If you’ve ever been in a relationship for any length of time, and particularly if you are married or living together, I can almost guarantee that you’ve had a money fight.
Money can’t buy you love, but it sure can tear it apart.
I’ve been married for over 20 years now. In that time, my wife and I have had times when we had great incomes, opened businesses, had lots of money, had to close businesses and lived on next to nothing for what felt like ages, and come out of it again
I can’t say that my wife and I have got it right when it comes to money and relationships, but slowly but surely if you talk, and then talk some more, you find some middle ground.
What can we do to get our money and relationships better? Here are 7 Tips for healthy finances in a relationship.
Make sure you remove emotions – this is money talk, keep calm
Stay positive and be honest, if you are not honest it will never work.
Recognize value other than money – Each partners contribution is not just Rands and cents. We each make household contributions, looking after kids, doing all the maintenance, making household items, there are many things that each partner does.
I think one of the big problems here is that we believe that making lots of money makes us good people and when we struggle we are bad. So showing the world how much money we have will make everyone out there think we are good and clever, most often this is not the case.
Work out a system that works for both of you, do a budget and write down all the income and expenses
. Have a plan for if things go wrong – put some money into savings, have an emergency savings fund.
write it down, Write it in a black Croxley book, or open a file on your computer or phone, that way if there are misunderstandings and disagreements it’s on a piece of paper.
And don’t forget, things can be changed as you go along and your circumstances change.
Its’ very important to have regular meetings where you seriously discuss your finances and don’t get interrupted by everything else.
Maybe a finance date, go out for supper, have a picnic, Have some fun to start the conversation by dreaming a little bit.” Talking about your goals and plans for the future, how close have you got to that dream holiday, or the kitchen upgrade, or the swimming pool, or paying off as large loan or Pieties university fund, and after a while, look at your progress, it will encourage you and your partner to stick to the plan if you see you are making progress and see if it’s working.
Its very difficult one to tell people what is right and wrong,. As peoples circumstances and personalities differ
Generally, there are four main ways you can work with money in your relationship.
Here you don’t have a joint account, you’ll both keep your earnings separate.
Any bills you share like the rent or mortgage or school fees or groceries, need to be split and that’s the decision you make in your meeting.
You can combine all your income into a single pot and use this for all your expenses from small, everyday things to paying the rent, mortgage and bills.
This can make budgeting a lot easier, but you’ll need a joint account for it to work smoothly.
That way, you’ll both have control over the money and you’ll both be able to see what the other person is spending, but certain personalities need more privacy
When you’re sharing responsibility for finances, a compromise could be the best way to go and a l;ot of people use this
You can open a joint account to take care of the bills, but keep your own accounts to pay for the things you individually want and that is private and your own
It’s a great way to make budgeting easier and keep some independence and privacy.
If one of you isn’t earning, or earning less than the other, you could both keep separate accounts and have the main earner pay their partner an allowance.
The main earner can transfer an agreed amount each week or month to their partner’s account.
You can both decide whether the amount that is transferred is money for household bills and spending money, or just personal spending money.
If you have any joint debts, remember that both of you are liable for repaying them in full.
If your partner doesn’t pay their share, you’ll still be liable.
So don’t agree to new joint debts unless you are entirely happy with the arrangement.
In particular, don’t agree to debts secured on your home. In other words where you put your home as security for other debt. If things go wrong, you could suffer big losses.
If after all the efforts to have money conversations and to set up and stick to a budget your partner still
is spending more money than agreed.
If talking and trying to resolve budget issues just ends in arguments,
Then you need help.
Very often it helps to get someone else involved, an adviser or someone you trust, like a
So if you need help with money matters generally or debt and budgeting specifically
Contact us at RD Debt Counselling
Or visit us at 133 Newlands Ave Benoni or phone to make an appointment or discuss an issue
011 421 2918
Or for more info
