Money Talk Matters

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Grooms make a note: If you have to support your bride-to-be financially before marriage make sure that all the cards are on the table beforehand. What is good about this is the opportunity to find out the good, bad and ugly about each other’s financial background. What each of you have done and what you plan to do for your future?

Now is the time to find out why you need to support the bride-to-be financially and is it due to her mismanagement of funds. If she is working, then the two of you need to talk about money management skills. What have you done and you already know that she is having some issues? How do you plan to move forward because one of the first things that you need to decide as husband and wife if not before is who will manage the money for your marriage.

You do not want to go into your marriage managing money by trial and error. Debt after a wedding impacts the marriage relationship like nothing else in the beginning. It robs husbands and wives of the opportunity to learn about each other and nurture their relationship. They almost automatically go into fight mode because of the financial strain that they are facing.

Take this time to talk about each other’s financial background and establish a new financial foundation for your marriage, who will manage the money and pay the bills as well as mutual financial goals to pay off debt, plan for vacations, buying a house and more. Think long-term and not just for today.

Brides if your fiance is bad with money, now is the time to talk with him and plan for your financial foundation during your marriage. It is a GREAT thing that you are finding out this information prior to your walking down the aisle. You may be puzzled as to why! Because there are so many brides and grooms that are not even discussing money before marriage and then they become mad when they find out that the money is not right or the other person has debt.

The biggest expense of marriage is DIVORCE. While you are seeing that your fiance is bad with money, why not take steps together to correct his financial mistakes and any financial mistakes that you have made. While you are putting it out there that he is bad with money, what about you? Is your financial background spotless? If not, then I suggest you share with him as well what your financial background is so that you are starting from a place of everyone’s financial cards being on the table.

It is not fair if you do not share with him and you know in the back of your mind, you have made mistakes too. Even if you have not made mistakes, share with him how you handle money so that it can enlighten him on how you make financial decisions as well as what you base those decisions on.

After you have shared how you handle money, the two of you should look at what his plans are to clean up his financial situation. Establish goals that are achievable and realistic. He needs to be able to take some steps to correct his financial picture. That may or may not necessarily involve you. What you can do is to talk with him on a regular basis and see what progress he has made. This will let him know you are not just going to have a one time discussion and drop it. Encourage him to pursue financial relief in his own life.

Attention Brides, Brides-to-be ****

If your fiance is not paying his rent, what is the reason? When you are engaged to be married and it does not matter when the marriage is, if your fiance is not paying his bills you need to ask him why not? You also need to be watching this and not ignoring it. What could possibly be the reason for them not paying their rent or their own bills?

What message is this sending to you? I pray it is not a message of sweep it under the table and do not discuss it. Do not be so hung up on getting married, that you are willing to overlook him not paying his rent. Realize that a rental company will evict you after they do not receive their rent for a period of time. This will go on his credit record

Let me say this, if he is not paying his rent, what else is he not paying? I hope that he does not tell you he did not pay his rent because he spent the money on you? This already makes for more financial stress than you need entering into marriage. If your fiance is not paying his rent, the following are some steps I recommend:

(1) Find out his reason before you make any decisions as to why he is not paying his rent.

(2) Ask him if there are other bills that he is not paying.

(3) Convey to him that you are engaged to be married to him and not paying his bills is sending you an uneasy message and could result in more financial stress than necessary as you prepare to enter into marriage.

(4) Make sure he understands the long-term consequences of not paying his rent.

(5) While he is sharing his situation, begin sharing with him about your finances even if they are not as serious.

Brides if this is the person you love, then you can work this out. Make sure you have a very clear picture of what is happening with his finances. Get all the facts and do not leave room to be taken advantage of. Meaning he tells you what he wants you to hear. I think at this point you could ask for a credit report. That gives you enough information to know what his financial picture really looks like prior to your saying “I Do”.

Brides and Grooms, if you are engaged and arguing about money step back and ask yourself, what are we arguing about? Let me pose these questions:

1) Are you arguing about one person overspending?

2) Is one person not paying their share of the bills?

3) Are you arguing about expenses that occurred before you became engaged?

4) Or is about the wedding expenses?

The four questions above might not even be the reason you are arguing. What you need to do is step back and begin talking about your financial situation that exist on both parties behalf. Why? If you are arguing before you get married, imagine what it is going to be like once you say “I Do.” The two of you are the same people and that will not change.

This means that both of you have to adjust your money management skills or learn how to manage money for the benefit of the marriage. Do not rush into marriage thinking that you can change each other. When it comes to money brides and grooms have to accept responsibility for their individual choices prior to becoming husbands and wives. Sure, the husbands and wives will sometimes end up dealing with the consequences of choices made by brides and grooms. What tends to help that situation is by being honest about your finances prior to saying “I Do” versus letting that spouse get blindsighted by money issues.

Remember, arguing does not solve money issues. What it does is allow people to point the blame, shop based on emotions, stop talking and much more. Do not fall into those patterns because it usually leads to more financial mistakes.

Brides – stop read and learn. I have been getting several questions regarding fiance’s and I must say please pay attention. This question came no doubt from a bride and you need to read this answer in full.

Question: Should a fiance help with bills even if he does not live with me?

Answer: This answer is going to be quite detailed because there are several variables.

First and foremost, the fiance’ should not be obligated to help the bride-to-be pay bills if they are strictly the brides’ bills that were created even before the fiance’ came along. Now if he chooses to help, it should be his choice and not one of feeling as if he was manipulated into helping. That would be wrong.

Second, if these were bills created by the bride-to-be for the wedding that they (bride and fiance) budgeted for, then sure he should help out with the bills even if he does not live there. Another factor that comes into play with this is if they are primarily paying for their own wedding and the parents are not contributing or are making a minimal contribution to the wedding.

Third, if these are joint bills they created together what I mean by that they opened up joint credit accounts and they have charged this and that, sure he should help pay for the bills even if they do not live together. This can be a lesson in money prior to saying “I Do”. What can be learned in this lesson is what was the original agreement when it came to expenses, who would pay, etc. If the fiance helped create the debt and then decides that he does not want to help pay, I say to the bride-to-be take a long look and decide if this is what you want your marriage to be like.

If he does not voluntarily help pay before then more than likely he will not pay after you say “I Do”. Then what happens is you are going to have regrets and think of ways to get out of it.

Brides to be: ALERT – We all know the statistics and I am going to remind you what they are:
Money is one of the top reasons for divorce

Three out of four married couples are arguing about money since the recession.

One in three marriages deal with financial infidelity

If your fiance does not pay his share of the bills that you are creating together prior to marriage, be “CAUTIOUS”. Why, let’s lay the cards on the table:

(1) Why is he not paying his share? Is it because he just does not want to?

(2) Can he not afford to? He could afford to create them with you.

(3) Is he blaming these bills on you?

This is not a time to ignore the fact that he does not want to pay his share. Is this a pattern and will this be what he does once you are married? There are clear signals that people are ignoring every day in order to walk down the aisle. Then they get divorced because of issues that arise such as money, when they did not talk about it in the first place.

Brides to be (and grooms) – pay attention to what your soon to be spouse is doing with the money prior to your getting married. Don’t just focus on the wedding plans – but look at how they are paying their own bills, are they even talking about it or being silent, what are the parents role in their bills if any and much more.

You do not want to come back from the honeymoon to discover debt beyond your imagination and have regrets. Life is to be enjoyed not dreaded.

Begin talking about money today. One way you could spark the conversation is to tell him about a financial situation that you are dealing with and see if that encourages him to open up about his own financial situation. Nothing too heavy but enough to let him know that you trust him and want to include him in decisions you are making.

Start talking before you come home to the pile of bills.

Brides, Grooms, Husbands and Wives take a note. When you enter into marriage realize that prior to your saying I do, you had a life outside of your mate. That life included making financial decisions that were good and some financial decisions that might have been not as good. The money mistakes are a part of you if you chose not to clean them up prior to marriage and are a part of your marriage.

They are a part of your marriage because you will think about them. Once your spouse finds out about them voluntarily or involuntarily is entirely up to you. The result can be different. The question I ask you today is this: Could the financial baggage that is surfacing in your relationship becoming detrimental to the welfare of your union? If so, then what are the steps that you are taking to remove the baggage.

Baggage in itself is not a good thing. Usually tied to baggage of any nature is emotions which leads people to act hastily without thinking about all of the consequences.  Remember, every decision you make has a consequence. Take a few minutes to think long term and not short-term when it comes to your decisions.

The only time that I know of that baggage is good is if it is luggage and you are taking a much deserved vacation. Otherwise financial baggage is not good, revisiting old girlfriends or boyfriend baggage is not good and even previous employment situations that had baggage is not good. It is time to have a clear picture of what you want and where you want your finances and marriage to go.

With that in mind, quit living your past in the present. Live the PRESENT now and take care of NOW, TODAY and the future will take care of itself. This is not a time to keep looking behind you or you will miss opportunities in your present to get your finances in order, to impact your marriage for a lifetime and much more. Sure, it could be thought of as “Not the Norm” – it’s about time. Going along with the norm has ended marriages, caused separations and stopped people from talking about money in marriage. It is a New Day and time for New Financial Beginnings and Plans.

Don’t ignore the baggage.  Baggage  can overtake you or be overwhelming to your spouse. Talk with your spouse today, develop a plan to remove it and BEGIN removing it. You can talk about things all day BUT until you take action it’s just TALK.  JUST DO IT! BE IT!

There are many married couples where one person in the marriage is taking care of the money and the other person has no knowledge of what is truly happening with the household finances. I like to say there is a group of people that are managing money in marriage as a solo effort.

Solo means one. Doing alone. The problem with the solo effort is that the person in this position can get into financial situations where decisions need to be made that affect both the husband and the wife, not just one person. Marriage is the relationship that you are in and have; money is a facet of the marriage. It is important that both husband and wife participate in the financial facet of the marriage. You cannot put all of the responsibility on one person and then disagree with the consequences of the choices they made.

This solo effort can wind up making the person dealing with money feel soooo low that they cannot make an informed and educated financial decision. Yet the other person in the marriage has no idea what is truly happening with the finances until it is almost too late. If your marriage falls into this solo effort, stop it from continuing on this dangerous path and begin talking with your spouse today.

Inclusion is better than exclusion. When spouses are excluded from certain things, it can affect the marriage on a long-term basis. Do not put your spouse in the position of not knowing. Remove the solo effort today and include them in the household finances. You will not have to bear the burden of a lack of finances, late pays on bills and more on your own.

A united effort is better and produces better results. Don’t put all of the responsibility on one spouse. It affects both of you.

Money is an important topic when it comes to engagement and marriage. This is yet another anonymous question that came in from a soon-to-be groom. What do I do, my fiance does not share her support of expenses? Heavy duty topic which can lead to an uneasy discussion but this should be talked about.

I would imagine this groom-to-be is not the only person that is dealing with this issue. First, how long has your fiance not been willing to share in his or her support of expenses? What people fail to realize is this, if their is a certain behavior that is exhibited that you do not agree with yet you remain silent, then it is perceived in the other person’s mind as accepted or agreed upon. Therefore, for example if the fiance has not ever shared in her support of expenses, then it will take some doing to change that behavior.

Next, I would recommend that you sit down with your fiance and begin talking about the money matters more in depth than you were before. This clearly should raise a red flag that the does not share her support of expenses. Why is that? Are some of the expenses hers? Are these wedding expenses? Also are these needs or wants? These are definitely questions that you need to sit down and discuss now. Why? You are headed down a road of pointing the finger and blame if one person does not agree with financial expenses that are happening in the marriage.

You cannot look at this one sided and place all the blame on her. Be honest with yourself because deep down you know what the reason is. Do not be in denial. Both of you need to take responsibility and discuss your finances openly. What are the mutual financial goals for the marriage? What debt is being brought into the marriage by the husband and the wife and so much more. Do not avoid having these discussions or you could be setting your marriage up for financial stress unnecessarily.

Financial secrets upon being revealed can divide a marriage. Begin talking with your fiance today about the expenses.

This was one of those mornings when couples were heavily on my mind and it was best that I write out these posts because someone is in need of guidance. It doesn’t matter if they cannot send in an email but prayerfully, they will be led to these posts.

All too often I have heard about the husband being the breadwinner and controlling the money, the wife is home with the kids has to ask for money. Then when she gets money it is very limited – when I say limited it is just enough or some have said barely enough to take care of the things she needs to do for the household.

This results in the wife becoming resentful towards the husband and he is unaware. This happens for several reasons because instead of the wife seeing him as a husband she feels as if he is a parent and she is in the role of a kid asking for money; there was not a clear discussion on finances for the household and based on the husband’s upbringing – the man bringing home the money and controlling it has led to that same pattern in his marriage which he has not focused on whether it is good or not, but continuing that pattern he saw.

Now I can assure you, if husbands knew this was happening with their wives where the perception was the wives were feeling like a child instead of an equal partner, some would change that.

Having a husband that is controlling the money and having to ask for money also leads to some financial challenges in the future. What would happen if the husband could not work? Does the wife now start working and trying to figure out how to manage the household finances? What if he became injured? WIVES wherever you are, if you are reading this and in this position, yes you are the wife and you are a woman. You need to know how to manage money in and out of marriage.

Remember, before you got married you were on your own. You do not have to lose yourself in marriage but learn how to work as a team. That means work together with the finances, including each other and not making one person feels as if they have to ask permission to have some money. That could eventually sink a relationship.