With marriage comes a lot of decision making, and it is vital that you and your partner find the balance that perfectly works for you. Of the many cogs that keep your relationship afloat, financial decisions have to rank among the most vital ones if we’re being honest, because aside from the love, don’t couples have major responsibilities?
It could be the kids, paying for mortgage, making investment decisions, saving, spending you name it. The point is, most partners fight over money, and it’s best if we broke the arguments down to figure out how to avoid them in the first place.
Reaching a Consensus
For starters, it all comes down to talking about it and reaching a consensus. According to USA Today’s Christy Bieber, the one reason why she doesn’t fight with her husband over money is that the two had that long discussion and agreed on what to do about the major decisions.
Couples should make major financial decisions together
And by major decisions, Bieber means emergency savings, retirement savings, how much to spend on their house and stuff like that. What’s more, they had this discussion before they even tied the knot, and continue to review their decisions annually to include matters arising such as having kids.
Thankfully, the lady is truthful enough to admit that it took more than one sit down for them to fully agree on the route to take, but for eight years of marriage and not a single fight over money, she must be really glad that they did it.
Concerning these major financial responsibilities, the partners agreed to automate their payments, ensuring that their savings, retirement funds, and mortgage are promptly paid up each month. Sounds like a nice thing they have going, doesn’t it?
Guess what these two did first after agreeing on a course of action? They set up an emergency savings account. Their thinking at the time was that should something unfortunate and unexpected happened and they didn’t have anything set aside, they would definitely argue over how to handle it.
Emergency savings come in handy
Additionally, they didn’t want the emergency situation running them into debt, so it totally seemed like the right thing to do. Naturally, it required a ton of discipline to get started and they literally lived from hand to mouth for three months while saving up all the extra cash, and with the little you know about them already, they certainly didn’t stop there.
Replenish the Account Regularly
They still replenish the account regularly, and just recently when their pet dog took ill and needed expensive emergency surgery, did they fight over where to source the funds from? Of course not. Did they have to make sacrifices that they hadn’t totally agreed on? Again, certainly not.
Allow your partner some financial autonomy
One other reason why couples fight over money is that the partners try to dictate what the other party has to do with their money. To beat this, Bieber and her husband came up with a system that would favor them both. After contributing to all their shared responsibilities, one would then be left to be the master of whatever remained, with point being that they were free to spend it without any oversight.
