11 Strategic Ways To Save Money With Your Spouse or Partner
If you and your spouse or partner want to cut your spending, you’ll get the best results by working as a team. That means finding ways to save money together so you’ll have more cash to reach your financial goals.
To help you do this, we asked personal finance and money-saving experts for ways they cut costs and boost savings with their spouse. These 11 tips will help you save money on everything from everyday expenses to nights out and get your finances aligned so you can set aside more for your future together.
1. Have Savings Competitions
Saving money can actually be fun for couples if you turn it into a friendly competition. That’s what Grayson Bell, creator of the Debt Roundup blog, and his wife do to keep their spending in check.
Consider This: 11 Splurges Now That Will Actually Save You Money in the Long Run
Check Out: This One Low-Effort Money Move Could Change Your Finances in 2026
“We will see who can save the most money for 30 days, and the loser has to treat for dinner at the end,” Bell said. “We base this off a percentage of income earned, not the total amount saved because of the differences in income. We’ve found the competition brings out the best and pushes us to find new ways to save money.”
2. Set Common Goals
It’s hard to save money if you and your partner don’t have the same priorities when it comes to finances. That’s why you need to discuss your goals so you can decide together where you want to allocate your funds, said Regina Conway, consumer expert for Slickdeals.
“It makes it a lot easier to skip a meal out when you know the money is going toward something … you are both on board (with),” she said.
3. Use a Budgeting App
Sticking to a household budget or spending plan can be difficult if a couple doesn’t keep track of how they’re both spending money. Fortunately, technology can make this easier.
“Get a budget-tracking app that can sync between your phones, like Home Budget with Sync,” said Phillip R. Christenson, a chartered financial analyst with Phillip James Financial. “By sharing the information, you and your spouse will be held accountable for your spending. You might think twice about your next purchase knowing your spouse will find out that it broke the budget for the month.”
4. Live Off One Income, Save the Other
Having two people in a household earning a paycheck can make it easier to afford the things you need and want. But it also offers an opportunity to build significant savings for the future.
“My husband and I live off of one income and save the other income,” said Elizabeth Colegrove of The Reluctant Landlord blog. “We even put that income in a separate account so it is not even accounted for in the budget.”
5. Don’t Hide Spending
A CreditCards.com survey found that one in five Americans in a relationship have spent $500 or more without telling their partner. That sort of financial infidelity can certainly sabotage a couple’s efforts to save.
Mark Greutman of the Mark & Lauren Greutman blog, said he and his wife keep spending in check by not hiding expenses — except for the occasional gift. “Simply put, if you know that every dollar you spend will have to be ‘approved’ by your partner, you will be less likely to use it on unplanned expenses."
6. Take Date Nights Mid-Week
Finding room in your budget for a date night with your spouse can be a good use of your money. Just make sure you’re not spending more than necessary.
One way to save on dates is to go out on weeknights rather than the weekend, Greutman said. “Most couples might go out on Friday or Saturday night, but local restaurants usually have much better deals in the middle of the week when it’s slower,” he said. “As an added bonus, you’re likely to get more attentive service.”
7. Share Restaurant Meals
Holly Johnson, creator of the Club Thrifty blog, said she shares meals with her spouse when dining at restaurants, which saves them a few hundred dollars a year. “My husband and I share an appetizer and an entrée at restaurants all the time,” she said. “We both hate wasting food, and we are almost always served more than we can eat.”
Hayes takes a similar approach: “Often times when we go out to dinner, we will go to a place that has specials for two people.”
8. Plan Meals To Save Money on Groceries
There are plenty of ways couples can save money at the supermarket. One of the easiest is to simply take the time to plan your meals so you’re not wandering the aisles wondering what to buy — a surefire way to overspend.
LaTisha Styles, host of Young Finances TV, said she used to like to cook whatever came to mind. But now that she’s married, she and her husband plan meals. “With a handful of recipes, we can buy groceries in bulk and that lowers the overall cost of the meals,” she said. “We cut our grocery bill by about 30% using this strategy.”
9. Work Out at Home Together
The average monthly cost of a gym membership is $58, according to the Statistic Brain Research Institute. So if you and your spouse are working out at the gym, you could be shelling out about $120 a month.
Johnson has found a cheaper way to workout. “Instead of taking turns going to the gym — or finding daycare for the kids so we can go together — my husband and I do workout videos together every single day,” she said. “We alternate videos depending on our moods, but it’s fun to have a workout partner. We also motivate each other when one of us doesn’t feel like doing it.”
10. Do Babysitting Swaps
There are plenty of ways to lower the cost of going out with your significant other. But if you have kids, you still have to pay for someone to watch them. That is, unless you use a strategy that Hannah Rounds, creator of the Unplanned Finance blog, employs.
“We do babysitting swaps instead of paying for babysitters,” she said. She and her husband take turns with another couple watching each other’s children and take turns going out.
11. Have Weekly Money Meetings
Erin Chase, creator of the $5 Dinners blog, said she and her husband sit down for a meeting once a week. “These meetings allow us time to look at the big and small picture of our finances,” she said.
Her husband prints out a list of all of their accounts, and then they review totals and talk about progress toward their financial goals. They also use the time to discuss upcoming expenses and any purchases they might need to make. “Without this time where we discuss our planned purchases and expenses for the week, we’d still be stuck on meeting our first-ever financial goal,” Chase said.
This article was provided by MoneyLion.com for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, legal or tax advice.
More From MoneyLion:
