 |
 |
|
|
7000 Peters Creek Rd., Roanoke, Virginia
1-866-260-5994 |
CCCS of Southwest Virginia |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Saving Your Money and Your Marriage |
|
 |
|
| |
| |
By Jay MacDonald • Bankrate.com
It's hardly headline news that money troubles are the most common cause of divorce in America. But you may be surprised to learn that bounced checks and unpaid bills often have very little to do with it.
"The main reason couples have trouble with money is because couples have trouble with relationship skills in the first place," says Natalie Jenkins, vice president of the Denver-based Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program and co-author of You Paid How Much for That!?
"Money is the smoke screen for the relationship issues," says Jenkins. "Pretty much everybody has money problems. It's those who learn to handle it together that end up staying together."
|
 |
|
| |
| |
Suzette Loh, a certified financial planner with New York-based Eisner LLP, says the times have made it more difficult than ever to keep money trouble out of your marriage.
"We are very different as a society today, and it's becoming harder and harder because costs have gone up so much. We are carrying so much consumer debt, and we have different perceptions of what we need," Loh says. "There frequently is a gulf between the perceptions of the earning spouse and the non-earning spouse as to what the family needs and what the actual costs of living are."
But couples don't have to clash over cash. Here are 10 money exercises that could save your money and your marriage:
1. Fear Factor
Just like the TV show, what you don't know about money can scare the daylights out of you. The two biggest bogeymen in most couple's anxiety closet are the worst-case scenarios: divorce or death. In both instances, a partner will be left alone, the ultimate terror for many people. That fear is compounded by the apprehension of learning to deal with financial changes in the aftermath. Rather than let these deep-seated fears erode your marriage, sit down and face them head-on together. Talking about your money and relationship fears together is the best way to send those monsters packing. Vat of snakes and high-wire harness optional.
2. Husband and wife swapping
Swap financial chores, that is. Walk in each other's shoes for a month or two and really get the swing of how it feels to juggle your spouse's marital responsibilities. You'll probably find that you are better than your partner at some things and worse at others. Have a laugh about it, then permanently swap or agree to share some tasks to achieve better results with less friction.
"That's a great thing to do," says Loh. "Typically, each is only dealing with one side: one is only dealing with earning the money, the other is only dealing with the family's expenditures. When one is so divorced from the other, it's easy to lose all sense of perimeters."
3. Go on a money diet
You lose weight by watching what you eat. Try the same thing with your household spending. Each keep a record of everything purchased out-of-pocket for at least one month, excluding groceries, gas and the monthly bills. This gives you both a snapshot of your individual spending patterns and a place to start a dialog on savings and spending goals.
"There is often deception in the stereotypical situation. The wife feels her husband would not approve if he knew that there is cash going for a massage every week and the daughters are all going for manicures and pedicures," says Loh. "They avoid a lot of value judgments not discussing it. When you don't want to confront each other, you get more and more polarized."
4. Give each other credit
One of the ways money plants seeds of dissention in a marriage is by creating an imbalance of power, either consciously or subconsciously, in favor of the chief money earner. This can polarize spouses and lead to all sorts of irrational behavior. Don't let it. Vow to establish separate credit in each of your names -- bank accounts, credit cards, loans, etc. It's a great way to build trust in each other and nip abandonment fears in the bud.
|
|
| |
| |
5. Beat the street together
This may be a delicate subject, especially if you or your spouse invested your life savings in tech stocks, but the couple that trades together really may have a better chance of staying together. Why not create your own investment club? Not only are two heads usually better than one, research shows that men and women bring complementary strengths and insights to investing. The benefits are several. You'll both be involved and informed in your finances, you'll become better communicators and partners, and you may even beat the street.
|
 |
|
| |
| |
6. Meet the parents
Experts agree that some if not most of our money fears date back to childhood. For better or worse, our parents were the single biggest influence on how we manage or mismanage our money.
"How you were raised sets up the expectation of how things should be, and we're often not even aware of it," says Jenkins. "How did your parents handle money when you were a kid? Did they always fight about it like cats and dogs? If they did, maybe you're anxious about talking about money. Or maybe you never saw them talk about money, so you assumed it just worked itself out without having to talk about it."
Isn't it time to "meet the parents" behind your money attitudes? Helping each other become aware of your inherited money behaviors is the first step toward understanding and even changing them.
7. Feelings, woah, woah, woah, feelings
When we're hurt or angry over money, it's not the money's fault; it just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. By choosing to fight about the minutiae of a credit card statement or checking balance, we may be missing the opportunity to recognize a behavior trigger, understand how it works and learn to defuse it next time.
If you repeatedly have the same argument, if one partner refuses to talk, if your spouse blows up over something trivial or if you find yourselves keeping score with money, there's a good chance there are deeper issues involved. Set aside time to talk about it when you're not upset, and it may spare you from all those senseless fights.
"If your spouse doesn't write down checks in the checkbook even though you've asked them to, you might interpret that as a sign they don't care about you," says Jenkins. "If you can get to that underlying feeling -- your fear of what this behavior means -- then you can talk about it. They may say, 'It isn't that I don't care, it's just that I'm swamped right now.'"
8. A change would do you good
Whoever said familiarity breeds contempt probably had paying monthly bills in mind. Oftentimes the sheer monotony of our money chores makes us cantankerous and uncommunicative. We can be so immersed in the bankbook that talking about it is the last thing we want to do.
That's a sure sign that change, any change, will do you good. Consolidate some loans, learn to pay bills online, go to a different bank branch, anything to shake things up a little and force some money dialog between you and your spouse, even if it's over the new bank's lobby cookies.
"When things become rote or routine, it creates tension," says Loh. "There's almost an element of deception when there are things that you sense that your partner is going to disagree with you about."
9. Lose your immortality
If you think talking with your spouse about money is hard, try discussing the big D, the grim reaper, your inevitable demise. Death has a way of making money real in a most fundamental way. After all, the trick is making sure you have enough of it to go the distance.
If you haven't yet considered your own mortality -- and granted, who wants to? -- it may help to view it strictly as a planning tool, the end zone upon which your financial game plan is based. Failure to plan together now for retirement and beyond can lead to big problems later.
10. Celebrate the small victories
Once you've been able to agree on some attainable goals, such as setting up retirement accounts, starting a college fund for the kids, writing your wills or paying off a mortgage, don't forget to celebrate when you accomplish them.
In money, in marriage and in life, it's the small victories that make the difference.
Lastly, put together a spending plan for the trip and stick to it. Take along a set amount of cash to avoid ATM fees and use cash or debit cards to ensure that you do not overspend. The goal is to return home from your trip with lots of memories and little debt. |
|
| |
| |
|
 |
|
|
| | Home |
Privacy Statement |
About CCCS |
Contact CCCS |
Site Map | |
|
CCCS, A Division of Money Management International
Regional Headquarters - 7000 Peters Creek Rd., Roanoke, Virginia
Corporate Address - 9009 West Loop South, Seventh Floor, Houston, TX 77096 |
|
|
|
