<prompt> Human: My wife and I have been together for over 12 years total met in college. Like any relationship, we have our ups and downs. One things that consistently caused issues was both of our impulse spending. When we were young, we didnt have much of a surplus, but as we received promotions at work, raises, etc. we started to have some extra money in the bank an differed on what we should do. I thought buying a TV was a mutual purchase whereas she said its for me hard to believe when Real Housewives is playing in beautiful 1080p..but hey, her opinion. She would buy clothes and shoes which I saw as equally as stupid and inevitably whenever money was tighter.. the conversation would go to... you bought such and such, and arguments would ensue.Fast forward, and enter what we call Mad Money I am not sure where we read this, or where the idea came from it did come from somewhere, but its been literally amazing. Basically, we put a predetermined amount of money into 2 savings accounts the first of every month mad money - mine, mad money - hers. We chose an amount based on what we were comfortable with. Basically, every month, we can literally buy whatever we want or waste my money on whatever I want as she says using our mad money. If a couple of months go by, we have enough for big purchases. When one of us gets a bonus, or X-Mas money from family it dumps into mad money. For a bonus, if its 2000, we usually put 500 mad money and the rest into savings. Point is, were able to fund our savings account monthly, and its literally eradicated the arguments with respect to where we buy frivolous things. I am not sure it will work for every couple, and my wife has definitely gotten an advanceon mad money a few times and then I think forgot to transfer the money back to checking the following month, but hey.. I love her. And lastly, its really not a black and white system. We still have times where we talk about getting something and its just something we buy, or get it and dont take it out against mad money, but it takes away the arguments in 99 of the situations. Hope it works for others that are plagued by the same discussions in their marriage.  <response>: Thats called budgeting. 