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Here are three things I’d like to share with you about marriage and money:
1: Get on the same boat before you get married or figure out that you are not on the same boat and don’t get married
2: Continue to align very early on in your relationship on what matters and figure out how to work towards compromise in a marriage.
3: Enjoy the fruits of your labor!
Get on the same boat
If you are not yet married and you want to get married to your significant other, figure out how they think about money. Talk about money, don’t make money a taboo subject in your relationship.
Some questions that you could use to get started… What is the purpose of money? Why do you want to have money? What do you want the money to do for you? What are your money goals and how do you think you are going to get there? What assets and liabilities do you have?
Make sure that your significant other is ready to be open with you when it comes to personal finances, if they don’t that is a red flag. If you two cannot be on the same page when it comes to personal finances, then you may have a very difficult, and possibly unsustainable marriage.
Another way to see if a person is going to be aligned with you on money is to look at how they spend money now, ask them to show you their budget if they have one; watch how they spend their money, look at what they do not what they say. A trip together is also a really great way to see how the person makes decisions under pressure in uncertain circumstances and also how they approach personal finances.
Continue to align
Now that you are married, don’t drop the ball – keep going. You are still coming from different backgrounds and different circumstances, different histories, and now you have to blend your two money philosophies together.
Even if the two of you have exactly the same goals, you might still have completely different approaches to it. Mr. Save My Cents and I had the same goals, but still approached for example donating our money differently: he wanted to be frugal and just donate the money and I wanted to be more successful in my career and then donate the money.
In the beginning, to reconcile that took a lot of hard conversations, there were fights. Some healthy conflicts and resolutions of the conflicts are normal in a marriage. When you are disagreeing in a marriage, remind each other that you are working towards the same goals.
So many people focus on the differences in their marriages and not on the similarities. When you disagree over money, also remind each other of the shared goals you have for your money and that you two both want the same thing.
Both Mr. SaveMyCents and I compromised. I learned to cut back on a lot of my nice to haves expenses, he learned to figure out how to have really cool experiences, like nice hotels and nice restaurants without spending a lot of money. It took time for us to get to this.
A lot of people say that in their marriage one person is really good at tracking finances, the other one is not. Then in this case, give each person roles that play to their strengths!
Similarly in my marriage, I am better at figuring out tax issues, and my hubby is better at figuring out things like travel hacking, getting points in miles for travel etc. I think a lot more about the details, and my husband is more of a big picture guy.
Should you combine finances?
I strongly recommend combined finances for most relationships with the exception of an abusive one. Shared finances doesn’t mean that all of your accounts have both your names on them – it’s more a philosophy than anything else. In shared finances, you view your money as a household as one pot, doesn’t matter who makes it, doesn’t matter who spends it or on what. It is one pot. All the money is treated as shared, even if they are in different accounts. It is about the shared mindset not the shared accounts.
When it comes to finances we both have 50/50 decision-making power in our investments. Just because my husband sees things and analyzes things better than I do, doesn’t mean that he is better at making investment decisions.
Enjoy the fruits of your labor!
And finally, you can then enjoy and reap the benefits of a marriage where the finances do work out.
I’m now eight years married, and we fight so much less about finances, we still have instances where we need to talk about finances, where we discuss something new. Right now it just feels so much better because our discussions are no longer shouting matches, it’s just heartfelt discussions, we know each person comes from a slightly different financial background but that is reaping the benefits.
I share about my husband at @savemycents on Instagram and @savemycentsfb on Facebook, or go even more in depth and join the waitlist for the Save My Retirement Masterclass now!
Thank you to the anonymous follower who helped write this blog post for me!
Title image by Briana Moore Photography
