Cultivating Love through Finances
Love is a verb; it is an action requiring your involvement and active participation. Husbands and wives choose daily if and how to cultivate love in their marriage. One way to cultivate love is by making financial choices that intentionally honor your marriage. Whether you are married or considering marriage, here are some examples on how (and how not) to approach money during marriage.
Before committing to marriage, each partner owes the other a completely honest account of their financial situation. Hiding financial information reveals greater character flaws like impulsiveness, dishonesty, and manipulation and robs your partner from the opportunity to make a fully informed choice. Whether it’s a poor credit score or a large trust fund, laying it all out on the table before you tie the knot is imperative. Once you are married, hiding financial information from your spouse, like additional income or secret debt, is considered financial abuse. Once all the facts are known, you both can work together or separately with a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional and an attorney to hammer out how to approach perceived complications. There are strategies for managing wealth or debt accumulated prior to marriage, or securing assets if one or both of you is a high-earning professional with increased liability. After you both have a clear understanding of what each other brings to the table, you should discuss how you see each other managing your individual and shared expenses during marriage. When discussing whether to combine your income and expenses in one checking account, or to keep your income separate and track who should pay what expenses, keep in mind that Texas is a community property state. Income earned by either spouse during marriage legally belongs to both spouses.
During marriage, cultivate love by having regular discussions about finances with your spouse. It is normal for one spouse to be the “money person,” but the other spouse should always have an awareness of family finances. Provide financial resiliency for your family by establishing an emergency savings account (3-6 months of expenses, in cash). This can literally buy you time to rebound if one of you becomes unemployed or you face large, unexpected expenses. Discuss your collective needs and wants, and prioritize them in a mutually agreed upon order. Work together towards achieving those goals by budgeting and checking in with each other frequently. Saving for retirement together cultivates love through financial security and in hope for the future, so contribute to an appropriate retirement plan and maximize those contributions if possible. You can also cultivate love for a stay-at-home spouse by opening a spousal IRA and making retirement contributions for them. After decades of blissful marriage, hopefully you will both still love each other enough to want to slow down and spend time together, enjoying the fruits of your labor.
When death does you part, you can still cultivate love by continuing to provide financial security. Both spouses bring love to the table through daily gestures that must be picked up when one of you perishes. There are so many vehicles available to you. A simple and affordable term-life insurance policy can provide your spouse the financial security to grieve without fear of major changes to the standard of living he or she is accustomed to. Having key estate planning documents in place (a will, beneficiary designations, directive to physicians) can save your surviving spouse and children from unnecessary confusion, frustration, and anger while they mourn, and make sure that your final wishes are honored.
A CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional has tools at their disposal to capture your unique financial situation, visualize your current and long-term needs and wants, develop reasonable financial strategies, and monitor your collective progress during marriage and thereafter. If you haven’t already, say “I love you” this Valentine’s Day by cultivating love through financial planning.
Published in the Victoria Advocate.
Hannah Gohmert is a CFP® professional and the Chief Compliance Officer of KMH Wealth Management, LLC.
