4 Powerful Habits That Will Promote Financial Unity In Your Marriage
4 Powerful Habits That Will Promote Financial Unity In Your Marriage
By Bradley Bennett
Finances can be a breeding ground for frustration, friction, and arguments. In fact, arguments over finances are one of the leading reasons for divorce.
At the end of the day, finances are something every marriage will have to deal with but it can be hard. It can be incredibly stressful, and if not handled carefully can eventually cause hard-to-repair rifts in our relationships.
Amanda and I certainly don’t know everything about this and we sure don’t have a silver bullet to fix every financial woe in your marriage. However, we have had some amazing mentors pour into us and share financial principles that have helped us develop financial unity within our marriage.
Over the past few years, we’ve taken this advice and morphed it into 4 habits that are embedded within our finances and relationship. We’ve found that these habits are powerful and have helped promote financial unity within our marriage.
Building this financial unity has served a very specific, and critical, purpose within our marriage.
It has replaced stress with trust and striving with faithfulness, thus creating a more peaceful marriage.
Finances don’t have to be a place of mistrust and stress but can be a place of trust and faithfulness. It’s possible to have unified peace in an area often rampant with strife.
Doing this starts with understanding the real underlying issue beneath most financial frustrations.
It’s Not A Money Issue, It’s A Communication Issue
I fully believe that 85% of marital issues can be solved with better communication.
This is especially true when it comes to finances. It’s easy to think that if you had more money, then you wouldn’t be experiencing these issues. That the frustration around your finances would just disappear.
While it may be nice to have more resources, it won’t really fix anything.
I’ve talked with wonderful couples that make very little money but have peace in their finances, and I’ve talked with spouses who make a ton of money but have a lot of stress, frustration, and pain surrounding their finances.
This has helped me realize that the frustration is often a communication issue rather than a money issue. Having more money without addressing the underlying communication issues just means you will have the same frustrations with bigger dollar signs.
Each of these habits will help you facilitate the communication needed for you to have financial unity within your marriage.
Habit #1: Sit At The Financial Table Together
The most important financial habit that Amanda and I have built into our marriage is that we sit at the financial table together. We are both aware of and speaking into the finances of our marriage.
This isn’t always easy because we have different ways of thinking about money. Amanda is much more of the free spirit that doesn’t want to think about a budget very much, while I am a complete nerd and will stick to a tight budget even if it makes life miserable.
You probably experience something similar in your marriage, too. Even though it can be hard and frustrating, committing to sit at the table together is one of the most important things you can do.
You see, leaving all the financial decisions in the hands of one person means the other never gets to speak into it. They will be living with restrictions and decisions they had no part in creating.
This looks nothing like the partnership that marriage was designed for, but instead, it looks more like a dictatorship. One person making the decisions and forcing the other to comply.
For there to be unity around financial decisions, it’s important for both spouses to speak into it. For your spouse to buy into a decision, they first need to speak into it. Allow them to give their suggestions and take the time to make sure you both understand what is going on.
Habit #2: Use A Budget To Give Each Dollar A Name
Ahhh yes… the budget. The financial nerd inside of me dances with glee whenever I see a well-done budget.
Having a budget has helped Amanda and I navigate our finances during some really hard times. If you do not use a budget yet, then I would highly recommend sitting down and creating one as soon as possible.
It’s amazing how quickly we can lose track of where all our money is going. It’s so easy for us to overspend and overestimate how much financial margin we actually have. A budget helps you combat that.
Amanda and I have one goal with our budget, to give every single dollar that comes into our household a name. The name we give each dollar is the specific assignment we give it. Some dollars are assigned to pay our electric bill and others are assigned to provide us with date nights.
We do this by using a tool called a zero-dollar budget where we take a look at our monthly income and disperse it out entirely among all of our expenses and savings. The goal is to have nothing left over that isn’t assigned to bills, savings, or misc. expenses.
A common misconception is that a budget brings restriction. That’s not true, because, in reality, it brings freedom!
This gives us freedom knowing that we actually have that money to spend. When we are on date night I know that we’ve specifically assigned our resources to allow for it and that we’ve allocated other dollars to meet our obligations and future needs.
Habit #3: Hold Monthly Budget Meetings
The monthly budget meeting is the way Amanda and I navigate our finances on a month-to-month basis. It’s the space and time we reserve to talk through important financial decisions.
We’ve found that without a regular check-in it’s easy for us to get mission drift and slip into confusion around ongoing financial decisions.
These meetings have become a part of our monthly rhythm and we typically schedule them for the first Saturday of the month. Our budget meetings generally only take us 45-60 minutes but it allows us to talk through any major financial decisions we need to make for that upcoming month.
The topics we generally cover are:
- Last month’s budget and expenses
- Talk through any areas where we are “out of budget”
- Share any extra large expenses we are expecting in the near future
- Adjust the budget as needed and agree on it
Being intentional to talk through these different topics helps us facilitate on-going communication that needs to happen for us to be on the same page financially. This means we aren’t ambushing each other with financial issues but can save them for this discussion when we are both prepared emotionally and mentally to tackle them as a team.
Habit #4: Have A Fully-Funded Emergency Fund
Amanda and I believe that financial margin is one of the 3 critical types of margin that your marriage needs in order to thrive.
According to the latest surveys, more than 78% of families are living paycheck to paycheck. If they were to get hit with any type of financial setback it would sink them.
It’s impossible to have financial peace and unity when you are constantly under-the-gun. The continual pressure of an impending financial setback is heavy and will create issues.
One way that we aim to remove this pressure from our marriage is by maintaining a healthy, fully-funded emergency fund. This is a savings amount that we only pull from only in the case of job loss or major financial setback.
Our goal is to keep the amount in the fund equal to 4-5 months of expenses. Having this security blanket has helped us have financial peace by relieving the pressure of one setback sinking the ship.
When I lost my job the week after returning from our honeymoon, having this emergency fund allowed me to find a great next step without having to jump at the most immediate opportunity.
Creating your emergency fund will take some time, but I’ve come realize just how foundational it is for us to experience financial peace.
What Are Financial Habits In Your Marriage That Help You Remain Unified?