Marriage and Finances - Advice for a financially happy marriage

Hey, what's up everyone and welcome to the School of Personal Finance. So, I'm sitting here in the hotel this week, this hurricane came through, knocked down some power lines, and me and my family decided to head up north a little bit to get away from it all. 2020, man, it has turned out to be a terrible, terrible year so far. Like, what else could happen? So, I didn't have a chance to make a video this week, and considering the trying times that we're going through, you know, me and my wife are ready to kill each other, my three-year-old, he won't sleep in the hotel, so it's almost like we have to take turns staying up trying to get him to go to sleep. It is crazy. I thought this would be a great week to go back and show a video that I did a little over a year ago. So, last year at this time, I made this video about money and marriage, and we were just celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary, so now we just celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary. And if we get through 2020, all you married couples out there, especially the ones with children, if you get through this year unscathed, then I think you're in it for the long run. But I thought this would be a great time to go back and show that video. I'll see you again, hopefully, next week, once I'm back in my house and everything is somewhat back to normal, or the new normal. All right, thanks for watching. Hey, what's up everyone, and welcome to the School of Personal Finance, where my mission is to help you become great with money. So, I just had my 16th wedding anniversary a few weeks ago. I thought this would be the perfect time to do a video on money and marriage. So, let's get to it. So, as we all know, and it's no surprise that money is the number one reason for divorce. With the increasing cost of living, the social pressures to keep up with the Joneses, with social media, where everybody's taking pictures of their awesome vacations, and the new car they just bought, and their homes, and all the crap that they have, it's just hard to not always be wanting more, and be wondering, you know, why can't we do that? Why can't we go on that trip to Aruba? How is everybody else affording to do this when we cannot do it? All it does is add stress and pressure to relationships, especially considering the consumer debt, the credit card debt, student loans, all of these debt levels are at all-time highs. So, what else could it do but cause a strain on your relationship, especially if you're not on the same page about everything, and if you have a lot of debt? But like Facebook envy, it is a real thing. Like, if you're scrolling through, and you see one of your friends sitting on a beach somewhere, having the time of their lives, and you look over at your spouse, and you're like, why aren't we going on any great vacations this year? It causes some stress. So, here are the things that I think are important when it comes to winning with money and relationships. And this stuff, it's just solely based on my experience, and through trial and error, and finding out what works for us. What works for us, it might not work for everybody else, but this has been my experience. All right, so the first thing, and what I think is the most important thing, and we started out this way, and we are still this way today, is that once you get married, it's no longer her stuff and my stuff. It is now our stuff. So, if she had debts, or if she had investments, whatever she had before we got married, once we got married, it became ours. And same thing with my stuff. So, everything became combined. Our paychecks were not going into separate accounts. It wasn't like she paid half the bills, and I paid half the bills, and she got to spend whatever money she had left, and I got to spend whatever money I had left. Everything became ours. And our goals, and our vision, and our priorities, all that stuff, we had to merge together and have conversations about, and be open with each other about. And everything, we were a team now. So, everything that we did going forward was for us. There was no more individual stuff. And I've seen a lot of people where they manage things separately. And I think that's a recipe for disaster, because then you start to question what the other one's doing, and you don't really get to see everything that's going on. So, if one person makes more money, what, do they get to spend more money then because of that? Or what if you have a stay-at-home parent? Does that mean that the one that works actually has to give an allowance to the other one, and they're under constraint because they didn't actually earn the money, but they're home taking care of the children? So, to eliminate all of that stuff, it's just, it's ours. Everything is ours. And we have goals that are aligned, and that we're working towards together. And that leads me right into the second key to success with this stuff. And that's no secrets. So, we all do things that we shouldn't do, and we like to spend money on things that we shouldn't like to spend money on. But you have to be understanding of that. Like, you know, my wife, when she goes to buy her 143rd pair of shoes, like, yes, I roll my eyes, and it annoys me. But she feels the same way when I say to my son, let's go to the Yankee game, or let's go to the Knicks game, or let's go do something fun. Let's take a train into the city and go, you know, walk around and have a good time. So, everybody likes to spend their money on different things. And as long as you're still meeting your goals, and you're on the same page with everything, then that's okay. We shouldn't be able to judge the other one for what they want to spend money on compared to what we want to spend money on. There has to be some give and take with this stuff. And, you know, the best thing is to just let the other one enjoy themselves and, you know, not question what they're doing all the time. Now, things could get out of hand. So, there has to be, you know, some kind of boundaries. But if buying shoes makes her happy, and she likes to have, you know, different clothing things and things that I really don't give a crap about, I can't judge her for that or get mad at her for that, because it's the same thing with me spending money. Things that I like to spend money on, you know, she could care less about. So, it's not like she's saying to me, well, you can't spend money on this. If I can't spend money on that, that's where, you know, you start to add stress and friction. So, you have to be understanding of what's important to the other one while what's important to you. But the best, the way to get through all of this stuff is to just be very open. And everybody has to know what the financial situation is. So, this leads me into the next point where, like in my family, I am into this stuff, right? So, I pay all the bills. I handle all the finances. But at the same point, I'm constantly in her ear about, you know, how we're doing with savings, with investments, how much money we have in the bank, how much our bills are. Like, she doesn't look at our, you know, budget or our tracking system of where our money goes every month, but she knows how much money we're spending every month because I'm always telling her. So, I think it's a recipe for disaster if you have just one individual handle everything while the other one has no clue about anything. And it's actually the responsibility of the person who handles everything to make sure that the other one has a clue of what's going on. Because in most marriages, you will find that one person is more of the money nerd and the other person doesn't give a crap. So, the money nerd, it is your responsibility to keep the other one in the know, to tell them what's going on. Even though they don't want to know about the bills, they don't want to pay the bills, they just want money to be in there when they need it. But they need to understand where you guys are financially at all times. It's unfair for them to not know because then when something happens, you know what's going to happen, right? They're going to blame you. They're going to come to you and be like, I thought you had all this stuff under control. And that's when things get really ugly. So, if you're the money nerd, if you're the one that handles all the tracking of everything, all the savings, all the budgeting, all the bills, all of that stuff, make sure that you are telling the other person exactly how much it costs to live every month, exactly how much you're investing, how much you have in different accounts, where you guys are financially, where you are along the path to your different goals that you have. Just so the other person has expectations that are realistic so they know what's going on and they're not going to get blindsided by it. And if you're this one over here who really is just not into this stuff, try to understand where everything is just in case something happened to the other one and you had to start paying the bills. Or if, you know, you end in divorce, if something comes up, you're not going to be completely lost over here, you know, wondering what happened. It's really good for both to know what is going on, even if only one is handling all the bills and everything. So, while I think that everything should be combined, I do think that there are, you know, situations or that there should be money that each person can spend without guilt or without having the other one, you know, judging them for it. So, if that means for you guys, if it works that you do have another account for each of you where you could throw some fun money in there and the other one can't see it, then that might work for you guys. For us, we just kind of made the decision that, you know, you could spend money how you want to spend it. The other one can see it and we won't judge you for it. Just don't go overboard. But if there's ever going to be a big purchase, then we'll run it by the other one before we do that. You know, if I try to buy Super Bowl tickets next year without asking her about it or without having a discussion around it, that would be pretty messed up. So, no big purchases without involving the other one and no stashing money anywhere, no having, you know, a little secret slush fund that the other one doesn't know about. Everything should be open and should be communicated. I mean, those are the keys to a good marriage is open communication. So, it should be the same with money. You have to be able to talk about this stuff and not feel like the other one is going to get pissed off at you, you know, if you're buying things that make you happy, that are important to you, as long as they fit within the constraints of what you guys are trying to do, of your goals, of where you're going. So, it's always a good idea to have conversations around big goals and priorities. Like, for example, if you don't own a home yet and that is a big goal, then you guys should be tracking towards that together and you should have a separate account that's just for the down payment on that home where you guys could see the progress that you're making and could actually consciously make decisions. You know, instead of buying Yankee tickets, I'm going to put that money into our house fund and you could start to see the growth and you do it together. But having a prioritized list of what your big goals are, if you want to pay for your kids to go to college or half of their college amount and having a 529 plan for that and you both make decisions to put money in there instead of spending it, you know, on things that might make you happy in the moment. And it also makes it difficult if one person really likes to spend on things that are not important at all to the other one and they're big purchases. So, for example, if you want to have a Range Rover and your significant other is cool with a Honda Civic, then that's going to cause some friction between the two of you and you're going to have to compromise and figure out what makes the most sense for your family. But it all goes back to being a united team, being on the same page, and having open communication to be able to talk about all this stuff. Another thing that I think is key with all of this is using technology and apps that, you know, track your spending, that show everything in one portal like Personal Capital or Mint, where you could have your net worth statement, all your budgeting stuff, where the money goes every month, all of it just on one little platform where each of you could log in and see it right on your phone. So that way everybody always knows what's going on. Even if one of the, you know, spouses is not interested in this stuff, at least they have access to see where they stand, where their savings accounts are, where they are, you know, tracking towards their goals, how much money they're spending every month. But again, the more talk about this within your family, the better off you're going to be, so that there are no big surprises and that everybody has the same expectations. And then the next thing that's super important is once you start having children to be on the same page when it comes to how much money you're going to spend on your kids or if you're going to say yes every time you're walking through a toy store and they want you to buy, you know, this or that for them. And you have to be on the same page with that. If you want to, you know, spend money on that stuff, then that's fine as long as it fits into your overall goal. You don't want to have that friction there where one parent is always saying yes and the other parent is always saying no. It's just going to cause stress in your marriage. And all this stuff, it's not easy, especially in the beginning when you first get married. You're letting go of some control and taking on the other one's debt. All of those things are hard, but believe me, it gets much, much easier as time goes on. Like I said, we just celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary and, you know, congrats to my wife for putting up with me for that long, especially when it comes to money. But what I've realized over the years is that even if I was over here on some things and she was over here on, you know, those same topics, that we slowly start morphing together into one when it comes to savings and investing or what we should be spending our money on and what we should prioritize. Opposite ends of the spectrum, you know, in the beginning. And then as time went on, we slowly started to be on the same page. And here's Cooper making an appearance. I don't think he's been in the video in a while, so it's good to see him come down here and walk his way through the video. But yeah, so through the years, we have slowly started to come together and we, you know, kind of see eye to eye and the same things are becoming just as important to each one of us. So it does happen over time, but the first few years are the hardest because you're feeling each other out on all this stuff and you're trying to get on the same page. And it's funny because most of the time, you know, we marry somebody who is the complete opposite of us. So even when it comes to finances, you know, we might have completely different ends of the spectrum on all of these things and it makes it hard. It makes it hard to come together and to have the same goals and to go after the same things in life. But it does happen. And again, open communication is no doubt the biggest thing. Do not keep the other one in the dark. Trust each other. Be open with each other. Talk about all this stuff. Be on the same page. It leads to a happy marriage. And then my last piece of advice for winning with your spouse when it comes to money is to celebrate often. So every time you hit a milestone, even if it's a small milestone, if it's a step in the direction that you guys are trying to head in, go celebrate. Like I remember me and my wife celebrating when we bought our first house, when we had our first child, when we started, you know, hitting different goals as far as saving for retirement, when we bought our first investment property. Like all of those little wins, go out and celebrate them. Make them, you know, important. Any promotions with your job, increases in salaries, go out and celebrate and enjoy it and talk about this stuff. Above all, communication, talking about this stuff, it is by far the most important thing. All right, that's it for this one. Thanks so much for watching. Please subscribe to the channel if you have not done so already hit that like button. If you enjoyed this video from me on Facebook, follow me on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn. I'll see all of you guys in the next video. Thanks so much. Bye.