Marriage is one of the happiest moments of everyone’s life. You promise with your partner to stay together for the rest of your life. Once the wedding ceremony comes to the end, the reality shows up in the form of paying bills and expenses.
Whether you want to buy the essential items for your new home or saving for future generations, you must make some money-saving plans to avoid your after-marriage monetary problems. Here are some ideas are given below –
Stay Debt Free or Clear Out Your Existing Debt:
It is ideal if you are debit-free while getting married. But don’t be too frustrated if you can’t finish paying your debts on time. It is better if you clear out your existing debt especially when you are planning to make big purchase decisions like buying a home or car in the near future.
Besides, when it comes to buying a new home, you are bound to face TDSR (Total Debt Servicing Ratio), meaning if you have lower debt you will be eligible for a higher home loan. Moreover, clearing out your debt will help you work on your credit and offer you more money on bank loans. If you can’t prevent owing money, do it in a way that won’t affect your credit score. There are quick online loans that won’t affect your financial profile.
Stop Spending on “Unnecessaries”:
You must be thinking the only way to keep the romance alive is to keep spending on fancy dinners or planning luxury dream vacations. By doing them, you end up spending a lot of money instead of spending or saving the money for your dream home where you and your partner live with your kids. Think about long-term happiness instead of focusing on short-term plans.
One important note, you should be living in your own apartment or planning to buy a new home instead of renting a house. Renting seems to be a better and cheaper option at first however, the major expenses like home insurance or property taxes reduce over the years so, focusing on buying a new home is always be a profitable option.
Build An Emergency Fund:
Life can change any minute and sometimes it is out of your control. The best way to handle these situations is to save money in advance.
Consider saving money for a shorter period (3 to 6 months) or create a long-term (1+ year) fund for emergency situations like personal, financial, or medical issues.
Estimate A Household Budget and Contribution Levels:
Most couples don’t openly talk about money because they think it is a good practice to avoid awkwardness and conflict.
However, to make your marriage long-term sustainable, you should be open to talk about money and estimate a household budget and divide the contribution levels.
If both of you are earning, then you both should contribute to household expenses like groceries, utilities, rents, paying debts. Speaking of groceries, one great way to cut costs is to bulk buy food that you use more often, as this saves you lots of money over time and trips to the grocery store (gas).
Create A Financial Plan Together For the Future:
As a couple, you should have both a short-term and long-term financial goal. Many questions come to your mind such as how much you should save for your child’s education, what will be your income source when you both retire, what kind of asset you want buy in the near future, and more.
Create a financial road map to help you focus on your priorities and where to spend the most. Don’t copy others because all couples are different in terms of expenditure. So, the best you can do is to take ideas from different couples to form your financial road maps.
So simple right! Spend quality time discussing these with your partners to put both of you on the right path. This will help your marriage remain financially stable and help you overcome obstacles.
