Your Relationships Are Similar To Your Personal Finances.
Most relationships are often linked with your personal finances. Personal relationships take plenty of work, organization, communication, understanding, goal setting, deposits and withdrawals. Personal finances need the exact same amount of work, planning, understanding, goal setting, deposits and withdrawals. both are entirely linked in a lot of ways and if one finds some sort of obstacle the other could be directly affected. Here are several ways you can manage your money and your relationships and watch both grow strongly together.
GOAL SETTING: Where will you be in 5 or ten years? This could be a ideal conversation starter for you and your life partner. The great thing about this question is money management can easily be connected with goals for the relationship. Your partner might not be happy with their current job and has hopes of starting their own business or going back to university. The two of you can talk about what directions need to be taken to accommodate each of your unique goals and not sink the financial boat. If you keep this line of communication open you can set realistic goals in money and in life.
COMMUNICATION: This is probably the most fundamental requirement for every great relationship. Because many quarrels are over money it is wise to keep an open line of communication in everything else so that talking about money will come naturally. That means that any big purchase should be thoroughly talked about. Imagine how annoyed you might be if your spuse came home one day with a $1500 plasma T.V. or a fifteen hundred dollar dress or fifteen hundred dollars in penny stocks. If you communicate well about money, that would be one less thing that could result in disagreement. Communication is key in relationships and in financial planning as well. By now, hopefully you are getting the point that I was trying to make, which is how most relationships are often linked with your personal finances.
JOINT ACCOUNT: The age old question. Plenty feel that sharing a joint savings account is important because it shows a big degree of trust. Others feel that it is wise to keep your personal finances apart from the relationship due to the freedom it creates. The problem is it could cause disruptions in the relationship. Why not have both? The first thing you should figure out is what your bills are and what is left over for pleasure. In my opinion a simple formula to use is each of you takes 20% from the paycheck each week to save into a personal account. That money is yours and yours alone. You could use it to buy a fancy pair of shoes, football tickets or whatever you want. The left over 80% is put in a joint account that covers living expenses such as food, mortgage, retirement planning, car payments etc.. That way if you want to treat yourself, you will be using your cash to do so.
STAY ON THE SAME PAGE: This is extremely important. Stay informed. One of you may know a lot more about personal finances. There aren’t many things more exciting in a relationship then learning with eachother and knowing the same things. If you both know where the money is going, how it is being invested and what investments you should make there will always be an understanding. There is nothing more heartbreaking than when one partner makes a solo decision and loses a lot. If you constantly inform each other about financial opportunities and financial decisions it will be harder to make silly mistakes. As the saying goes, two minds are better than one.
I hope you can see how personal relationships can be similar to your personal finances. It is inevitable that you are going to run into problems and probably won’t see eye to eye with your partner all of the time. Finances are one conflict that can easily be avoided with an open line of communication, goal setting, planning and understanding. If you and your partner can communicate honestly when it comes to money and put the right plan in place, your relationship with each other and with money will grow stronger and stronger every day.
