messages and the research here is very clear that they are much more likely to mimic what they see around them than to follow any verbal advice.

Scott Rick:

If dad says sunscreen is important, but he doesn't use sunscreen, then sunscreen is not important. That is something that I have had to be mindful of. I cannot kind of completely turn off my tendencies. But I can tone them down, I can help them talk through it Like it's okay to you know, have a fun experience now. Maybe this means we don't do something else later. But that's a trade-off we know we're making and it's okay to make those trade-offs sometimes as long as you know what you're getting into. But yeah, it's been very informative.

Melissa Joy:

Any other words of wisdom that can be found in that generational, you know, kind of money engagement, money relationship that our listeners should know about.

Scott Rick:

The spin thrifts for better or worse kind of have a built in advantage on influencing the kids, because you know the parents might disagree about whether to buy something and if the tightwad says no, that just means not now, but the spendthrift can bring it up again tomorrow and the next day and eventually the tightwad might give in and the money spent, and once it's spent, it's spent forever. So the decisions to spend are more permanent than the decisions not to spend, and so I think kids are more likely to see and remember when the money is spent than they are to remember when someone said, no, let's not do that right now. And so you know that is something to be mindful of when thinking about what they're being exposed to. That is so interesting being exposed to.

Melissa Joy:

That is so interesting. You know kids, sometimes they don't see the years that the parents may have struggled, especially as we have children later in life and the nature of the tightwad I'm just thinking is to make the money invisible and untouchable, which you know it's not helpful if it's, you know, hanging right in front of you for the kids. So I get that there's just more visibility for the spending decision versus the saving decision.

Scott Rick:

Where are all the items in the home that you do not buy? Those are invisible. I see what you bought. If I'm a kid, though, I don't even know how stuff got here. Did you steal it? Did you inherit it? But no, spending is much more visible than not.

Melissa Joy:

Well, you say in your summary chapter that this book is all about change. Have you gotten any feedback from people who have listened to things that they changed based on what they've learned from the book?

Scott Rick:

It's been nice. I've heard from people who lean more tightwad that it has prompted them to kind of seize the day a little bit more, sometimes in kind of vacation ways, sometimes in kind of more buddy. They bought the family Detroit Lions jersey the Lions when they were going to the playoffs this past year and they go Lions and like that was just like a fun family experience. It was like a material thing but it was like helped them get into it. It was fun and they'll have it again next season and so yeah, it's, it's uh. It's been great to hear those tales of of people kind of going for it and and the book certainly made me, who is already a spendthrift, kind of loosen up even more like life is short and uncertain and I was writing it during COVID and a lot of reminders about the fragility of life and well, there is a growing movement in financial planning as well that says you know you can't take it with you.

Melissa Joy:

Assumptions that are made within financial plans tend to be more conservative than typical spending habits of retirees. You know there's something to be said. I think there can be threats when it's just abundance abundance and consumption versus seeking contentment or what really brings you meaning and satisfaction. But I think that's quite interesting to have the parallel kind of like it's okay to invest in experience.

Scott Rick:

Yes, no, I mean that that's totally essential.

Melissa Joy:

The experiences Well, where is your research taking you next?

Scott Rick:

Yeah, I'm fascinated by prenups. Oh, that's great I want to do more research there. The psychology of it, how they are discussed and brought up in the first place Poorly. Yes, and how they might loom over. And yeah, I'm looking into how couples can better resolve disputes, can they benefit from outside feedback, kind of family feud style? We asked a hundred people, so I'm looking into how to set that up. Oh, I like it.

Melissa Joy:

Well, keep doing this research. I think that the planes of bringing in not just, you know, kind of the calculators of money, but the emotions, the stories, the meaning, the purpose that it has, is so powerful to the experiences that people have with their own money. So I can't encourage our listeners. Of course we'll have links to the book and Scott's work so that you can learn more, but please take a listen, or on audiobook, or read the book it's. It's been eyeopening for me. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for listening to the Women's Money Wisdom Podcast. If you found value in this episode, the best way you can support the podcast is to forward an episode to a friend or leave a review. Go to pearlplancom and the podcast link to get all the resources and links mentioned.

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