3. Make her understand that it is beyond budgeting: Make your partner understand that her spending is not limited only to the present but will cause serious issues for you in the future. If she holds back her spending for this month but ends up spending double in the next month, it will not make sense of the savings that you did. You have to make her understand that the future is not about saving or buying a new house or retirement, it is to attain a life which is debt free and stress free. Make her imagine that 30 years from now she can still enjoy the financial freedom that she is enjoying now. If she is a big fan of credit cards then she will surely agree the term 'financial freedom'. What you want to do is get across the real goal of budgeting. That is to make sure you're spending money on the things you really want and not to spend on stuff that isn't really important to you.