Preparing Your Financials for Marriage
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credit: Jeff Belmonte
Preparing for it is one of the best and romantic times of your life, but marriage can also a big change to your financial future. When you get married, you not only join hearts and home, but your partner’s financial history becomes yours, and vice versa. So before you tie the knot, it’s important to secure your financial future and take the following steps with your future spouse:
- Start talking: Be completely honest with your partner about your debt, financial obligations, loans, and any other pertinent financial details.
- Choose your time wisely: Finances are a touchy subject, so make sure to time your discussions for moments when you’re both feeling calm.
- Share all: Full disclosure is the name of the game, so keep your partner always informed, even if it’s something you’d rather not talk about.
- Monitor expenses: Know where your money is going, and figure out where you can shave your expenses and save for the future.
- Recognize patterns: Knowing how both you and your partner spend, and confronting potential tensions, is the best way to eliminate future spending issues
- Work as a team: Get used to dealing with finances together, and work together to achieve common goals.
- Make bank: It’s a very personal decision, but decide whether you’d like to have single or joint bank accounts, or a combination of the two.
- Reduce liability: If one of you is a doctor, lawyer, or business owner, consider protecting assets by putting everything in the non-liable partner’s name.
- Designate a Money Manager: Consider designating the more-organized partner to handle household finances.
- Always stay calm: Fighting is easier, but calm, rational discussion should be the goal. Always.
Tags: Budgeting | Finances | lifehacks | Marriage | Saving Money
This entry was posted on Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 3:30 am and is filed under Budgets & Money Management, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
