One of the most significant strains on many relationships is an underlying difference in values, goals and habits relating to money. Often these differences can result in distressing disagreements. Money can’t buy you love, but it sure can tear it apart. The best way to prevent arguments about money is to learn how to talk about it with your partner and discuss how you can align your financial goals. Let’s look at how you can do that in six easy steps.
6 Steps To Healthy Finances In Your Relationship
Step 1: Talk About Financial Goals And Values
Many couples often neglect this step, even if it seems obvious. Because talking about finances can be uncomfortable. Each partner will have their own goals and values, and that’s ok. What’s essential is that you communicate with each other.
The differences often come from different upbringings, and they can be emotionally charged. It doesn’t have to be difficult, though. Just tell your partner you would like to sit down and have a talk about the future — share your goals and how to discuss how you can work together, as a team, to achieve them.
Begin with a brain dump, listing out the different things that each of you wants — a house, kids, university education for the kids, a healthy emergency fund, nice cars, travel each year, nice clothes, gadgets and computers, etc. Then start to prioritise, and see if you can come up with things in common. If you want different things, you must talk about what they are and commit to understanding each other’s perspectives.
The point is that you should look for a win-win solution or compromise so that you can both be happy. It might take a few meetings to form your written goals, with a timeframe for each, but that’s where you want to get to eventually.
Step 2: Remove Emotions From Financial Talk
In every discussion about money, you must stay calm and objective – you must untangle the emotion that is often bound to financial goals and habits.
Don’t use accusatory or inflammatory language. Don’t blame the other person or even be negatively critical. Discuss your financial goals, how you might achieve them and create a system for managing your finances. Also, try not to feel like you are under attack if the other person talks about your goals or habits specifically.
Let it be an open discussion, and if you feel under attack, stop, take a breath and remember that this isn’t a discussion about you personally but about how the two of you are going to work together. Again, think of this as a team effort, not as a you-vs-me effort.
Step 3: Come Up With A Plan To Meet Your Goals
Once you arrive at your shared financial goals, you need to plan to achieve them; this will consider joint income, debt, and savings. It would help if you discussed how much you can put towards debt and saving each month, whether you want to cut back on certain things to meet your savings goals, and how long you want to give yourself to meet financial goals.
Start by having a definite timeframe for each goal, and then figure out how much you need to save (or pay towards debt) each month to get to your goals. Create a spending plan (if you haven’t yet) for each month, and see if you can adjust it to meet that monthly goal. You might need to cut back on some things or earn extra income, or both. Or you might discover that your goals aren’t realistic, and you need to cut back or reprioritise them.
Devising an achievable plan will help you to align your spending with your long-term goals.
Step 4: Develop A System For Finances That Works For Both Of You
To put your financial plan into action, you need to figure out how you will pay your bills and debt, deposit into savings, and have money for day to day spending. Someone will have to take responsibility for maintaining the plan and keeping you both on track.
Step 5: Have Weekly Financial Meetings
Just because you have common financial goals and a plan doesn’t mean that everything is fine. If one person takes responsibility for the finances and the other is out of the loop, there will likely be problems down the road.
To prevent problems like this, have a weekly meeting where you sit down and talk about finances. You can review your accounts and your spending plan. You can check in with your goals, discuss what is coming up that you need to budget for and troubleshoot any problem areas. Make sure that you are both across the details and working well as a team.
Step 6: Stay Positive And Be Honest
Remember that you are a team. You have the same goals, and you want each other to be happy. Team members can help each other out and encourage each other or rip the team apart by being pessimistic and working against common goals. If you always stay positive, you will succeed as a team.
Be encouraging, stay focused on solutions and make sure love is the foundation of everything you do.