Who Should Pay in a Family? Analysis of 6 Budget Allocation Models

AVAlexander Volchek

How many marriages have broken up over this? How many decades have people lived with this problem hanging over them? There are two things you need to remember. First: very different situations can arise in your life. Not every possible situation, but different ones. That is what truly matters. And the second point is that, for each person, living through a different situation will bring up different states and emotions. I know situations where a man does not tell his wife how much money he has at all. The woman will take no responsibility for that money; she will spend it on what she needs, rather than what the family needs. This is a path that will move you forward tremendously. There are sound reference points that can keep you from getting confused or lost, and I have explained them in this video. How should the family budget be divided? This is a broad subject. Some people think it should be fifty-fifty. Some think the husband should hold all the money; others think the wife should. Some think the husband should earn it, others the wife, and so on. I want to use different arrangements to explain what is really happening in each one. Why different arrangements? I will start by giving examples where only the husband earns money, only the wife earns money, or both earn money, and look at how they divide it.

Why will I try to cover every combination? First, so that you can recognize the situation you are actually in right now. Second, your life does not end tomorrow. You may find yourself in very different situations over the course of your life. It is always good to have a foundation in your own state: how to live through these situations, how to look at them, how to relate to them. We also live in a society where people you know are in different situations. To have a broad view, a very broad range of perspectives rather than a one-sided opinion, I recommend understanding this subject thoroughly. Why does it matter, by the way? Why should you watch this video? Because sound knowledge and understanding of the family budget makes it possible for the family to have a larger budget. If there is good energy around money in the family, that in any case makes a larger budget possible. It does, inherently. That is what matters. When a man and a woman communicate well in a family, the children respond well to that too. I am not even talking about the trauma that difficult financial dynamics in a family can cause children, or how this affects other people as well.

Often, problems between a man and a woman cause trauma not only within the family but beyond it. For example, a person will bring this into their workplace and impose a particular incentive system on employees because they have dysfunctional patterns at home. I know many business owners whose wives have a very strong influence on the incentive systems at their companies. Many people do not realize this. The first arrangement is one in which the man pays all the expenses. This is the most popular traditional model: only the man earns money. It is considered popular worldwide, broadly speaking. If we take Russia, for example, statistics on public opinion show that seventy percent of people believe the man should be the family's main financial provider. Notice where we are starting. We are starting not just with an arrangement but also with society's opinion. Each person has their own opinion about what should happen. It would be great, by the way, if you wrote in the comments right now: what do you think? It would be interesting to see what the people watching this video think about it.

Then we will move forward, because by the time you finish watching this video, you will definitely have new perspectives on how to approach this properly. So let's go back to the first arrangement, where only the man is supposed to hold the money. As I said, in Russian society people generally see this as the basis from the outset. But again, not everyone. Seventy percent. In reality, seventy could just as well be fifty. There is also the question of whom they surveyed. I personally know Russian-speaking people living in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine who think very differently. But you can indeed feel the prevailing opinion that the man should earn the money. What's more, that has always been strongly promoted in society. Yet statistics from the Soviet Union say—and studies will indicate this too—that men and women earned money equally in the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, a great many studies and models still emphasize the importance and necessity of the man providing for the family. In Muslim culture, for example, the family budget is built on religious and cultural norms. Under Islamic sharia—I am not deeply versed in the different branches and schools here—it is considered a requirement.

Notice this; it is very interesting. A requirement: the man is obligated to provide for his woman. Obligated. This creates a very interesting attitude and perception of what is actually happening inside. The second model, the second arrangement, is where the woman pays all the expenses. The first was where the man pays everything. If the woman pays the expenses, that scenario is rare and gets a mixed reception. Yet if we look at Western cultures, this is entirely normal in many Western countries. In some places it is seen as outrageous, completely impossible; in some countries it is essentially impossible from the outset. But in Western countries, if a woman earns more money, then she earns more money. That can be considered entirely normal. Again, I will explain what this means. I am listing these arrangements and building up to the subject for a reason. We need this groundwork to ask: what is the right way? How do you live? How do you feel? There is an arrangement where people split expenses in half, fifty-fifty, and earn roughly the same amount. Or—and notice this, it is interesting—who earns the money is one thing.

How it is spent is another. For instance, if the man earns all the money, should it be brought into the family and divided equally? Or should only the man spend it? Or if both people earn equal shares, should each keep their half, or should the money be handed over to the woman? There are countries, movements, and teachings where the money goes to the woman, others where it goes to the man, and still others—for example, certain older traditions in India—where all the money goes to the parents. It does not go to the young couple but to the older generation, to the father, to the elder. The young family, for example, will have no access to the money at all. The parents manage it, and among the parents, either the mother or the father will be in charge. In the United States, broadly speaking, the culture allows all kinds of arrangements for distributing and dividing money between partners. Society says you can supposedly divide the money fifty-fifty, and this is considered, supposedly including in psychology, a way for people to feel calmer when discussing things and calmer in the relationship. Some say money should be divided proportionally.

Each person's financial share corresponds to how much they earn. I am leading up to something very important. It is important to really understand this. Some say the joint budget—the costs of living together, housing, food, expenses for the family and children—should be split equally, and each person keeps the rest of their own money. Some people receive financial help from their parents, who put a great deal of money into the family—

—and have an influence on it. Studies present information about such situations. I studied a great deal of material specifically to prepare for this video: what do people think about this? Many say that if a person lives on their parents' money, the parents supposedly have a very strong influence within the family. When I read that, I thought: what a strange conclusion. I know families where the parents have a strong influence without giving them any money. And we have just described cultures where the young couple gives all their money to their parents, and the parents have influence. The parents are not giving money; they are taking it, and they have influence. Elsewhere, parents give money and, of course, exert no influence at all. So circumstances vary. The first thing I want to tell you is that this subject is very important. How many marriages have broken up over this? How many decades have people lived with this problem hanging over them? Honestly, for as long as I have been married, I have thought very hard about how to manage money properly in a marriage.

I have studied this subject a great deal, observing people's states, including my own, and listening to what my mother thinks, what my wife's mother thinks, what my wife thinks, what various spiritual teachers think, what people in psychotherapy think, what people in business think—what people think in general, and how I feel about it. I have lived through different aspects of this: having a lot of money and having less; having virtually unlimited money and having very tight limits; difficult times and better times; large expenses and smaller expenses; having no children and having four children; living in Minsk, living in Moscow, and now living in the United States. I have lived through very different aspects. There are two things I want you to remember. First: very different situations can arise in your life. Not every possible situation, but different ones, because probably not every situation can happen. If someone's parents have died and left no money, a situation where their parents give them money is unlikely to arise. But very different situations can arise.

For example, in the near future you might find yourself in a situation where you do not need to earn money. The government might pay you; there might be some universal payment. AI might do the work everywhere while you do not work. Many people are talking about that. Or anyone could become ill and live on benefits, or retire and live on a pension, or suddenly make a great deal of money that supports them for the rest of their life. Some way of generating income might emerge. Or your children might suddenly earn money. Any child today can make money at fifteen or sixteen, and you might never have to earn money again. Or you might work for your child. All kinds of situations could arise. Let yourself consider how you would feel about having to work for your child. Allow yourself to consider your attitude toward that. I, for one, feel very good about it. I believe good relationships with children—and I see this, I know it—are relationships that can work in different combinations, in different forms. Your child works for you, or you work for your child.

Neither of you works for the other. You give your child money or you do not; your child gives you money; you give first, then they give, then it is the other way around, then everything changes. The question is: how capable are you of living through different states together with your child? That is what truly matters. Not who does what for whom, or which cases and situations arise. That is what matters. That is what truly matters. Let me say this again about your relationship with money. It is very important to recognize from the start that different arrangements, different situations, are possible in your life. The second point is that, for each person, living through a different situation will bring up different states and emotions. Sometimes it is absolutely right for the man to pay for everything. Sometimes it is very bad. It all depends on the couple and their situation. So much depends on the couple: how they feel, what values each expresses, what each is dependent on, and what state each is in. If the woman supports the man and believes in him; if the current situation is that he earns and she does not, and that is simply how things have turned out; if she is generally willing to earn money should the need arise, should life call for it, and she is not working now because that is how things have turned out—

—if she is not with this man only for his money; if her position is not that he is obligated to provide for her, that he is obligated to hand over all his money or not hand it over; if she lives with full awareness that different situations can happen, then all kinds of arrangements are possible. It is perfectly fine if the man keeps all the money. In that situation, it is also perfectly fine if he gives it all to the woman. But if the woman lives from the position that the man owes her, if she is unable to manage a budget or take responsibility for the family and still wants to take all the money, that is a serious mistake. You must not do that under any circumstances. It will cause destruction within. The man will feel terrible. Can there be situations where the woman earns the money? Of course. I know a great many families where men pressure women, saying the woman is obligated to work and earn. Men manipulate women by pointing out that they earn money while the woman does not. I also know situations where women take advantage of this and say, “You're pressuring me over this, and that is why things go wrong, why there are problems”—

—when in fact the man is not applying any pressure at all. There is simply a fact, a given situation. The question is: are we all being honest with one another about it? But men who pressure a woman to earn as a form of manipulation, to look impressive or stronger in her eyes, will create a very serious imbalance in the family. Men who keep referring to the fact that they keep the woman locked up… I know situations where the man does not share the household budget. I know situations where he does not tell his wife how much money he has at all, and does this quite reasonably and appropriately, because she will take no responsibility for that money. She will spend it on what she needs rather than what the family needs. There is a very interesting aspect here. We are moving toward an interesting point: we can endlessly discuss different ways of handling and spending money. Yet a solution can be found only in one state, only under one condition. Look, only under one condition can a solution be found: when both people, the man and the woman, are willing and able to understand the other person, willing and able to support the other person, and interested in helping the other person.

If both people in a family are interested in helping the other person—not themselves, but the other person. Both. That is very important. Not “I'll help once the other person helps me,” but both are interested in doing this as a matter of course. Then absolutely any combination is possible. There is no rule here, no particular energy. Why? Because we live in a society and a social world where either the man or the woman can earn more than the other. We live in a world where both people often have to work or they cannot survive. We live in a situation where a great many people spent long years of their lives without examining their perceptions or developing themselves, without understanding what was happening, and, for example, devoted a huge part of their lives to a career. We live in a world where, again, very different arrangements are possible and may arise. That is why I say this is entirely normal. Then, of course, you could start from—

Then, of course, you could start from the fact that, in raising children, the woman has more influence and interaction with the child over a long period, especially during the first seven years. There is also the whole period when the woman is carrying the child. She devotes more time to this. So, of course, in various circumstances, it seems the man should contribute more and provide more for the family. But things vary. Situations differ. A pregnant woman may earn thousands of times more than the man. That is entirely normal. There are no problems or difficulties in that. The question is how the two of them feel, how capable they are of discussing it, of not judging one another, of truly being in a state of harmony. How capable are they of being in that state? That is what matters. You see, there is another problem with dividing money: public opinion. A huge number of women and men are effectively trapped by it. Friends, acquaintances, parents, children all talk about it. So many people around them shape this opinion, and a person becomes caught in a closed trap. They depend on other people's opinions, constantly compare their view with others', and single out idols or role models in other people. So they become trapped and cannot be in the right state to discuss the budget.

There is another problem too. You may be watching this video and saying, “I want to understand this. I want to bring harmony into our family. I know that if we work this out, our family will not just be happier or live by the laws of the universe; our finances will become more harmonious too.” I know many families that would have much more money if both people were in a state of helping the other person. If the husband and wife lived from that position and supported one another. If both their parents—or all four parents, or whichever parents are still alive—supported both of them regardless of who brings in how much. If their friends supported them too. That would be an incredible miracle. But then someone watches this video and thinks, “Listen, I want to do this, but the people around me have no desire to do it, and they won't.” What then? This is a very difficult situation. I can tell you it is very difficult. I have been in that situation and have remained in it for a long time.

It is very difficult, and I see a great many people in these situations. It is very hard to be in that position. This situation arises when a husband and wife do not know how to communicate or reach agreements with each other. Again, agreement is possible under one condition: that your starting point is a desire to help the other person rather than yourself. I am certainly not excluding the desire to help yourself. But you cannot make it a prerequisite that you will begin helping the other person only once they begin helping you. You may be under the illusion that the other person is not helping you, while they may constantly want to help. Some people lack the strength or energy. Some are dependent on money. Some have inherited or karmic patterns of behavior and attitudes toward money. I know people—children, adults, old, middle-aged, young—whose difficulties in perceiving money are karmically determined. Difficulties. For example, people spend money endlessly and cannot get it under control. Or they do not know how to keep track of money. Some people think you have to take special courses to learn how to do that.

To learn how to keep track of money, you need a particular type of energy, rather than taking certain courses. It is surprising, but that is how it is. Many people think you need to raise children from an early age to become entrepreneurs or earn money. But I can tell you that a child earning money at twelve may acquire a great many problems rather than positive qualities. A child you teach to keep track of money may acquire a great many problems rather than positive qualities. I know children who say at eleven, “My parents are worthless. They haven't become millionaires.” Some children say, “We'll be millionaires by eighteen.” Some people, including children, treat others disrespectfully because they know how to keep track of money. Some children do not believe in their family or their parents because they have less money. This creates a great deal of negativity in the family. The parents begin to feel terrible, because it affects them. A child's opinion has an incredibly strong effect on them when the child voices it. The question here is how to gain the strength to accept that your child can have very different opinions.

Just as I said, children may earn more than you. How do you feel about that? How do you feel about your child never earning anything, or earning much more than you and thinking you are a nobody who has achieved nothing in life, if money is your measure? I had a situation with my mother. I once said to her, “You know, Mom, I think it's great when parents give their children money. I would be happy if you gave me some money as a gift.” At some point she came and gave me a few thousand dollars. I want to say right away that this amount was certainly not comparable to what I earned. But it was definitely lovely and enjoyable, a good energy. And in general, it is very good energy for parents, an important energy. At the same time, it is good energy for parents to feel comfortable using their children's money. Again, if the parent is in a state of sound development and understanding. They may, of course, not be in that state. They may not be. This is not a simple question.

That is a separate discussion. Today we are discussing what to do with the family budget. This holds a huge number of families back from developing. Many women are afraid to have children because they see difficulties in the family around the man's finances. Many men are afraid to grow their families because they do not understand how to provide for them. Again, write about the arrangement you currently have in your family and the arrangement your parents had. This is very important. I suggest remembering two essential points. First, understand that different arrangements are possible in your life. You still have decades ahead, and anything can happen. At some point, you may find yourself alone. Or your husband or wife will be alone because, for example, you die or become ill. This will happen in any case. Someone in your family will be left alone. You still have many different aspects of life to experience. The second point to remember: when you see other examples, remember that your life is very unique and individual, especially your life with another person. And most importantly—most importantly—start approaching money in your family from a position of helping the other person first.

Do not deceive yourself about what is really happening. I know many people who deceive themselves—truly deceive themselves—about what is happening in their family, who are not living in truth. For example, that their wife is manipulative, or their husband is a slave owner. If the wife is manipulative, how do you live within that arrangement? How do you live within it? When someone in your family is manipulative—for instance, a woman says, “My husband is manipulative, and he takes advantage of it.” Or a man says, “My wife is definitely manipulative, and she takes advantage of it. She constantly needles her man and points things out: ‘Look at how other people live. You didn't do this. You're not developed enough. Why are you tired today? Why are you feeling so strange?’”

“‘Or you're in the wrong mood.’” It is very hard to be in that situation. You can show this video to the other person, do anything you like. Without wanting to, that person will not change. They are manipulative. They will watch the video with the desire to manipulate someone else. The question at any given moment is whether a person wants to develop themselves or manipulate another person. That is what matters. So you need to acknowledge it. Acknowledge that the other person, your husband or wife, is manipulative. Acknowledge it. Most importantly, accept it as a given rather than avoiding it. Acknowledging it does not in any way mean shifting responsibility onto the other person, but you need to acknowledge it. Often it is important simply to recognize this, not in order to solve the situation, but simply to become aware of it. To see who is actually manipulative, how each person really behaves, and what state each is actually in. And one simple question resolves this: are you capable of living within any model? I can honestly tell you I am capable of living within absolutely any model. I am ready for an arrangement where my wife earns all the money in our family.

I am ready for an arrangement where my children earn the money. I am ready for one where the two of us earn it together. I am ready for one where only I earn it. I am ready for one where none of us earns money and we live on support from the government, from companies, or from other people. Answer this question for yourself. It is a path that will move you forward tremendously. Because if you can live within any of these models, that shows the true strength of your development. I want to tell you something: you have the right to anything at all. Some people tell me that once you have children, you are obligated to provide for them. What does “provide” mean? Does receiving government benefits and using them to support my children count as providing for them? Someone will say, “No, that isn't providing for them.” But I will say, “Imagine you live in a country where people are being killed, and you emigrate to another country. That is how things have worked out. For example, you emigrated from El Salvador to the United States and made it possible for your children to live on benefits. Have you done something bad for your children?”

I can tell you right away: you have done something very significant, especially if you emigrated and your children received documents, for example. You made sure the immigration was legal and everyone received their documents, but you are living at another country's expense. Or perhaps you received a grant, and companies or a foundation are helping you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. For some reason, people think providing for a family lies in something else. If you are someone who does not shy away from work, the next question is: what do you want to do? What do you want to spend your time on? When I hear these subjects discussed—and I know many men and women who say this—they say, “Then we won't do half the work. We won't work overtime, take on extra projects, or do anything else to provide additional support.” When this happens, a person begins acting against themselves, when manipulation is present. When one person in a family is manipulative, the other very often begins to become manipulative too. That is the problem. So if you have this question—and I know some people do—

—pay attention to this. Have you yourself become manipulative while observing that your husband or wife is manipulative? Pay attention. That is what you need to do. I can speak from my own experience: as I observed the attitudes toward money in my family, at one point I behaved very badly myself. You understand the situation so poorly that you begin to fall into delusion yourself. There are sound reference points that can keep you from getting confused or lost, and I have explained them in this video.