Why you should set spending limits on gifts for your partners

Why you should set spending limits on gifts for your mann an ihrer seitesWhy you should set spending limits on gifts for your partnersWith the holidays at hand, youre probably feeling a lot of preskoranvers around purchasing the perfect gifts. You want all of your friends and family to be totally thrilled with the items you choose for them (and, ideally, with yourgift wrappingjob too). Perhaps most stress-inducing is the process of choosing thebest-ever gift for your partner. Yes, you want them to be excited about the present itself, but you also want to be sure that your gift isnt significantly more or less big or expensive than the one your S.O. gives you. If theres a big gap between the presents youve bought each other, things can get awkward.The awkwardness isnt all in your head, either. According to a recentsurveyfromQuicken, heading into the holiday season with clear spending limits for gifts within a romantic relationship can go a long way toward making spirits brighter. Of th e 1,000 married adults who participated in the survey, nearly 70 percent said they agree on spending limits ahead of time - and those people demonstrate higher levels of relationship satisfaction as well. Of those participants who reported setting spending limits, 78 percent said they are happy with how much their spouse spends, compared to 63 percent of people who dont set those limits. Couples without spending limits are also twice as likely to wish that their spouse had spent more. And we all know that weird money vibes can create a general sense of discomfort around the holiday season as a whole. Its best to avoid those.If this data has you feeling inspired to set a holiday spending limit in your own relationship and youre not sure how to handle the conversation, weve got you Quickens chief absatzwirtschaft officer Aimee Young offers these three tips for managing spending limits.1. Dont avoid the discussion. While talking about money with your S.O. tends to be uncomfortable (an d even more so when the money in question is meant to be spent on that S.O.), the results of Quickens survey should give you the motivation you need to dive into the conversation. If you have a sneaking suspicion that holiday gift spending limits would make a big difference in your own relationship satisfaction over the holiday season, dont be afraid to bring it up. Chances are that its going to pay off2. Choose the right time to talk. Try to find time when you and your partner are more likely to be at your best, rather than when youre running out the door to work or have just gotten home and may need time to decompress, Young suggests. Consider setting a date to have this particular conversation so that both you and your partner will come to the table with a good attitude and with the understanding that theres an important discussion to be had.3. Find a comfortable way to track your goal. If you and your partner tend to come at things in a quantitative way and like to be able to tr ack and prove things, youre probably wondering how you can follow along with the progress of your spending goals without awkwardly handing each other gift receipts. How unromantic is that? Instead, use a budgeting app or online platform to input your individual spending. Yes, you and your S.O. will both still have access to the costs of the gifts youve bought, but you can handle it independently without breaking down all of the prices for each other IRL.Happy holidays - and happy spending (limits)This article was originally published on Brit + Co.