MANAGING FINANCES IN A RELATIONSHIP/MARRIAGE PART 1

Finance (Money) is an area killing singles, couples to be or married peeps in relationship/Marriage. I will be sharing with you steps on how to manage you finance. It works for us and if you strictly adhere to it, it will help you manage your finances as a single or couple.

1. Talk About Your Finances

It’s very important you talk about your financial status before you get married, but if your married and didn't do that, it's not late to do that now. How much you each earn in honesty, how much you spent from your earning, Do you have other source of income asides your daily, weekly, monthly or yearly inflow. Talk about your current debts, how in your account currently and how you want money to be handled.

2. Have a Physical Vision/ Goals board

After discussing your financial status, your short and long term goals/vision must be visualized on a board. My husband and I have a vision board in our bedroom, we put them in forms of pictures. This pictures helps you see the bigger you and keeps you forced. The board must be divided into "His Visions" "Her Visions" "Our Visions" Being together doesn't mean your individual goals/visions are dead. This goals/visions must be reviewed periodically to know your achievements. 

3. Discuss Your Bank Accounts

How many bank accounts do you have individually, Some couples have no idea their wife/husband is keeping a secret account. That is very bad, you can still both maintain your individual account. but it's advisible you have a joint bank account as couples. Joint account helps monitor spending as well as breed trust in marriage. Joint helps couples manage family crisis without one spouse solely responsible for the family expenses.

However, this must be discuss to an a point of strong agreement and comfort. Due to the rate of Divorce, spending habits, runaway spouse etc.

4. Have an SOS Fund

This should be your priority. An SOS fund is money that is set aside in case something expensive happens unexpectedly, such as a lost job, family illness, disaster, a major home repair, etc. 5 to 7 months of your household expenses must be in this fund. This helps in times of needs.

5. Have a Planned Budget

My husband and I have monthly budgets and do our best not to exceed that budget, except on occasion where the SOS fund will come in. Now that is why SOS Fund is paramount in a Marriage. having a budget help you monitor debts. Your budget must be divided into Food, Clothing, Children, His, Hers, Us, Them, Fun etc. 

But firstly, you both must review your individual budget, then as a family for a period of minimum 2 months after marriage. If expenses are too high there must be a cut down on all budgets.

6. Monitor Your Budget

One thing is to have a budget another is to monitor it. You need to make sure you stay within your budgets and adjust accordingly as your situation, expenses, or income changes. An effective way to stick to your budget is to use the close budget system. This works perfectly well for low income earner, it helps monitor overspending.

I and my husband keeps an exercise book for all our daily expenses, I review daily at night, weekly before a new week and monthly. See what our most expenses is and reason for it. Receipts for all purchase are inside the book for referral. You can also create a better method of keeping your own records, try out a few different methods and do whatever works best for you and your spouse. But in whatever method you choose you MUST monitor your budgets.

7. Review Money spent

One thing that has really helped me and my husband stay on track is our daily/weekly/monthly money meetings. This is when we adjust, amend and reconcile expenses. What our budget looks like and how for it has helped us. These meetings are great because it helps strengthen the communication in marriage as well as level of trust. We always know where we stand financially and that we’re both doing our best to keep that on solid ground. This review also helps aside stop worries about money because we know that money matters will be dealt with.

8. Save for Retirement

Married or not, you need to make sure you are set financially for the long haul. This means you need to save for retirement as a single or married person.

There's an elderly man we see few streets from our estate outside his home most evening we pass by his house. My husband is always like, if this man had saved he wouldn't be sitting outside his house every time like this nah. He should be relaxing in the Bahamas, Paris etc.

Your company shouldn't be the only one saving a % for you, you can also do it voluntarily.

Read the Concluding Part (2) of MANAGING FINANCES IN A RELATIONSHIP/MARRIAGE PART tomorrow.