HAVE A MONTHLY BUDGET AND A LONG-TERM PLAN

We all know how important it is to have a budget to keep track of bills and expenses – even more so when it comes to joint finances. A good way to handle this is to have a “personal finance day” once a month, says Ester Ochse of FNB Financial Advisory. “It’s a day set aside to sort out your finances. This will help you ascertain your budgeting goals, expenses and saving goals for the month ahead.”

You can do this separately or together – whatever works best for you (see point 5 below).

It’s also important to have a long-term financial plan you’re both comfortable with, Ingram says, and to see how this links to your monthly budgeting. “Couples should start with their end goal and work backwards from there.

“Try to agree on when you’d both like to stop working, where you’d like to live and the kind of lifestyle you’re likely to be able to afford at the time.

“Once you have these long-term goals defined you can calculate how much money will be needed to fund these goals – and this will determine how much you should be saving. Once you’ve established this, you’ll know what you can spend on luxuries.”