After being married for almost a decade-  merging my money and marriage is still the toughest obstacle my husband and I face. We’re not at the point where we operate our funds 100% jointly. (We have a joint account for bills, savings, and goals, while also maintaining several individual accounts of our own). To be honest, I don’t think we will ever get to the point of being 100% joint (nor do we want to).BUT we have realized that we absolutely need to be 100% on the same page as it relates to our expenses and goals, and we’ve been making major strides toward better merging our money.

I’m sharing with you a few observations I’ve made during my quest to better marry my money with Travis’.

If you really want to build an empire as husband and wife, you should avoid these three things:

1.Splitting the bills 50/50

Marriage is not always about what seems fair

Your spouse is not your roommate and splitting the bills 50/50 may not even make sense.  It can be counterproductive to creating real wealth specifically when there are noticeable disparities between take-home pay and individual debts (such as student loans).  As an example, one spouse can be making $8k more annually than the other, but if that spouse has more individual debt (i.e. student loan payments of $12k annually), the additional load may be causing significant strain on that spouse.  If one person is struggling you’re both struggling and its time to go back to the drawing board

2. Buying what you can afford

Yes!  You read that right. Living under your means is key.  A good rule of thumb when it comes to purchases such as clothing, shoes, etc. is that if you can’t buy it twice in one paycheck (without neglecting a single obligation). You really can’t afford it!

When you’re building an empire, you can’t live within your means. You have to live way under them!

3. Not identifying what money means to your spouse

Just like love has its own language…so does money. It’s important to know what money means to your spouse so that you’ll know how to communicate more effectively about major purchases and investments.  What factors drive their decisions about purchases?  I primarily associate money with security. While Travis primarily associates money with freedom.  Our discussions related to our finances are now centered around meeting each other’s financial needs while keeping the end goal of building our empire in the forefront.

You can’t build an empire without a budget!  My good friend and fellow Fab Wife, Alanna of Financialdemics sent me over an amazing monthly budget to keep Travis and I focused on our coins and building our empire as one. Download your copy today too!

[ebook_store ebook_id=”17412″]

~ Be Fabulous, Rhea

Rhea