Financial Tips for Newly Weds
Getting married is one of the most exciting and anticipated events in your life. It also happens to be one of the most stressful events, as well as often a huge financial hardship for some.
After the wedding is over, the bouquet has died, and you’re home from your honeymoon, it’s time to put a little bit of focus on your finances with your new spouse.
The honeymoon
Most people can’t even think about a wedding without immediately imagining a luxurious honeymoon to accompany it.
A honeymoon is the perfect time to relax from the stress of planning a wedding, and is a great way to signify the beginning of your married life together as a couple. Traditionally, the honeymoon immediately follows the wedding.
A lot of people tend to forget that there is a considerable cost for a honeymoon, and many find themselves not in a financial place that they are able to go on a honeymoon directly after the wedding.
And that is okay! It’s more important that your finances are in order than you’re immediately on a tropical beach sipping mai tai’s with your new spouse.
If you think you may not be able to immediately afford a honeymoon, set a date for a few months from the wedding to go on a belated honeymoon instead.
The two of you can carefully save together, and then go when you won’t be burdened by the financial stress leftover from the wedding, and you’ll be able to actually enjoy yourselves.
How do we split the bills?
This is a pretty common question when someone gets married. You have separate jobs, separate paychecks, and separate bank accounts. Who is supposed to take care of the utility bill?
Which one of you is supposed to handle paying the rent each month? Should you just split the bill in half and make two payments, instead?
The answer is that there isn’t a perfect answer. Each couple is different, with different finances and different goals. And it’s okay to try something for a few months, and then if that financial plan doesn’t work out, to switch gears. You’ll figure it out as you go along. A few different easy options are:
- Get a joint bank account. You can still have personal checking/savings accounts, but having a joint account makes paying bills easier. Instead of each of you paying half of rent, you can each put your bill paying money into that account, and then pay all of your monthly bills from the joint account instead of separately.
- Split the bills half and half. There’s nothing wrong with sending in two separate checks for rent every month, if the two of you feel that it would be better to keep your money separate.
- Divvy up the bills. One person pays the big bill every month(rent or the mortgage), and then the other person handles the other bills and expenses. In some cases, this ends up being roughly the same amount of money, and keeps them from having to send in two checks for every bill, but they are still able to keep their money separate.
Set a budget together
In a lot of relationships, there is one spouse who handles most of the finances. This is relatively typical. However, both spouses should be aware of the collective financial situation and be comfortable with what money is being spent where.
Setting a budget together helps eliminate confusion, and helps unify the two of you as a team so you can work towards financial goals together.
It’s also important to discuss possible financial pitfalls that you could fall victim to. How do each of you react to depression, for example? Do you treat it with a shopping spree?
Will you be comfortable discussing problems if someone loses a job? What’s your plan of action if there are huge medical bills weighing you down?
Where will you trim the budget? What are your acceptable options for borrowing money?
Set spending limits
Just because you’re married, doesn’t mean that you should feel obligated to check in with your spouse every time you want to pick up coffee on your way to work.
As long as you know there is room in your budget for this, you should feel comfortable spending your money how you’d like. This is one of the reasons that setting a budget is so important.
A very important part of that budget, is your spending money. Each of you should set a setting budget that you both feel comfortable with every month, so you can do what you’d like with your money without having to call your spouse to make sure that it’s okay.
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Category: Family Finances
