Posts Tagged ‘Spouse’
September 15, 2014 | 
Author Is Your Significant Other Bad with Money? Advice for How to Manage a Financially Negligent Spouse
Boston, MA (PRWEB) September 11, 2014
While marriage often means the communion of two salaries, it also means the compacting of two financial situations, including the bad. While managing individual finances can be challenging enough, combining finances can be significantly overwhelming and present a couple with new challenges and even discoveries about their better half.
In fact, a recent survey completed by American Consumer Credit Counseling found that, of all topics, money is most likely to prompt a spat in a relationship. An overwhelming 54 percent of survey respondents stated that financial issues are the leading cause of stress in their relationships, while only 5 percent of respondents indicated fidelity and trust were an issue and 9 percent cited in-laws as the biggest stress trigger.
One of the largest contributors to this stress is differing money management styles. For those consumers with significant others who have poor money management skills, there is a solution. Neither spouse needs to be a professional accountant, but both need to be accountable to the other.
“Many couples, especially newlyweds or those newly cohabitating, struggle with making financial decisions, the combining of bank accounts, or keeping finances separate” said Steven Trumble, President and CEO of ACCC. “For these reasons, it is important to go over what accounts you have and how much debt you carry, and be clear on how you expect money to be handled.”
If you sense an issue at hand with your spouse, open the dialog up immediately before it goes too far. Explain how making the wrong money decisions will impact the current financial situation as well as any future financial situations for both of you. Like it or not, once married, both debts and income often become shared financial responsibilities. To avoid disagreements and long term disasters, ACCC has created six tips for couples to stick to when handling finances in a relationship:
Be a team – Arguments can arise from one spouse spending what the other spouse considers to be too much money. Create a financial budget and plan together, do the bills together, and review your net worth together. If you do anything related to your finances, make sure your spouse is involved and has a say in the decision process.
Hold weekly budget review meetings – If one spouse is doing all of the finances, it’s very difficult for the other spouse to know the current financial state of the household. Even with a budget, a lack of communication can make it difficult to know how much is left in the “grocery category” or the “entertainment category.” To solve this problem, pick one night of the week to review your finances. Pick a time when you and your spouse can devote 15-30 minutes without interruption.
Establish an emergency fund – The most important thing you can do to keep your finances under control — and to avoid using credit cards and going into debt — is to establish an emergency fund. When planning your budget, allocate a portion for emergencies, savings and retirement. Nothing causes stress more than running out of money before all the bills are paid. Establish a $ 1000-$ 2000 emergency fund to cover those unexpected expenses. The key is that each spouse must agree to not touch these funds without the other’s agreement.
Evaluate your financial goals – After creating and reviewing your budget for a period of time and establishing your emergency fund, it’s important to discuss both of your financial goals such as starting a family, buying a new car, saing for a home or traveling. By discussing and defining your mutual goals with your partner, you will reiterate the importance of staying accountable.
Don’t keep money secrets – While secret trading or gambling may not be that common, a survey by KeyBank saw 36 percent of men and 40 percent of women confess that they had at one time or another lied to their spouse about the price of something they bought.
Review your progress – If your spouse has taken responsibility for a lack of control or misuse of funds, support them throughout their attempts to better manage money. Whether through weekly or monthly updates or progress reports, or just supporting their decisions to save, play a crucial role in facilitating their path to better handling their money.
ACCC is a 501(c)3 organization that provides free credit counseling, bankruptcy counseling, and housing counseling to consumers nationwide in need of financial literacy education and money management. For more information, contact ACCC:
For credit counseling, call 800-769-3571
For bankruptcy counseling. call 866-826-6924
For housing counseling, call 866-826-7180
Or visit us online at ConsumerCredit.com
About American Consumer Credit Counseling
American Consumer Credit Counseling (ACCC) is a nonprofit credit counseling 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to empowering consumers to achieve financial management and debt relief through education, credit counseling, and debt management solutions. Each month, ACCC invites consumers to participate in a poll focused on personal finance issues. The results are conveyed in the form of infographics that act as tools to educate the community on everyday personal finance issues and problems. By learning more about financial management topics such as credit and debt management, consumers are empowered to make the best possible financial decisions to reach debt relief. As one of the nation’s leading providers of personal finance education and credit counseling services, ACCC’s certified credit advisors work with consumers to help determine the best possible debt solutions for them. ACCC holds an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and is a member of the Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies. To participate in this month’s poll, visit ConsumerCredit.com and for more financial management resources visit TalkingCentsBlog.com.
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Article by Ramalingam K
In most of the Indian families, the personal finance is something which is not managed by the couples together. It is only one person who manages the finance and money management of the whole family. In most of the cases the male partners and in a very few cases the female partners mange personal finance. Only very rarely both of the partners together manage their finance aspects.
What would be the outcome in an organisation where the purchase department works totally independent and without any understanding with the finance department of the organisation? Purchase dept may overspend; finance dept will lose control; misunderstanding and conflicts between both the depts; the result is the organization’s growth gets destroyed.
Similarly, if the finance is handled by only one partner, then there could be a lot of mismatch between you and your partner in saving and spending pattern. This will lead to misunderstanding and marital stress. Instead of having independent saving and spending plan, having an interdependent plan will help you in managing your money effectively and achieving your financial goals.
You go out for dinner together. You go to the movie together. Why don’t you manage your personal finance together? This will build money compatibility for you and your spouse. Both of you can have a better relationship and understanding with each other.
Why it is so important?
You may wonder why personal finance should be managed by both of the partners. Here are some points to ponder over;
1) In case of Emergency:
Suppose the partner, who is managing finance, met with an accident and need to be hospitalized for one month or so, then how does the spouse will run the show?
During the accident, if the partner has missed his wallet which had all the credit cards and debit cards then how does the spouse block those cards before it is misused? Where does she or he find that information?
In case of emergency, nothing will help except the practice of managing the finance together.
2) Real Workable Budget:
When you alone prepare the budget for your family, then you can’t expect your spouse to spend according to the budget. If you prepare the budget along with your spouse, he or she will come forward to help you in saving more.
You just try this. Involve your spouse in budgeting and monitoring the spending. You will see the spending coming down day by day and both of you will start spending consciously.
3) Combined Financial Goals:
It is better to identify the goals of your spouse as well as yours and check that is there any goal which is contradictory to the goal of your spouse.
You may want to retire and settle in the same work city. But your spouse may want to settle in the native place.
You may plan to buy a farm house to spend your leisure. But your spouse may be interested in spending her/his leisure at different places like hill stations and other tourism places. For this goal a time share slot with a resort provider may be suitable.
So identifying and settling your difference of opinion regarding the financial goals at the blueprint level is much easier and cheaper, instead of doing it at the execution level.
Overcoming the barriers:
There are some barriers or objections in involving their spouse in managing finance. How to overcome that?
1) No Time:
My spouse is not having enough time to look at these things. ‘No time’ is a false excuse. If it is one of your priorities, then definitely it will somehow find its time. Only thing is you have not realized it as one of your priority. Persl. finance is definitely a priority item for each and every family because it is going to secure your future.
2) Not interested:
My spouse is not interested in personal finance. Everyone is interested in their own future and their kid’s future. So logically everyone needs to be interested in finance. You need to motivate them and make them understand, how this persol finance management is important in achieving their life goals.
3) Doesn’t know:
My spouse doesn’t know about personal finance. No one has born in this world with the skills of money management. We all learned it here. So why don’t you educate him/her on personal finance. Money management is an important life skill. Everyone should know. You want your kids to manage the money better and wiser. Why don’t we educate our spouse first?
Overcoming the barriers in getting your spouse involved in personal finance management and getting them involved will be a life transforming exercise. Don’t miss it. Together you will be able to achieve your nalife goals easier and sooner.
About the Author
The author is Ramalingam K, an MBA (Finance) and Certified Financial Planner. He is the Founder and Director of Holistic Investment Planners (www.holisticinvestment.in) a firm that offers Financial Planning and Wealth Management. He can be reached at ramalingam@holisticinvestment.in.
Reuters personal finance editor, Lauren Young, makes her predictions about the top trends in the stock market, retail, housing, credit cards, and personal investing.
Posted in Personal Finance | Tags: Finance, Management, Money, Personal, Role, Spouse | 5 Comments »