The previous article talked about two mistakes that gonna leave couples stressed and drained due to money. Is there anything else? Let’s talk about two remaining money mistakes that help couples to foresee and fix it well before starting their relationship.
Let’s get started right now!
Mistake 3: No budget plan
Well, this one is really a big issue of money matter for most couple in the hustle and bustle life. Are you in the same page with me?
When most people think of budget, they though that we should live a quiet and isolated life with the picture focusing on straight jackets, jail cells, and living. They see a budget as an imposing and limiting
tool instead of a tool that gives them freedom.
Budgets are simply permission and limitation to spend, that’s it. It gonna helps us to make sure we spend our hard earned money to the most important and right things in our life. And in a relationship? They are what virtually fight-proof your financial conversations.
How does it really work?
When a couple sits down together and decides to create a budget, they are really just sitting
down to discuss their current priorities and values…and then they create a plan for their income
based on that. In my opinion, creating a budget is a smart way to make things in our control. We still can live our enjoyable life, spend things we love but still have savings for later life or any upcoming issues we gonna meet or cannot foresee in the future.
Couples may be shy to do this practice. However, this creates clarity, accountability, shared vision, boundaries, and proactively communicated common goals. However, couples can use a budget in a way that could actually increase money fights. For example, when one person uses the budget to manipulate or “lord it over” the other, it gonna causes the war soon.
The budget needs to be the safe place where you come together to create a unified plan for
your couple finances. This means that BOTH people in the relationship come together to create the
budget and agree on how it is gonna spent and funded.
Some people may not agree with this!
In our relationship, a person who can well control in planning usually create their both monthly budget.
In the meantime, another one will sit down later to review the plan and together adjust if they are not in the same page to align the final version.
What is the best practice you should follow and consider?
When couple together sit down and discuss about the budget plan, your partner inevitably figure out something you’d forgotten to budget. Or maybe he/she thinks our priorities need to change a bit and that we ought to cut back in saving for a vacation so we can have more romantic date nights together.
You can choose an easy app to help both keep track the budget plan within a month and control things within the budget. It can be flexible. It does not mean that you just follow the plan strictly and cannot get out of the box. Live flexibly, live simply as long as all things in your good control.
Mistake 4: Letting debt be your another burden
It’s obviously that no one would happily stay with dept. But it is not an easy matter.
Debt is an awkward thing that should not be mentioned in a romantic date night. Debt causes stress, conscious and unconscious, whether you want to accept it or not. It is sad that once you have debt, it is usually a big one and carries around with you all the time. It sits on the back burner of your minds, and most of the time you may not think of it.
Debt can be a divisive tool in every relationship whether between friends, family, co-workers, or spouses. It is a sensitive matter. Once you have debt, you may not be comfortable to live your enjoyable life, you gonna consider and calculate a lots to balance your daily expenses, entertain expenses and how to pay debt on time.
As couples are much more intimately tied together with every aspect of their lives, it’s usually far more divisive in those relationships. It’s no shocker that money stress and money arguments are in the top 3 reasons for divorce. That is really bad. Find out ways to drop your debt as soon as possible.
When you get rid of your debt, you’ll have the chance to put all your money towards your life, your relationship, and what’s really important to you. Couples can breathe more deeply, relax more in money discussions, and drastically cut financial fights out of your life.
I know it is not gonna be easy to live with this. The only solution is living with them peacefully, relaxingly and enjoyably until it is going to the end of the road.
Reflect yourself with these questions on individually and then discuss as a couple transparently:
◦ How do you feel about the debt you’re currently carrying every morning you wake up?
◦ How might you feel if you were completely debt free?
◦ What is your definition about true financial freedom?
◦ Are you ready to make a change in your life and your finances? And how do you plan to do it?
If you are finding yourself in one of those mistakes, let’s take the actions right away.
It is not comfortable when living with your spouse in this money conflict situation. Reflect yourself, sit down with your partner, share transparently and go to the final alignment. Your life will be more easy.