You're married! Have you talked about finances?

Your wedding day has been and gone and now you can turn your attention to your lives as a married couple.

Have you talked about finances?  What do you want out of life?  Do you have the same financial goals as your new husband or wife?


Here's our guide to start you off in married life, for richer or for poorer.

What do you want?
Do you work to live or live to work?
You need to have the initial conversations with each other to make sure you are both thinking the same way about your finances. Money is often a big taboo subject, but having honest discussions about your wishes will establish if there are any differences in your views on how to handle your money.
Maybe one of you would like to save or have existing savings, the other may want to budget for holidays each year etc. Whichever way, be sure you are talking openly about your plans.

What's mine is yours
Do you already have a joint bank account? Will you now open one and put both your wages into one account or would you like to keep you money separate?
Many couples will have lived together for a while before the wedding so often these arrangements have already been made but after marriage you may like to reconsider or formalise your arrangements.
You may wish to consider that opening joint accounts links your credit reports.

Budget
We often find that one person oversees the finances in a marriage and sometimes this can cause friction if you have different ideas about your budget, so make a joint plan where you both understand your income and expenses. This can be as simple as listing all of your outgoings against your wage.
Do you go to the gym, do you need the latest Sky package? All these things that you may have just considered as a given need to be reviewed. What do you need and what do you want and does this fit in with your overall plans?

Protection
It's awful to think about it but what happens if the worst occurs?
Are you protected so that your mortgage and outgoings will be covered if one of you becomes critically ill or dies? If you plan to have children it’s a good way to ensure they would receive money to secure their futures if you were no longer there to provide for them.

Our advisers can talk to you about Life Insurance and Critical Illness Cover so that you have peace of mind whatever happens.

Write a will
Even if you already have a will it is likely that it will change or become invalid when you marry. If you've never had one - now's the time. A will ensures that what you have worked so hard for, passes to the people you decide at the right time.  We can guide you through the process so that you can ensure that your assets stay with your chosen people if the worst happens.

If you would like guidance on any aspect of your finances or to establish your long term financial goals together, speak to one of our advisers.