The Official Money Guide for Couples #moneysavvy #omgforcouples

My husband and I have been married for 28 years this coming October.  My goodness that seems like a very long time – yet, it seems like we got married just yesterday.  We tended to do things very differently when we were married with respect to finances.  He had been previously married and brought two young children to our marriage.  It was clear pretty quickly that we needed to keep my money as mine and his money as his.  Since the kids were so young, that held true for 18 years.  After being married for 18 years what we had been doing financially just seemed to work for us.  It seems so odd to other people – my father could never really adjust to it – but it became a way of life for us.  Since it worked – why change it.

As a result, I really wanted to check out this Official Money Guide for Couples.  Just what are the trends?  What do people normally do in a relationship? I didn’t really want to know for us – we have been married far too long to change what we do.  But we now have five children, three of which are grown and at some point we may be called upon to provide guidance to them – what would we say or do?

This is a pretty quick read at 72 pages but it is packed with topics such as:

1. Creating a Plan Together
2. Managing Money
3. Tracking Expenses
4. Give Each Other Credit
5. Debt
6. Investing
7. Cost of Homeownership
8. Insurance
9. Protecting Your Joint Identity
10. Activities

To me the most important thing is communication and this guide gives a basis for discussion as well as what to try – realizing that not any one solution works for everyone.

Check out the Official Money Guide for Couples HERE.