<prompt> Human: My wife I grew up in families with very different money-handling habits. Her family lived paycheck to paycheck, with the threat of utility disconnections never far from everyones mind, parents or children. Nevertheless they ate out often and generally bought new cars on credit. My parents insulated us from the money difficulties they had, we ate a lot of leftovers and home cooking, and they generally bought used cars, for cash if they could. While both our parents are doing better today, its apparent that I came from a saver family and she from a spender family.One consequence of this is that I look at debt as a bad thing, to be avoided if possible, minimized when necessary, and repaid quickly, whereas she sees being in debt as the natural state of things. She works while I attend school, and while she makes decent money and I have some scholarships, our fixed expenses come very close to equaling her take-home pay each month. Therefore, any extra expenses end up being funded by my student loans.Since this is a temporary situation Im not adamantly opposed to borrowing to fund living expenses clearly expenses exceeding income is unsustainable in the long run, but things should change once I graduate, but in accordance with my philosophy above I believe we should endeavor to minimize borrowing. She compares our situation to the one she knew growing upspending paychecks quickly, no savings, paying bills late, getting utilities disconnected, using credit cards for everyday expenses and carrying the balances vs. paying all bills as they come due, paying no credit card interest, building savings before our fixed expenses rose and investing for retirement, never worrying about getting utilities disconnectedand she thinks, Were doing well! Everyone has student loans, its just how people get through school, and you have 10 years to pay them off, so who cares? I was borrowing more as an undergrad anyway, so dont worry about it, lets live!I dont think shes used to thinking about money much more than a month in advance, so 10 years of student loan payments dont faze her. I see every extra lunch out, every shopping trip, every little luxury as something well be paying for 10 years from now, and it hurts.Has anyone else experienced any of thishow my wife sees money, how I see it, how things work out when a spender a saver get married? Any advice? Shes willing to work with me, Id just like to figure out how to help her look further into the future and plan ahead without being completely dictatorial and domineering, No fun spending EVER!!! etc.  <response>: Unfortunately people rarely change their tunes on this one. Especially if missing bills and having utilities shutoff is a normal thing. Most people only change because something awful happens like utilities get cut offMost people who are in this scenario just have one person in charge of finances because the one who is always in debt realizes theyre terrible at money management. You could propose that, but then you get the be the bad guy for eternity.Its not a fun position to be in. 