Financial Planning Before Marriage
Planning your future together should be priority for any couple before they consider marriage. Here are the important things to discuss when thinking of your financial goals for the future:
Getting married is not a small step by any means. A lot of moving parts come together in a marriage and you would have to elaborately fit them together for long term sustainability. One of these moving parts is the state of finances you and your partner find yourselves to be in before deciding to get married. This make financial planning a crucial step to follow before tying the knot. Here are the important steps for intelligent financial planning you need to follow to make a big difference:
Transparency
Marriages usually imply joint debts. The financial commitments you have accumulated are not exclusive from your partner and vice versa. It is always best to have an honest conversation about the state of your finances before getting married. This will help you as well as your partner gain valuable insight into the kind of financial security you will have in your life together. Sharing the reasons for getting into debt are also very important. This will help you understand the priorities you place on things and help you form an understanding about the similarity in choices that both of you might have about material things.
Agreeing Over Financial Decisions
Sharing your long term financial goals with your partner could be crux to a successful marriage. It is imperative to know before hand if you share similar visions for your future together as a couple. This clarity can only come from being honest about your plans for the future and listening to your partner’s opinions about them. Accommodating yourself into the plans your partner might have is also a very good idea. This is how mutual clarity can be achieved in terms of future choices that would affect the both of you equally. It is significant to find out if there are a lot of things you can agree on.
Budgeting
A factor that cannot be ignored before getting married. Conscious budgeting needs to be extended to your combined incomes so that necessities and auxiliaries can be identified together. Setting budgeting targets before your marriage and agreeing on the numbers the both of you have come up on is an important step. In fact, making a habit out of monthly budgeting is a very good way of keeping track of your money and analysing expenses. Bottomline being keeping alive a budgeting habit together before marriage will help you and your partner in tangible ways.
Where to Live
Everyone would have their personal opinions about where they want to spend their lives. Some dream of owning their own apartments, for others the ultimate aim is a small vacation home in the woods. The point is that people have very specific ideas regarding places of residence. You need to find out if your partner’s vision complements your own and plan accordingly. Renting, owning or leasing, long term residential plans would need comprehensive strategies and intelligent saving. To go about the process realistically both you and your partner would need to care about the shared dream equally, so it is very important to have an honest conversation on that regard.
Financial planning should be an important consideration before marriage. When two people come together, they would have different priorities, hopes and dreams as individuals. Talking about these things and finding common ground should be the first step to conceiving a good marriage that professes healthy finances.
