Farnoosh Torabi (1:17)

So.

Podcast Narrator/Host (1:17)

Money Episode 1943 how to Navigate Income gaps, Shared Accounts and Spending differences.

Podcast Intro Announcer (1:26)

You're listening to so Money with award winning money guru Farnoosh Torabi. Each day get a 30 minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers and from Farnoosh yourself. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons. Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life. Welcome to SO Money.

Dr. Emily Garbinski (1:52)

One of the things that I found here is that when we spend money from a joint account, we experience a higher need to justify that spending to our partner. And so because we experience a higher need to justify, we're much more likely to buy what we call in the literature utilitarian products or functional products. And we're less likely on average to buy hedonic products or products that we would consider to be fun. So it seems like this decision to pull finances or not has sort of a lot of influencer consequences that I want people to be aware of. So first, it can have these downstream effects on our relationship and how we think about our relationship with our partner. But it can also, to some extent, unknowingly influence how we ultimately decide to spend money from that particular account.

Podcast Narrator/Host (2:49)

Welcome back to Sew Money, everybody. I'm Farnoosh Tarabi. Well, Valentine's Day is around the corner, and one of the most important conversations couples can have right now is not about dinner reservations. It's about money. Because here's the truth. Money conflict isn't just about debt or spending. Research shows it often comes down to something deeper. Our beliefs about whether financial disagreements can actually be solved. And when couples see money conflict as permanent, they're far less likely to talk about it at all, which only makes things worse. Today's guest is Dr. Emily Garbinski. She's a professor at Cornell's Johnson School of Business, whose work explores how couples make financial decisions, how pooling money affects relations, relationship satisfaction, and what really happens when one partner earns more than the other. And this conversation is personal for me. I've long been the higher earner in my marriage, and I've seen firsthand how income differences can quietly shape power, voice, and even decision making in a relationship, even when the love is strong. So in the spirit of Valentine's Day, we're talking about how to build a stronger financial partnership, from financial date nights and shared accounts to the subtle social norms that still influence modern couples. Let's dive in.

Farnoosh Torabi (4:10)

Dr. Emily Garbinski, welcome to so Money.

Dr. Emily Garbinski (4:13)

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Farnoosh Torabi (4:16)

This is such an important topic. We covered this quite a bit on the podcast Couples and Money, but really wanted to have you on because you are looking at this from a scientific perspective. You've done a lot of study studies on couples and money. It's a loaded space. Before we get into it, what initially drew you to the research? Was there, like a personal moment, a professional moment, where you realized we are getting this wrong and it could benefit from some more analysis?

Dr. Emily Garbinski (4:49)

Yes. So I've always found this topic completely fascinating ever since my grad school days when I was working on my PhD at Stanford. I was really interested in understanding how consumers make financial decisions. And I think a big part of that has to do with our partner and influences from our romantic partner. And so the interests had kind of always been in the back of my mind. And then this one day I was at a conference in Boulder and I was approached by another faculty member, and he Said, hey, you know, I actually have some data on couples and spending from a joint account versus a separate account and how that influences spending. And he said, would you want to work on something like this with me? And I said, yes. And this just kind of spawned the next decade of my research because I realized that this was the project that I was really the most interested in and that I wanted to work on the most. And then other projects bubbled up and here we are.

Farnoosh Torabi (5:55)

Here we are. You know, often when people hear, quote, money problems in relationships, a lot of times our mind travels to things like income differences, debt. I was just reading a study today. I came across a piece of work that was like, for many couples who are dating, debt is like a non starter. You know, if you have piles and piles, especially credit card debt, like that is a red flag. And I don't know if that, how fair that is, but it's just, it's where the mind goes. But based on your research, what's the real underlying issue that you find couples are struggling with on this topic of money and relationships?

Dr. Emily Garbinski (6:36)

Yes. So the problem really is multifaceted. But I can tell you sort of about a recent underlying issue that my co authors and I have started to dig a bit deeper on. And it really has to do with these fundamental beliefs about how we view financial conflict. And so one of the things that we started to unpack is we started to use this existing framework for conflict resolution. And so there's sort of two different ways that you can think about conflict. So one way is you can think about conflict as being solvable. Right. Every problem has a solution. We can reach a solution through compromise. Or maybe one person gives a sacrifice this time and the other partner will sacrifice next time. But I think the fundamental lens here is this idea that financial conflicts can be solvable. And another lens is sort of this idea that financial conflicts are perpetual. So it doesn't really matter how often we talk about money or if we talk about money. The idea here is that if we have some sort of conflict or disagreement, it stems from these fundamental differences in how you and your partner view money. And so what I'm uncovering in my research is that when people view financial conflict as perpetual, so as completely lacking a solution, that just makes them less likely to want to talk about finances altogether, which then causes even more financial problems in the future, because they're not talking about things that are upsetting them and then they're burying those feelings. And the problem goes on and on and on.

Farnoosh Torabi (8:17)

It's true in My own research in talking to other behavioral psychologists who cover not even related to money and couples, but just things like communication, the science of communication. When the communication doesn't happen, how can we expect resolve in any way, shape or form? And money is such a taboo topic culturally, outside of relationships, within relationships, how do you find couples can just start to talk about money in a way that they ultimately they can get to hopefully a resolution. But like, I feel like there's 20 steps before that, and one, it just starts with breaking the ice. So how do you recommend couples do that? Especially let's use an example like you feel like your partner is overspending in one area, not being thoughtful about the joint savings or the joint spending, and it's disrupting your goal achievement.

Dr. Emily Garbinski (9:11)

Yes. So I agree with you that sort of, that first conversation is probably one of the most important ones. And what I found is that in order for these conversations to happen, you have to actually set aside time to have them. And so we know a lot from time management and scheduling that blocking off time to do important things in our calendar is one way in which we can accomplish our goals. And so one of the things that I like to recommend to couples is sort of the importance of having these recurring financial date nights. So time blocked off in our calendar, where we have both said and committed that we're going to talk about money. And it's true that initially this can be very uncomfortable. And so you could think about other ways to maybe make it less so. And so one thing couples can always think about is involving some sort of third party. And so a third party could be a formal third party, like a financial advisor that you sit down and have these conversations with. I can also tell you right now, I'm in the process of planning my wedding. And wedding planning is a financial conversation. Right. I have to sit down with my fiance. We have to set a budget. We have to decide what categories we want to spend the most on, what's not particularly important to us. And I think one of the best decisions we actually made was hiring a wedding planner, because we have a monthly meeting with our planner, and it's time that's blocked off in our calendar where we're going to sit down and talk about these monetary issues.

Farnoosh Torabi (10:50)

You're triggering me. I remember wedding planning, and we did hire a planner. It was so helpful. But I will also remind everybody and myself that I make more than my husband. And I've always. It's always been our sort of relationship dynamic. I've written a book about it. It's important to talk about it. And I rem decision making process of putting on a wedding. My husband was kind of quiet at these meetings with the planner and even outside of the meetings. I mean, he was just deferring to me. He wasn't. And I, I think that happens naturally in a lot of these kinds of like wedding planning is. I don't know, forgive me if I'm being, if I'm generalizing genders here, but I feel like in hetero relationships, women tend to take over the wedding planning. But in our case it was a combination of me being, I think, more excited about picking out table settings, but also because I made more my husband to be. And we talked about it. I said, why are you like, I feel like I'm all alone on this island of wedding planning. And when she makes more. And he said, because I feel like because I make less, I don't have as much veto power. Slash, I don't maybe deserve. He didn't say this, but I'm putting words in his mouth. But this is what essentially was relayed where he felt like he couldn't speak up or have as much of a vote in things because a lot of the wedding was coming out of my bank account. And that, that hurt, you know, not because I was hurt, but I felt like. I felt like that's not a consequence that I want to have happen. It was inadvertent, you know, I think. But it was, I think, to your point and your work, it speaks to. We have these unsaid, unspoken thoughts, rules around money, especially when it comes to income disparity in relationships. And so segueing to that, what is some of the, what are some of the patterns you're seeing with these days too? More and more couples are getting married and having that disparate income. More women are making more than men. How is that impacting the relationship?

Dr. Emily Garbinski (13:07)

Great question. So my PhD student and I have been working on a project that's trying to address some of these questions so I can tell you a little bit about what we're finding. It's work in progress, of course, open to your thoughts. So in this particular project, we are specifically looking at heterosexual couples with an income discrepancy. And this particular project is, as you said, anchored on this idea that people are getting married later in life and people are often coming into the relationship with money already in their pocket. It's not like they're getting married young and starting anew together. And so what we wanted to look at is how the gender of the higher earner affects how couples decide to split shared expenses. So you can sort of imagine this manifesting in a few different ways. I think one of the most common ways is a couple deciding to move in together. How do they split the rent? And so what we're finding is that if we have a hypothetical couple where, let's say the man earns $100,000 a year and the woman earns $50,000 a year, versus another hypothetical couple where the woman earns $100,000 a year AND the man earns $50,000 a year, what we find is that despite the fact that the income discrepancy is the exact same in these two couples, they're making very different decisions about how to split their shared costs. So, for example, in the scenario where the man earns more, the couple is significantly more likely to decide to split the rent proportional to income. Right. Why do they do this? Well, it seems like they're doing this because of this male breadwinner heuristic that we have in our society, where the man is expected to pay more. So if the man makes more, splitting the cost proportional to income allows him to do that. Whereas, if you consider the exact same income discrepancy where the woman makes more, this couple is now significantly more likely to split the cost of the rent equally. Right. And so why is this? Well, we don't have a female breadwinner norm. Right. In our society. And so in the absence of that salient norm, what people perceive as fair is a 50, 50 split.

Farnoosh Torabi (15:37)

Hmm.

Podcast Narrator/Host (15:38)

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Farnoosh Torabi (15:44)

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Mark Bittman (19:45)

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Farnoosh Torabi (20:18)

Very, very interesting. Well, talking about splitting expenses and spending, one of your well known findings looks at how couples pool their finances together and from there make decisions about spending, saving, all of that. At a high level, what does your research say about couples who do combine versus those who keep it separate? This is probably the biggest debate, or at least the one of the first big conversations couples have when they partner up and get serious. They kind of skip to this question, which I feel like there are a few more steps before you're talking about how do we pool our finances together? Like a, you know, what are our goals? B, you know, how did we grow up around money and see, you know, just like what's, what do, how do we feel about financial independence in the relationship? Because that I would say is very important to maintain to some degree. But what did you find in your research where couples combine their money versus those who keep it separate? Who's most harmonious?

Dr. Emily Garbinski (21:28)

Yes, so this is also a very important and to me personally fascinating question because I think intuitively there are a lot of good reasons why couples should pull their finances, but I think there are also a lot of good reasons why couples should not. And so I really wanted to empirically investigate what are the consequences of pooling finances versus not. And I've investigated a few different downstream consequences. But at a high level, what I find is that on average, couples who pool Their finances with their partner experience greater relationship satisfaction than couples that keep their money completely separate. And so there are a few reasons why we see this. So a few mechanisms at play, but I think sort of the biggest one or the most intuitive one is that pulling your finances with your partner can be construed as a signal of your commitment to the relationship. But I've also looked at a few other downstream consequences, like how pooling finances affects how we decide to spend our money from that joint account versus separate account. And one of the things that I found here is that when we spend money from a joint account, we experience a higher need to justify that spending to our partner. And so because we experience a higher need to justify, we're much more likely to buy what we call in the literature utilitarian products or functional products, and we're less likely, on average, to buy hedonic products or products that we would consider to be fun. So it seems like this decision to pull finances or not has sort of a lot of influence or consequences that I want people to be aware of. So, first, it can have these downstream effects on our relationship and how we think about our relationship with our partner, but it can also, to some extent, unknowingly influence how we ultimately decide to spend money from that particular account.

Farnoosh Torabi (23:41)

Have you concluded even more from that study to say this works best for these kinds of couples? Pulling your finance together versus, you know, over here, better to keep it separate. I'm sensing that if you're married to someone or one or both of you who, where you might have more impulsive spending tendencies, that this control of putting everything in one basket, all eyes on it. Dual accountability is almost like a good forced way to get to whatever that, you know, financial goal is. A lot of times, like, you know, hopefully there is a goal, you know, you want to manage your money in a certain way to be able to, let's say, get a down payment on a home or buy a new car or expand your family, what do you find? Which couples are best served with these different arrangements?

Dr. Emily Garbinski (24:35)

Yes, great question. So we did try to look at some of the individual differences that comprise couples. When looking at these effects, I think there are certainly more we could look at. But I could tell you about two effects that we found in the data. So the first is that we found the effect of pooling finances on relationship satisfaction works particularly well for couples with fewer financial resources. And we also looked at the effect of culture. So we looked at whether or not this has a different effect depending on whether someone's from an independent or an individualistic culture like the United States versus an interdependent or a collectivistic culture similar to Asian cultures. And what we found is that this effect of pooling finances on relationship satisfaction was even stronger amongst people from independent cultures, so from us participants.

Farnoosh Torabi (25:41)

Interesting. So you looked at it even from a geographical standpoint, that's really fascinating and cultural. For couples who keep their finances separate, though, you know, what were some of the healthy ways around that? You know, you earlier talked about the importance of communication. It seems like with that, that's even more important to have some sort of cadence around talking about money. The transparency, obviously you need to build that in because that's not fact. It's not embedded as it would be with just having one shared account. So what are the additional structures that coup would benefit from? Who want to keep things separate, but also don't want to feel like they don't know what's going on and can sort of still keep tabs on each other's financial activity?

Dr. Emily Garbinski (26:30)

Yes. So great question. I mean, there are of course couples that choose to keep everything completely separate, and that's a personal choice. They should do what. What works best for them. So to that, I think it's really important to hone in on the mechanisms at play. Right. So why are we seeing this average effect that pooling finances leads to greater relationship satisfaction? It's because pooling finances can serve as an antecedent to actually having those financial conversations.

Farnoosh Torabi (26:59)

Right.

Dr. Emily Garbinski (26:59)

When things are pooled, I have access to our joint account. I can see what my partner is spending money on. And so it serves as a way to facilitate or even sometimes initiate these financial conversations. So for couples that choose to keep things completely separate, this is where I would say that having these recurrent financial date nights becomes very important. I also like to recommend that in cases such as this, we can sort of lean into some of the fintech options that are available. So there's a lot of really cool apps out there that are specifically targeted for couples finances. And so if you want to keep things separate, you could potentially use one of these existing apps to link your bank accounts and choose to share certain things with your partner. And this could be sort of another way to facilitate that communication or, or at least allow for more transparency.

Farnoosh Torabi (27:52)

How does pulling your finances together backfire, though? Sometimes I hear often, I mean, it's interesting to see this data. Anecdotally, what I hear is a little different where I guess if I'm hearing about it, usually it's at a problem Level, you know, but couples will say we shared our finances in one account. And I feel like I am in prison, I'm in financial prison. I don't have Runway to go. And I have like, to your point, I have to explain everything that I'm buying and it becomes cumbersome, slash it teeters on feeling controlled. And that's obviously not a good thing. So tell us a little bit about some of the things to watch out for if you are that couple that decides to pull their finances together in one account.

Dr. Emily Garbinski (28:39)

Yes. So I think one thing that's really important for me to mention is that these effects that we're seeing in the research are effects that we're observing on average across thousands of different participants. And so of course. Right. There can be outliers that exist in the data. I've also heard, you know, a few anecdotes here and there, for example, about couples that have pulled their finances and then in turn have gotten divorced. So there, there can be some negative consequences. So I do think it's important to flag that these effects that we see are average effects over time and it may not be a one stop shop for everyone.

Farnoosh Torabi (29:25)

Your research also suggests that financial systems can subtly undermine this idea that everyone's equal in the relationship. And so list some of these red flags for us. I mentioned one which was just in the beginning of our relationship, my husband, just by the fact that of the factor of making less interpreted that as somehow then having less of a voice or has his permission to voice in the relationship was diminished around money sort of decisions. What else have you found where you just again to keep your. This is really for couples to be aware. Right. Of. Here's what can happen, here's what to look out for. This stuff is very subtle. What have you found?

Dr. Emily Garbinski (30:12)

So it's about red flags are things to watch out for.

Podcast Narrator/Host (30:16)

Yeah.

Farnoosh Torabi (30:16)

That sometimes our money arrangements, whether again it's like the pooling of the finances or you know, sometimes there's someone in the relationship that has more experience managing money and then assumes like, well then I'm just going to take on all of the financial, the big financial decision making and then leaves out the other partner. It's not like they intend to have this dominance, but then there are these defaults that we fall into, sometimes gender driven, sometimes culture driven.

Dr. Emily Garbinski (30:48)

Yes. So this comment makes me think of actually one of my favorite papers in the space by Adrienne Ward and John lynch where they look at the role of the chief financial officer or the household cfo. And one of the things they find that I think is really fascinating is that, you know, where everyone is pressed for time. So within a relationship, we sort of delegate different tasks to our partner. And financial tasks are one of those things that we can delegate. Right. One person might be in charge of paying the bills, managing expenses, so on and so forth. And so what they find is that oftentimes the person who is designated as. As the household CFO is not always the person with the highest financial literacy. It's the person that has the most time to manage the money. And one of the things they also show is that, you know, because one person is taking over this role of household cfo, they sort of become the ones that, that are managing the money over time. And over time, the other partner knows less and less and less. And so where this can become a problem is if something unexpectedly happens to the household cfo, and then the other person is just kind of left in the dark and doesn't know where their money is, how to access their money, how much money they have. And so I do think something that is important is for couples to sort of stop and think, wait, if something were to happen to my partner tomorrow, would I be able to go on paying the bills? Would I be able to access our money? Do I know where all of our money is? You know, anything can happen at any point in time. And I think that's another reason why having these regular financial conversations is so important. Is that so both partners are kept in the loop?

Podcast Narrator/Host (32:57)

I like to think that that's a.

Farnoosh Torabi (32:58)

Generational thing, that it was just our parents generation that fell back into these sort of gender roles. And you hear it all the time, you know, where the husband gets ill or dies suddenly and the wife is left holding a bag of unknowns. And I'm wondering, you know, are we moving towards a better place with that sort of thinking, or is that generational cultural mindset kind of has it endured and are people still falling back on those norms?

Dr. Emily Garbinski (33:38)

Yeah, I mean, one thing I can tell you is that people hate talking about money. And so I haven't really seen that become a generational shift. Right. Even people of my generation, they self report that they would rather talk about politics, they would rather talk about sex, they would rather talk about religion before broaching the subject of money with their partner. And so even though we might see differences in terms of who manages the money, so I think we now are seeing a lot more female, female household CFOs. I do think this hesitancy surrounding these financial conversations is Something that very much persists. And in fact, what I found in my research that I also find fascinating is that people have this lay belief that talking about money is going to make them feel worse. Right. So if you ask people to make predictions about how financial conversations will make them feel, they predict that it's going to make them feel more anxious, that it's going to make them feel sadder and less happy. But what we find is that, on average, having these conversations makes people feel better because it makes them feel like they have a better picture of their finances. It makes them feel more in control. And so this is one example where I think what people predict or what they expect will happen when they talk about money is very different from what is probabilistically likely to happen or result from these financial conversations.

Farnoosh Torabi (35:12)

It's like when you imagine going to the gym or something, you dread it, and then you get there and you do the workout and you're like, ah, Ah, so glad I did that. Based on all that you have studied, what. What questions do you recommend couples today sitting down with their finances today, this week? What are some questions they should be asking each other that they usually don't? I think we're, you know, we. We obviously ask maybe the obvious questions. The, you know, how much do you make? Sometimes we don't even ask that, though. So I'm not even gonna assume that there are some obvious questions. I'm just gonna assume that most couples, like you said, they avoid the topic. But if there's some, even some, like, different or nuanced questions that you recommend to get more to the heart of some of these conflicts that you've talked about today and you've outlined today, what do you recommend to be on that question list?

Dr. Emily Garbinski (36:05)

Yes. So I think sharing income. Right. Is something very important that you mentioned. I also think just sitting down and being clear not only about the level of assets, but also about the debts. Right. You sort of mentioned at the very beginning of the podcast sort of how people tend to hide debts from their partner. I think this is something that you need to be clear and have on the table. And what I would also add to that would be a conversation around retirement goals. I think that sometimes we have an assumption that people will want to retire at a certain age. But I think being clear with your partner about when you plan to retire or maybe when you plan to scale back is an important conversation to have to make sure that you're hitting your savings targets accordingly.

Farnoosh Torabi (36:58)

I've shared with the audience recently. I'm in my 40s, my husband and I are both in our mid-40s and we have gone probably the last decade without a financial advisor and it's been fine. Our financial advisor 10 years ago kind of got us onto a nice system of saving here, investing there, getting our holes filled with things with like insurance and getting an estate plan figured out, taxes, all that. She recommended people for us and now I feel like we need another check in. Because you brought up the retirement question. I think think we haven't really. And it's not because we've avoided the topic, I think because we just don't even really know. It's such a hard thing to really imagine, but to sit down with someone once again to kind of see where we're at and then kind of give us that next 10 year plan, it would be really helpful to me and I think both of us to kind of feel like we've had another set of eyes to look on things and now knowing more about what we want. It's hard to know when you're in your 20s and 30s what you want in your 60s, but now as we're kind of getting closer to that next chapter and having friends too that are in that chapter, we can kind of understand what's realistic. And I always say this like, you know, maybe a financial advisor isn't a forever relationship, but it's somebody who comes in and comes out out on an as needed basis and you know, again, for where we are in our life stage. And we have been very diligent about doing the initial prescription that the advisor gave us, but it's like, can we just coast for a little bit? Because I feel like I've been investing my entire life could what happens if I don't for the next five years and I take that money and I put it, you know, towards other things. And yeah, these are questions that I have that I if calling all financial advisors out there, you know, get in touch. It's very, it's quite the process to find someone and. But I liked that your initial advice of sometimes getting that third party involved can, can break the ice, level the playing field a little bit and get both people to open up because otherwise it just feels like one person is trying to drive the ship.

Dr. Emily Garbinski (39:23)

I think it's a good accountability mechanism, if anything.

Farnoosh Torabi (39:27)

Yeah.

Dr. Emily Garbinski (39:29)

All right.

Farnoosh Torabi (39:30)

Finally, when couples get money right, what does that usually unlock in the relationship beyond financial harmony? You know, like we know what happens when they don't get it right. But what give us the promise sort of like the, the thing to, to strive for knowing that, you know, here you've probably interviewed many couples, right. They're doing the quote unquote right things for them. And here's the impact of that.

Dr. Emily Garbinski (39:58)

Yes. So there are a lot of positive spillover effects from getting it right. So in my own research I've investigated positive spillover effects for the relationship. But we also know that when you feel happier in your relationship, you feel happier overall. Right. And happy people are more productive. So then if you're more productive at work, right. This can maybe lead to something like a promotion which will then increase your financial state. And so everything is kind of connected. So sort of similar to the work in organizational behavior, where we find that or where others have found that you know, how you're doing at work spills over to affect your home life. Right. We see all of these positive spillover effects in the financial domain as well, such that you know, when, when you feel like you've got it right as a couple, it's spilling over to affect your relationship well being, your individual well being and to some extent can sometimes make you happier.

Farnoosh Torabi (40:56)

A good promise. Dr. Emily Garbinski, thank you so much for your insights. We look forward to having you back when you have even more to share on your research into income disparities. That's a, you know, very personally important topic but I know increasingly relevant to so many of us right now. Thank you so much.

Dr. Emily Garbinski (41:18)

Thank you for having me.

Podcast Narrator/Host (41:22)

Thanks so much to Dr. Emily Garbinski for joining.

Farnoosh Torabi (41:25)

I have links to her studies in.

Podcast Narrator/Host (41:26)

Our show notes and I'll see you back here on Friday for AskFarnouche. I hope your day is so money.

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