Couples in love can be blind when it involves their financial futures until arguments over money eventually start to affect their relationship. After all, you see this person as someone that makes you happy and excited to be with and therefore perfect in your eyes. Though you may be walking on clouds, reality through everyday life can manage to take those blinders off. Therefore, instead of waiting until after marriage, it is always a good idea to discuss how the money should be handled first before making a commitment. If not, then here are solutions that can help as you ride through those troubled waters and cope with how to better handle money as a couple.
Some people hate the thought of making a budget. However, it is a valuable tool to see where your money needs to go in determining your monthly expenses to avoid relationship problems. Start by determining your basic household living expenses such as food, shelter, utilities, clothes, grooming, transportation, and medical expenses then set aside categories for the extra things like entertainment, dining out, vacations, and gifts. Money that is leftover after meeting those expenses should go into savings or your individual IRA’s.
Another approach is if one partner likes to spend more than the other for maybe buying the latest technology or more new outfits than needed, then the budget should be adjusted. What might work better is still budgeting your basic household expenses and paying bills from your joint savings account, only with a few alterations such as making two separate savings accounts for their own personal expenses for items such as clothes, grooming, electronics, etc. This way resentment that the other person may feel won’t be a problem because the money is coming from their own portion instead of what is intended for both of you.
Who earns the most in a relationship can also cause arguments over money since the higher wage earner can feel he or she has more right to see how it is spent. Once you tie the knot, then there has to be mutual respect and open communication with concrete ideas of what your goals should be as a couple. Is it a new home or starting a family in the cards? Having these type of discussions are important to know what you really want as a couple to avoid arguments over money later.
Credit cards are necessary, but they also can get out of control. Before digging yourself a financial pit, it is better to pay off the entire amount you owe for the item when the bill arrives or don’t buy it until you have enough funds. Otherwise, that interest can accumulate and soon become hard to pay off.
If you’re already buried in debt, then you need to sit down together and start eliminating things such as dining out and scaling back on entertaining so often or going to movies, concerts and sporting events temporarily until you can start paying the debt down. It may be painful at first, but it only grows worse if this problem festers like an infection to spread further.
Still, there is switching to cash if that credit card is burning a hole in your pocket. Ultimately, you can only spend the money that you have instead of constantly taking out the piece of plastic whatever the mood strikes.
No two people in a relationship usually think of money in the same way. Nonetheless, these suggestions are ways that can help relieve that money stress to maintain a loving relationship.
