Money Talk Matters

Posts Tagged ‘bride’

There are many brides-to-be and grooms-to-be that are dealing with one of their future spouses being broke and they are shouldering all the bills during the engagement phase and they are sick of it. It is not only because they are shouldering all the bills, furthermore, they are the one taking care of keeping the house clean, cooking dinner and more. Incidentally, this is beginning to wear on the one that is bringing in the income.

Newsflash – If this is what is happening when you are engaged and you are not expressing your concerns and talking about it, the same will occur once you are married. Notice I said if you are not expressing your concerns – not arguing, calling each other names, walking out and leaving things unresolved. None of those behaviors solve financial shortcomings. Let’s break it down.

When you are engaged and only one of you are bringing in the income – yes initially it seems okay but it will wear off in a short matter of time. Here is what you look at: 1) Does your future spouse have the initiative to change jobs or get a job if he or she is not working; 2) Do they also have bills and you are paying his or her bills in addition to yours and are you able to do it without falling behind on your bills; 3) It sends a message when he or she is not paying her bills during the engagement phase because what will they do when an emergency or situation happens once you are married?

Let’s take it here, what would your parents say if they knew your future spouse was not paying his or her bills and you were paying everything? If you won’t tell them, what keeps you from telling them and why? My purpose here is to show you this could be a red flag because people do not change once they get married. As a matter of fact, after a period of time they get comfortable and what you put up with for a certain period of time becomes acceptable and they do not expect they should change.

You can be sick of shouldering all the bills and are you going to TALK about it? What is it that you want to see happen in your finances while you are engaged and then let’s talk about once you are married. Because normally what happens while you are engaged gets carried over into the marriage. Set the right foundation now for financial and marital happiness not discord.

Over the holiday weekend, I don’t know how I lucked out and found a “Say yes to the Dress” Marathon. Brides – PLEASE PLEASE stay within your budget and do not bring the other family members in to your financial challenges if you choose to go over budget.

I saw this episode, where the dress costs $25,000 and the family decide they were going to haggle with the sales lady to get this dress down to $12,000. It was unbelievable, of course there was no way they were going to see a $25,000 dress for half. So at the end it was $15,000 without the taxes and it was still waaay over budget. The bride was crying and the parents were biting the bullet. WAIT!!! They have not even paid for the wedding yet. This is just the dress. Hmmm, wonder what would have happened if the bride stayed within budget and thought about the rest of the wedding.

I will tell you right up front, if she went this far over just for the dress, this groom is in trouble. Does not bode well for the marriage in my opinion. Think about it when brides and grooms are planning a wedding and spending, this gives insight into how they will handle major expenses throughout the marriage. Don’t let the three words “I Want it” get you in trouble. Big difference between needs and wants.

Think I will save another observation on a different bride to a later time.

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.

This is a “hot topic” that I continue to see needs answering. Should parents give married “GROWN” children money. Let me say upfront there are a lot of different factors and I am going to discuss them right here. Because LIFE happens and the answer can vary. Take the time to read this and decide what applies to you or what will you do when your children are grown and married.

First situation: I think it is acceptable for parents to give grown married children money if they are in an emergent situation. It was unexpected, they are not bad money managers but an unexpected sitation has happened. Also as long as the husband and wife, both know the parents gave the money. This does happen and can happen.

Second situation: Parents are loaning their adult child money without the spouse knowing it. This is primarily when the spouse is complaining to parents about their spouse. So the parents are almost taking sides and encouraging separation in money and marriage by their actions. Do not even pretend it does not happen because it does. Parents do not insert yourself in the middle of a husband and wife financial issues. They have to learn how to talk with each other (not argue) and work out their differences. You are not in their home 24/7 and are getting one side of the story.

Third situation: Grown married children are taking advantage of their parents because they know they can. There are probably a husband and wife that are bad money managers based on their own background, then they run to mom and dad to bail them out of their financial troubles because they know they can without any remorse. This in itself makes for debt situations that can tear the marriage apart. What can also end up happening in this situation is that one set of parents become a bank and the other set of parents are almost ignored because they do not open up their wallets. Either way, all of this scenario is bad.

Caution for parents: When brides and grooms get married initially, they need to learn how to rely on each other. Not run to you to bail them out at the first sign of financial stress.

Brides and grooms: Do not go to your parents and speak negatively about yout spouse and money. Once you paint a picture of negative and uncooperation, it is hard to change it back.

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.

I had the opportunity the other night to watch Say Yes To The Dress for the first time and I cannot exactly say that I was surprised by what I saw. Since I had not seen it before I decided to sit through at least thirty minutes of the show and my husband and I talked about it.

This is a show where the bride-to-be goes to the dress shop with her family, bridesmaids, sometimes the grooms and begins the exciting task of choosing her dress. Well, this one particular episode that I was watching this young woman already knew what dress she wanted before she walked in the store because she saw it on someone that worked there and fell in love with this dress. Her budget for her dress was set at $5,000. I will reserve my comments on that one for later.

So the coordinator comes out and she speaks with her and shares with her about the dress she would like to try on this day. So this bride-to-be and coordinator go to the back and the dress is brought into the dressing room. She puts the dress on and it is absolutely stunning. She walks out where the family and friends are and they really like it as well.

Then she is told what the price of the dress is. She realizes it is over budget and the coordinator proceeds to recommend an alternative. Bride-to-be puts on the alternative dress which is nice and within her budget but she wants Dress #1. So she is now back in her regular clothes and asks to talk with her family for a few minutes.

Bride-to-be and family meet in this room and she tells them the dress is over budget and by how much. The family in turn decides they will help her pay for this dress that is 2xs over her budgeted amount. The coordinator goes to the manager of the bridal shop and say we need to help her get this dress.

When I saw this, it reminded me of when a salesman at the car dealership goes back and talks with the manager about the price. Then he comes back and says this is the lowest we can do. Same thing, the manager comes out with the coordinator and says this is the price we can give you. Mind you it still stays around 11k and she is excited.

Observation:

1) Brides – the budget is in place for a reason. The dress is going to be worn one day for a few hours.

2) I would have preferred seeing her put the additional money towards a down payment on a house or paying off existing bills. Let’s face it, more than likely one person is coming into the marriage with debt.

3) When she chose to go over budget, the family decided they would kick in. So is it her normal standard to go over budget for the things that she wants. If so, this groom is going to be in trouble fast.

4) Involving the family in financial affairs in a new marriage can present some problems. Proceed with caution.

When my husband and I became engaged, we knew that we were destined to be together. Throughout our dating we had been talking about our past, previous people we dated, my husband’s previous marriages and what we were looking for in a partner. The discussion came up about whether or not, we needed to go to premarital counseling.

Brides and Grooms, I ask you today – what are your goals for premarital counseling? Look at the options below and you decide:

(1) To ensure you and your future spouse have the necessary skills to make your marriage work for a lifetime?

(2) Is it because everyone says you have to yet your heart is not in it?

(3) It is required by the church you attend to be married there?

What areas do you expect to discuss in premarital counseling? Compatibility, Communication, Goals or even finances? If you discuss those issues, how much time do you expect to spend talking about each?

Premarital counseling can be crucial to any relationship. I know that my husband and I did not attend premarital counseling because we were talking about everything even prior to our engagement. We had shared the positives and negatives about relationships we had, financial mistakes we made and what we looked for in a mate. We did not see a benefit to holding anything back.

One of the things I remember saying to him, was do not let anyone have information about you that I do not know about.  No one should walk up to me and tell me something about my husband trying to embarrass me or say I know something you don’t know. I don’t believe in MESS or DRAMA. He did not either.

Prior to marriage is a great time to talk about your finances, dreams and goals that you have. The more you talk you will discover this is someone ou can see yourself with for life or you cannot. Begin talking today.

Are you reading this and are a bride to be or even a groom? Do you have a financial plan before you say “I Do”? The plan cannot be don’t discuss it and it will all go away. Hmmm, I wonder how many people who thought that prior to getting married are no longer married. I bet you could find some, maybe even close friends, family members or even co-workers. They may not say anything to you beforehand, but afterwards – you will get more advice than you need.

Yes, I understand completely that it is hard to talk about money. But is it harder to lose the love of your life because of financial issues that smothered the marriage to where you could no longer talk to each other? Or is it harder to be faced with losing your home because you did not speak up and get financial guidance to stop the vicious cycle of debt you were in because of a lack of knowledge? Could you literally be one phone call or email away from an answer that could turn your life around or finances around but you will not know because you are embarrassed to share that you have made financial mistakes?

At the end of the day, you are making a choice about your finances, marriage and your future. What do you want to see happen for your money and marriage? How does it happen? I can assure you, embarrassment and not taking action only causes you to remain the way you are.

This is definitely a loaded post. When I saw it come in, I couldn’t help but think if you want to end up headed to divorce court, sure.  Why do I say that? Let’s be honest when a son or daughter marries, they are now the husband or wife of that person and that relationship has priority in marriage. That husband and wife will have enough issues of their own that need to be handled without bringing in a parent into it.

I do not think a parent should be handling the daughter and her husband’s money. That can pose problems for the husband and wife. The father could begin talking to the daughter about the expenses without the husband and insinuating different things. Then the daughter says something to her husband in a derogatory fashion. Now, not only do you have a conflict between the husband and wife, but also the husband and the father-in-law.

I believe it is okay if the parent would like to make suggestions based on information shared with them, that is one thing. But for the parent to be managing the money of two grown adults – not such a good idea. If the husband and wife need financial guidance, then they should consult an unbiased third party that will focus on the best interest of the marriage.

Now you see why I said sure, if you want to be on the journey towards divorce. Money is one of the top reasons for divorce. There is no need to add a parental relationship that focuses on the husband and wife’s money to really muddy the water and put relationships on edge. Imagine what would happen to the husband or wife? Now they are stuck in the middle and it is a no win situation either way. Think long and hard before doing this.