Money Cited as One of Top Reasons for Relationships Ending

Posted on October 6, 2017

One of the top reasons cited for relationships ending is money. The best way to avoid money issues in a relationship is to communicate with your partner and decide what works for you as a team. When a newly married couple merge their households, just like combining their household goods, they have to blend their approaches to managing money.

Here are some tips for couples as they develop a united approach to managing their finances:

1. Communicate about your finances. Communication is one of the keys to having a successful relationship, and a successful budget. You need to share in both the decisions and management of your finances together. If one person makes all the budget decisions, the result is often anger, hostility and dependence. Take stock of where you’re at – your assets, income, living expenses.
2. Explore the methods each of you employ to manage your finances and merge what works. You both will have some good and some not so good habits. If there is a method that is more reliable, you definitely want to keep that as part of your joint strategy. That method may include a bill paying account that ensures that bills get paid without late fees. Maybe your partner has a great strategy for making monthly deposits in a savings account. Both of these money management strategies are good… and if they both work, use them. You can take a good base of money management practices and build on them.
3. Determine your values and discuss your financial objectives. Values influence how we spend money and these values change with age and circumstances. Maybe you’d like to save to buy a home, but your partner wants to take a holiday every year. Conflict can arise when partners’ values don’t mesh. This is when communication and compromise are needed to determine your joint financial objectives.
4. Set achievable goals. Once you determine your values and objectives, couples need to set goals of how they hope to get there. Short term goals might be saving for a TV, where long term goals might be contributing to an RRSP. Your financial goals should include a method of long-term savings, where you allocate a percentage of your income to savings and develop a budget with the remaining dollars.

There are tools to help couples manage their budgets. Check out Carizon’s website.
Carizon also offers a “Money Matters” workshop that helps individuals to manage their finances through life transitions. The fall Money Matters workshop will be held on Monday, November 20, 6:30 -8:30 p.m. This free workshop is sponsored by Hoyes, Michalos and Associates. Check out the Life Transition Workshop Series.