Planning for Marriage and the Future Stages of Life

Getting married is an exciting time for any couple. It’s the beautiful prospect of waking up every day next to your best friend and sharing your lives and home together. But there are some tricky avenues of a new marriage to tackle, such as learning to live with each other’s house-habits.

Another area that may be a little tricky to talk about is how to merge your finances.

Some couples may feel uncomfortable talking about how much money they make or how they like to spend it. Others are completely open about their financial lives. How easy it is for you depends on how well you and your partner are able to communicate with one another.

Talk about your finances

To get the ball rolling, you and your partner must be willing to open up about personal finances. It can be very helpful to talk about your spending and saving habits and how you grew up viewing money. Having this discussion can help couples understand what financial standpoint their partner is coming from.

Talking about money also means talking about any debts you have accumulated.

This can be uncomfortable or even embarrassing, but it’s important for your partner to know what, if any, debts you are bringing into the marriage.

Not only is this helpful for circumstances where your debt becomes a shared debt after marriage, but it can also help you decide as a couple how to pay off anything that you owe as partners.

Figure out a money management system

What financial advice you follow regarding money management is different for each and every couple. Do you have a “what’s mine is yours” attitude about finances or would you prefer to keep separate bank accounts? There are pros and cons to having a shared bank account vs. keeping things separate, and vice-versa.

You and your partner need to find out which works best for you.

If you decide to keep your accounts and income separate, you must decide how you will split bills, mortgage, insurance, and other monthly payments for your marital home.

Its always helpful to get professional advice to set up a sound framework of how this may best work for your future prosperity together… let us know if we can assist!