• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Dinks Finance

Dinks Finance

Personal Finance By and For Couples

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Smart or Selfish
  • Couples Finance
  • Make Extra Money
  • Build Wealth
  • Blogroll
  • About

Getting Together, Getting Hitched, Prenups and More

May 31, 2019 by James Hendrickson Leave a Comment


Embarking upon a new relationship is a wonderful time in life—emotions are running high and you have ton of optimism about the future you will build together. The last thing you want to do is jeopardize your love by discussing mundane things like who brings home the bacon. But when you are getting together issues related to money are inevitably going to come up. Whether you are a same sex couple or not, or just cohabitating, you might consider discussing your finances together.

Getting Together Finance Questions

1. Will you keep your finances separate and contribute only a specific amount to a joint checking account to pay for mutual household expenses?
2. If you establish a joint household account, will you contribute an equal amount or an amount proportionate to each person’s earnings?
3. Will you keep your retirement accounts separate at work but comingle mutual savings or investment accounts for things like a home or child’s education?
4. Will you maintain separate accounts for assets acquired before marriage? (Hint: if you never change title to an account acquired before marriage and do not add it during marriage, its less likely to be considered a marital asset).
5. Will you share your investment strategies so that your future investment plans are well balanced?
6. How would these agreements change if you had children, or a parental health crisis, and one of you had to take a temporary but unpaid leave of absence from work?
7. In the case of a second or third marriage, are you in agreement about how previous child support and spousal maintenance payments will be made? Are you willing to create an estate plan that provides for children of a previous marriage?

Take disagreements seriously and attempt to resolve them now. As sure as the sun rises in the morning, your disagreements aren’t going to go away after you’ve been together for a while. Also, be prepared for some frustration and potentially long protracted negotiation. Even couples who strongly agree on finances and family questions can have very different perceptions about the significance and value of money. It can sometimes take a long time and an extensive series of negotiations to resolve these issues.

What about a pre-nuptual agreement?

A lot of people seem to feel that prenups take the romance out of marriage – well this may happen eventually in any event – so it makes sense to plan ahead. Often when a marriage or relationship starts to unravel, agreements arrived at in advance can help mitigate some of the worse possible outcomes.
Also, prenups are good for removing the concerns that couples may have about getting married. For example, I had a friend who was interested in marrying a woman who was irresponsible with her money. My friend’s family figured this out pretty quickly while they were dating, and wouldn’t support the marriage unless his wife to be signed a pre-nup. They ended up signing and divorcing a few weeks later, which just goes to show you that a pre-nuptul agreement can help remove people’s concerns about getting married, even if the marriage may not be a good idea.

But, we digress…to get back on the topic. Each party in the prenuputal agreements should be represented separately by competent legal council when you are getting the process the agreement drawn up. Also you and your partner should reveal your true financial picture to set an open and honest tone to the negotiations to prevent later problems. A lot of people believe that what people don’t know doesn’t hurt them, but the reality is being dishonest or withholding information sets a poor tone for future negotiations and can lead to long term trust issues. In addition to raising issues of trust, failure to fully disclose your assets might be legal grounds for having the pre-nup voided in court.

Prenups are highly flexible. Prenup agreements usually specify property to be divided. They can also set terms under which the couples assets will be divided and the financial terms under which the parties agree to live during the marriage. They do have some limitations; pre-nuputal agreements don’t usually cover agreements about children and they are almost always constrained by State and Federal laws.

Finally, prenups should not be power plays where one partner seeks to dominate or exert his or her will over the other. A properly negotiated prenuputal agreement should be in the best interests of both parties. So, no matter what your circumstances, it is not unromantic to ask for one.

For more on this check out:

Bankrate.com’s series on prenup basics

Holiday’s, Prenups and personal goals

Prenups, better safe than sorry

What to discuss before you get married

Prenup basics

Filed Under: Couples Tagged With: couples, couples and money, couples finance, couples money, prenups

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Join Our Newsletter
  Thank you for Signing Up
Please correct the marked field(s) below.

1,true,6,Contact Email,21,false,1,First Name,21,false,1,Last Name,2




Redventures

 

 

Couples Finance

  • What Dave Ramsey’s Take On marriage Is Missing
  • Tips For Newly Married Couples
  • Getting Together, Getting Hitched
  • Prenup Basics
  • Manage Your Money Together

Great Finance Blogs

  • My Stock Market Basics
  • Cafe Credit
  • Clever Dude
  • Modest Money
  • Mighty Bargain Hunter
  • Frugal Rules
  • Young Adult Money
  • Money Talks News
  • Saving Advice
  • Peer Finance 101
  >> Our *entire* blogroll

Companies Supporting The DINKS

Please consider visiting our gracious supporters:



Great Investing: Get Stock Advisor for Just $99/year

7binaryoptions.com: Your one stop information source for trading binary options.

My Dissertations  Hire an outstanding PhD editor and graduate today!

Myhomeworkdone.com provides homework help any time of the day, 24/7!

123 Term Papers works hard to deliver you a great term paper!

Get the Latest Coupon and Discount Codes at Freecouponcodes.net.

The best cheap web traffic that comes in handy for your website traffic needs.

Shop till you drop and discounted offers with Shopee promo codes.

Compare business electricity prices at utilitysavingexpert.com

cheap shopping online at DHgate.com

Footer

Get Started

  • Make Money As An Amateur Photographer
  • The Pros and Cons Of Mutual Funds
  • Building Wealth On $600 A Month
  • Yes, You can Buy An Oil Well
  • Kimball Musk’s Net Worth
  • Nine Ways To Make Extra Money

Explore

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

COPYRIGHT © 2020 Dual Income No Kids DinksFinance.com is a District Media site.