Personal money management is an issue that will affect your life positively or negatively… for the rest of your life. Your style of personal money management predicates where you end up in the financial pecking order of life. Do you want to be at the bottom, or the top? Develop a system that works for you early in life and reap the benefit forever.
Do you feel like you have an impossible financial dream? Money is such an emotional issue it becomes the breaking point for many a marriage. If you don’t have anything else to fight about, you can always fight about money. How will you reach your financial goals? Personal money management styles are a good thing to discuss before the marriage.
How will you decide who looks after paying the bills? Will you each have your own money to spend and agree to put a preset amount into a joint account to run the household? Will it be a free for all, with each spouse blaming the other when there is not enough money to pay the bills because there is no personal money management? Many couples dream of retiring in their 40’s or 50’s something their parents would have considered an impossible financial dream. Is this your plan and if so, how are you going to make it happen?
Before you determine the personal money management system you use, discuss it with your spouse. There are many areas that cause problems in marriage, money management being one of the most contentious. Communicate and decide who is responsible for what before it becomes a problem.
With over 77 million baby boomers entering retirement, financial planning and asset management are definitely a hot topic. Financial planning is something, many have managed to avoid through their highest earning years and are now finding out the real cost of avoidance. Dealing with money management issues early in life, means more time to grow assets. There are unprecedented numbers inheriting substantial amounts of money from their parents.
Without effective financial planning much of that wealth will go the way of lottery wins and will not be available to improve standard of living in retirement. A recent study reported that less than an hour a month is spent on retirement planning by over 62% of baby boomers and 32% spend no time at all on this important activity.
Financial planning is very much a service-oriented niche. If you don’t feel you are receiving adequate attention from your financial planner or you are a part of the statistic that spends no time on retirement planning, don’t leave it until it’s too late. Start interviewing and find a financial planner that you can communicate well with, one that understands your needs and what you want to accomplish. Or if you haven’t defined your financial planning needs, will help you set realistic ones.
Most people do not plan to fail at successful financial planning most people simply fail to plan. If you want a successful marriage, successful financial planning is a must. Showing your spouse that you are taking action to ensure your financial future shows you care deeply for the future of the relationship.