Best Ways To Manage Money In Your Marriage

Managing money in your marriage is both a significant and delicate matter. Here are some tips to help you minimise conflict and misunderstandings

- Anna Haotanto, Farisia Thang

When it comes to marriage, joining two people’s lives together takes a lot of work, and some things may fall through the cracks. It is often the case with finances. Merging finances is an essential consideration of any life partnership, and for all its gravity, it’s also ironically a conversation that many avoid.

How you handle your finances as a couple varies depending on the nature of your relationship. Still, the first step is to have an open and honest conversation. Here are some useful tips to help you work out how to manage money successfully and sustainably as a couple:

Discuss Your Budget As a Team

Start assembling a budget by writing down all of your shared expenses. These include mortgage, utility bills, home improvements, insurance, and groceries and school fees. Then, tackle other debts you may have incurred before your marriage.

If your partner has a bigger loan liability, you may want to offer to help them out with the payments so that you can liberate yourselves sooner from that debt. Alternatively, offer to take responsibility for a larger percentage of the shared expenses, like paying for meals out or small vacations. If you have a more considerable debt than they do, be open and transparent about how they might help you pay it off.