Budget, responsibilities and children: 14 financial issues for a couple in a serious relationship
'16.06.2022'
Source: Life hacker
Compare your views on the family budget, as well as the division of duties and children offers Life hacker.
1. What will be your family budget
The key issue that will determine the financial climate in the family. You can maintain joint or separate budgets - all these strategies are effective if your views on the issue coincide.
Much depends on habits and how it was accepted in parental families. Someone considers a separate budget a distrust of a partner. Someone cannot live without personal money, because otherwise they feel vulnerable. So there is no single correct scenario here - everything is decided through negotiations.
If you lean towards separate budgets, it will not be superfluous to discuss how your business will go with a large difference in salaries. For example, will you spend approximately the same amount on general needs or as a percentage of income.
2. Is it possible to change the format of the family budget
Looking under what circumstances. For example, you have separate budgets, but you are resetting to general expenses. If the income of one of you drops sharply, how will things be after that? Will you start buying less just to spend equally? Or will one of you take on part of the expenses of the other? Or maybe he will give a partner a loan until his financial condition improves?
3. How do you make money
You may not need to know how much each of you makes. But understanding how stable this income is and what standard of living it will be enough for is useful.
If you enter into a serious relationship, you need to be prepared for the fact that they can last more than a dozen years. During this time, different changes can occur with each. Therefore, questions about each other's financial condition should not be considered commercialism. After all, each of you can, say, get sick, and he will need the help of a partner.
4. What are your financial (and not only) goals for the future
Of course, the question shouldn't be phrased that way, but it captures well what you're about to find out. Perhaps one partner in the future wants to buy a house in the countryside and breed corgis by freelancing so that they only have enough for what they need. And the other is aiming for the Forbes list.
Different financial goals do not necessarily indicate incompatibility. But they will help you understand your partner’s life strategy and understand where you are likely to have disagreements, including financial ones.
On the subject: 3 Critical Family Budget Mistakes
5. What are your plans for buying your own home
Are you going to buy it or not, you will save or take a mortgage - this is an important topic for conversation. Perhaps one is determined to rent a house all his life so as not to become attached to the place. And the other, pouring tears of the bill, leaving to the owner, will be obsessed with the idea of quickly paying off the mortgage. Different approaches here are an obvious reason for quarrels.
6. Will you keep a budget
The main question is: who will do this? Accounting, like cost and income planning, is an effective way to understand where the money goes. Then you can start saving and saving. But this method requires some organization, time, effort and, most importantly, the desire to do all this.
7. How do you feel about loans
Everything that is acquired in a marriage is considered common. Debts are no exception. If your potential half is actively using loans with or without loans, you should be wary.
Firstly, in marriage, one person can take a loan, but both will have to give it back. The debt will be divided between the spouses even after the divorce. You can avoid this, although it is not easy: you need to prove that you did not know anything about the loan, and the debtor spent all the money on himself. If you bought something for the house with credit funds, made repairs or went on a joint trip, problems cannot be avoided.
Secondly, if the partner stops paying the loan, collectors can attack you as an official satellite.
Thirdly, it is simply unpleasant to be in a relationship with a person with whom you have such different views. If you wrinkle your nose at the word “credit”, and your partner takes a loan even for a toothbrush, something good is unlikely to come out of such an alliance.
8. Do you have debts
Premarital loans in the event of a divorce are not divided in half. But they will definitely affect the financial well-being of the family. With a joint budget, you will have to give part of the total money to the debt account. If separate, postpone large purchases, since one means will have significantly less.
9. How do you feel about a prenuptial agreement
This document helps to fairly divide property at the stage of a good relationship. After all, often with a divorce of spouses, a feeling of hatred for each other overflows.
It is important to remember that a contract can be challenged if it infringes on the rights of one of them. So it should not be an instrument of punishment: the court will not understand if one gets everything and the other nothing.
On the subject: Planning a budget: on what you can and on what you cannot save
10. What material obligations do you have?
It can be alimony or monthly assistance to parents. Even if you have completely separate budgets, it is better to find out about each other's financial obligations in advance so that there are no surprises.
11. How are household chores distributed?
It happens that both partners work all day, but one of them then takes over all the homework. Routine work is not paid, but this does not mean that it costs nothing. If only because it takes time and energy that could be spent on vacation, self-education - on what helps to climb the career ladder and increase income.
You can distribute responsibilities in such a way that one will take care of household chores, and the other will provide for the family, and gender does not matter here. It is important to discuss something else - the guarantees that a person who sacrifices his career receives. How will he be protected in the event of the death or serious illness of a partner? Or do you want a divorce? The solution to the problem could be death and disability insurance, as well as a prenuptial agreement, which partially eliminates financial vulnerability.
12. Do you plan to have children and how many
The modern institution of the family implies great variability in this matter. You can do without children at all or give birth to five, and adopt three. Discussing this "on the beach" is important for many reasons. And the financial aspect is not the last.
It is better to leave fairy tales about the barn and lawns to someone else and clarify this issue in advance. If you both adore children and are prepared for the fact that they are not cheap, this is great news. It is much sadder if one of you already in the process finds out that you need to spend money on a child. As a result, he will begin to blame the second for exorbitant costs. And then completely removed from education.
13. Who will go on parental leave?
With maternity leave there are no options - this is only allowed to mom. But dad, grandmother, grandfather or another relative can look after a baby up to three years old.
Whoever goes on parental leave, his income will be lower, and this will affect the overall financial well-being of the family. This means that a working partner will have to make more efforts to maintain the necessary standard of living.
Note that in some industries, during a long-term vacation, you can be very behind your colleagues, and this will also affect the subsequent increase in wages. Therefore, it is important to understand all the consequences before the baby is born.
14. How will child-care responsibilities be divided?
With a child’s three-year anniversary, care for him does not end, and this is a full-fledged work that requires involvement, time and effort. This includes sick leave, and the need to attend morning performances in kindergarten, which is not always welcome at work.
This must be added to one equation with household duties and work in order to once again recount everything in fairness. Justice in the separation of household chores is the path to harmony and happiness. This is even confirmed by research.
