Due to the seriousness of money and marriage, I’m sharing my top money tips for newlyweds.
My husband and I have similar temperaments when it comes to money. We are both savers and moderate spenders. However, I’m way more of a planner than my husband, so while engaged, one day I asked, “what are our financial goals for our first year of marriage?”.
Now to some that may have been a bit of a premature question, and others may be shocked that this was what I was most concerned about during wedding planning, but it was. It was important to me that we set financial goals, established our roles and created a plan for how we will manage our money and meet our goals. Fortunately, my husband was completely on board.
I love that we did this during our engagement because it put us ahead and allowed us to be prepared early, allowing us to meet our goals.
Here are 3 money tips for newlyweds looking for financial success.
Organize your finances
Instead of waiting to discuss finances during your first year of marriage, we had done the heavy lifting in the beginning and were already implementing our plan early in year one of marriage.
One of the first steps to getting started is organizing your finances. Knowing the ins and outs of your finances will help you create the most effective plan to address your finances.
Take a half day to comb through your finances. Organize and list out your bills, debt, savings and assets. Calculate your Net Worth (assets – liabilities) using this information.
BILLS
List your bills in order of due date. Include the due date, payment and frequency of payment schedule. You can also include method of payment such as direct deposit or whether it is automatic or self pay.
Be sure to discuss pay dates and create a plan for paying bills based on these dates.
DEBT
While collecting your financial records, make sure you collect the detailed information related to your debt. Collect the creditor name, minimum payment, total debt owed, interest rate, and due dates.
If you are unsure about some of your debt, review your credit report. You can access a free annual credit report from here.
CREDIT SCORE
Record your credit score from all the credit bureaus. Discuss tactics on increasing them through debt payment or settlement, low utilization, making full monthly payments and more.
Determine Goals
It’s important that you and your significant other are on the same page. This will help make the transition a lot smoother. One of first things we discussed was what we wanted to accomplish. This included what we wanted to save for, what debts we wanted to pay and what luxuries we wanted to experience.
It’s good to establish individual goals and meet in the middle to create common ground on what you can realistically tackle together. Understand that your goals will require action steps. Don’t make lofty goals without knowing how much debt you have, or how much money you will have left over after paying your bills.
Establish Roles
Every individual has a strength and weakness when it comes to finances. This is a great opportunity to capitalize on your strengths, discuss weaknesses and establish a plan and role.
If you like details, you can be the one to create and update your spending tracker. If you are a planner you can manage and update the budget with anticipated expenses. If you are proactive, you can be the one to schedule a meeting with your bank to merge accounts and establish a savings account.
My husband is in charge of getting cash out of our bank for our cash envelope system. Since I am detail oriented, I update our expense trackers and checks our bank accounts. Every month we look over our budget together and set the expectation for the month.
Get Protection
During our time together we have been hit with life’s realities, which included the passing of close family members. It brought about awareness of issues related to death that neither of us had ever thought about before. We quickly realized how having life insurance or lacking life insurance could quickly shape the future of those around you.
Although we already had life insurance through our jobs, we knew that it was important to not solely rely on our companies to provide us with this resource should something happen. Life insurance needed to be consistent regardless of job changes. Not only did we want each other or our family members burdened with funeral costs, we wanted them to be financially secure.
Life insurance policies become more expensive the older we get. Getting one early on can save you cost down the road and offer financial protection for loved ones. For more information check out this article.
Please share your money tips for newlyweds! Comment below.
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