Are you part of perfect pairing?

Strike the right balance in both love and money

Money is often one of the top reasons for relationship breakdowns. So how can you and your partner be a success, both romantically and financially?

The key to a happy relationship is communication – and I don’t just mean talking. Communication means listening too.

Do you know what your spouse or partner wants to achieve in their professional life? Are they looking to progress in their career? Do they want to stay in their current job until they retire? And when do they plan to give up work? Also, outside of work, what does your partner want to achieve?

It’s important you discuss this now so there are no surprises in store later. Because if you don’t know what each other wants from life, how will you ever be able to achieve it together?

Pensions and mortgages aren’t exciting, but what they can do for us is.

When we attach an emotional feeling to them, the results become far more real and meaningful.

For example, if you said, ‘By forgoing [fill in your blank] and investing into our pensions, we can travel the world in 12 years rather than 20’, it might inspire you both to knuckle down and do it.

That’s why I recommend you have a money date night once a month. It’s a chance for you both to forget your other roles in life and just be a couple again.

Spending money is an emotional area and from my experience as a financial planner, it can cause a lot of conflict between couples.

Secret spending, worried purchases and resentment can quickly snowball. But if you scratch beneath the surface of the arguments, it’s not the actual spending that causes arguments – it’s the breaking of each other’s values.

For example, when my wife Nicky and I first got together, she would come home from shopping with her friends and all I’d see was loads of bags.

I’d link those bags to ‘lack of freedom’ and viewed her spending money as moving me away from what I wanted, which was financial freedom.

I didn’t see, at the time, the happiness it gave her. Instead, I assumed my values of financial freedom were not important to her and she was trying to jeopardise them by shopping.

When we spoke about this, she shared her thought that all I wanted to do was invest our money.

Needless to say, the talk worked, we started to understand each other’s values, and our relationship with money took off.

We resolved things by putting into place the Bank Account System, which I developed early on in my career, and I encourage all readers to use it.

It helps take routine thought and emotion out of everyday banking and puts your financial journey on autopilot, while allowing you to remain independent.

I encourage you to have plans and aspirations, no matter what your age. Time never stops ticking so we need to make life happen for us, not just have life happen to us.

Learn more about the Bank Account System in my book, The Money Plan, or visit warrenshute.com where there are also free resources to download.