Six Money Mistakes of Newlyweds

Wow! I never realized how much I've written about money and marriage until I reviewed my money and marriage category of posts. There's a bunch of stuff in there -- some of it's even good. ;-)

Here is a list of my favorites:

• Money and Marriage Survey

• Big Money Blunders to Avoid: Getting Divorced

• Big Money Blunders to Avoid: Engaged Couples

• Good Money Skills More Important than Sex

• Marrying for Money Actually Works

So in this tradition, I wanted to talk about this article from Kiplinger that lists the six money mistakes of newlyweds. Their list:

1. Keeping money secrets.

2. Not having a budget.

3. Giving one person the financial reins.

4. Dragging debt down the aisle.

5. Sweating the small stuff.

6. Failing to plan for an emergency.

Here's where my wife and I stood as newlyweds on each of these:

1. We didn't really talk much about money before we got married, but thankfully we were both very similar in money style, so we didn't need to.

2. We had a budget from day one. I had kept a written budget since I'd gotten out of school and I just kept on doing so.

3. We consult each other on the big-picture stuff (usually discussed when we do our annual budget), but after that, I handle almost everything. This has worked for almost 15 years, so why mess with it? That said, I don't think my wife is as up-to-speed as she needs to be on our finances. That's why one of my money resolutions this year is to get my wife up-to-date on all aspects of our finances.

4. We had a total of $15,000 in debt (other than mortgages) for college loans and a car (mine, believe it or not). My wife had enough cash to pay it off and we did (yes, she's more frugal and a better saver than even I am).

5. Like the author, we had our share of minor money disagreements. Most of those have been eliminated now -- except when we have no ketchup for hamburgers because it wasn't on sale (and I have to eat a dry burger because of a potential 30-cent savings next week)!

6. We have an emergency fund and our insurance needs are covered. We had these pretty much from the beginning of our marriage -- thanks to my wife's per-marriage savings and our jobs (which covered many of our insurance needs).

Comments

[DebtBlog]

My wife and I didn't talk too much about money either, but thank god she's frugal. Much more so than myself, and in many ways has more common sense. She tends to be very risk averse, however so my desires to invest in shaky, new ventures with a huge potential upside, but a much more likely downside, are shot down in flames from the get go. Also like you, my wife had the pre-marriage savings. I had the CD collection, ski trip memories, fast car and computer. I'm alot more focused on the future now, thank god!