Tips For Approaching The “Money Conversation” With Your Fiance
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Proposing to your fiance can be one of the most exciting days in your life. You’ve found someone you want to share your life with and they feel the same way. It’s the start of an exciting adventure as you build your partnership together.
One of the first things you’ll want to start is planning the wedding together. An equally important conversation to have with your fiance is the “Money Conversation”.
Not only do you need to plan the budget for your wedding, but you need to discuss your financial planning for your future life together.
Be Open With Each Other
As with all areas of a successful marriage, it is important to be open and honest with each other. It may be that one of you is in a healthier financial situation, but if you can’t be honest with each other, you won’t be able to make the best plan for your future together.
The time between engagement and marriage is a great opportunity to get a mutual understanding of your debts with a proper management plan. If you don’t have much savings or family contributions to the wedding costs, you may want to look at other ways to cover the costs.
Be Honest About Your Income And Spending
Planning for your future together is a great opportunity to review your personal income and spending. We all love to spend money on our lifestyle and hobbies, but some clever budgeting now could help you make a bigger contribution to wedding costs or save for a property deposit.
Look For Ways To Save Together
Living together will give you the opportunity to combine some of your outgoings. You can combine council tax accounts, utilities and you definitely won’t need two Netflix accounts anymore! There are several products designed for couples such as insurance or joint bank accounts.
If you both have outstanding loans or credit card debts, you could look at transferring your debt to a more affordable repayment plan.
Plan For the Future
By agreeing to marriage, you are committing to sharing your life for many years together. This could mean buying a property together or raising children, two of the biggest financial commitments you’ll make in your lifetime. Engagement is the time to lay the groundwork of your financial planning for decades to come. Some of the topics you should consider together include:
- Maternity/paternity leave – does your current job provide generous leave?
- Returning to work – will you both continue to work or will one focus on running the home? This decision will have a meaningful impact on your household income.
- Childcare – will you need to pay for childcare while you’re at work?
- School fees – do you want to pay for private education? How much will it cost?
- Buying a new home – will you need a larger property to provide space for your growing family?
- Protecting your estate with life insurance
Conclusions
There’s plenty to consider when planning your life together. Taking an open approach to your finances should allow you to properly prepare for many happy years as a couple.
You need to be prepared to make changes your spending and work together to create a household budget.
What’s the most important topic for you to discuss when having the “Money Conversation” with your fiance?
