The time has finally come. You have gotten serious with someone and you are about to get married or on the path to get married.
When you are at this point in time, there are many financial topics that you should discuss with your loved one.
I have seen many relationships that end in disaster because finances were not talked about nearly enough. In some relationships, the topic of money almost never comes up, and that is just not good at all. Money should be an open topic for you and your significant other to be able to talk about.
Here are different financial topics that you should discuss with your significant other as soon as you can.
Will your money be joint or separate?
At some point, the topic of whether you should combine finances or keep them separate from your significant other will come up.
Some prefer to keep finances completely separate, even though they are married. Some choose to have everything combined. Others choose to do a mixture of the two and have some combined accounts but a few separate ones.
Also, if your money will be joint, who will be responsible for actually paying the bills? Will each of your handle designated bills or will one person do it all? It seems like in many relationships, one person is in charge. However, if you decide to do this, you should still teach the other one how everything is done in case something were to happen to you.
Will there be a prenup?
Something that also may come up in your relationship might be whether there should be a prenup or not. Don’t think that these are unromantic, because it has nothing to do with romance.
You just never know what may happen years or even decades down the road. If you have something important (such as something that has been in the family for centuries), then you may want a prenup to protect it.
Talk about your spending habits.
Do you know what spending habits your significant other has? Do they like to spend a large amount of money each month that might cause you a lot of stress? Maybe they have a certain hobby that is expensive.
You should know what the spending habits of your significant other are so that you can talk about how to work together.
Discuss debt.
Do you know how much debt your significant other has? Do they know how much debt you have? What would you do if your significant other lied to you and didn’t tell you until the day before the wedding that they had $200,000 in student loan debt and $150,000 in credit card debt?
Did you discuss financial topics before you got married or got serious in your relationship?
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