Ever had a “small” discussion with your significant other about money that was stressful?  Relationships by themselves take work, combine that with managing money and let’s just say, it can take up the work a notch or two.  Why? Because we all have DIFFERENT FINANCIAL DNA, so we are not going to always agree, at first 😉. Financial DNA is made up of 3 things:

• Money Personality– your tendencies when it comes to money. (Saver or Spender)
• Money Habits– how you behave with money. (Budgeter or Go with the flow)
• Past Money Experiences– were your experiences positive or negative.

Too often people neglect to discuss money at the beginning of relationships, so you don’t often know how the other manages money or if you are financially compatible.  Some of the challenges for couples when it comes to managing money is they:

• Don’t talk about money
• Keep financial secrets
• Have different attitudes towards money (Different financial DNA)
• View money behaviors as character traits rather than habits
• Think that compromise is not an option

Being financially incompatible doesn’t have to mean the end of a relationship (unless you are just totally incompatible 😉), it just means that it will take extra effort to make it work. Look, managing money is a normal part of life, managing it with stress doesn’t have to be. 

Here are my tips on managing you, your spouse and money together moving forward without stress. 

Learn Each Other’s Money Personality

Take a money personality quiz so you can find out exactly what both of your personality’s are.  This is not the time to guess, it’s helpful to actually find out your personality and see it in writing.  Once you find out you can read about the characteristics and habits so that you are more understanding of each other’s behaviors and can keep the emotions out of your reactions.

List the Challenges of Past Conversations

Since you’re getting a fresh start, think about past conversations and make a list of things that worked and didn’t work when it came to money discussions.  Was there a setting or atmosphere when it didn’t work?  Was one person doing all of the talking?

Decide TOGETHER How Money Will be Managed

Hey, we all have things that we are good at and things that we aren’t good at.  Decide who is best at what when it comes to managing money and assign each person a role.  The roles may be “Chief Financial Officer” or “Budget Manager”.  Titles aren’t really important but the responsibilities of the title are.  Keep in mind that no matter what role you’re assigned it is still a team effort.

Communicate

This is KEY.  It may not always be an easy conversation so find ways that work best for difficult conversations.  For instance, sending an email or setting an agenda to give a heads up as to what the conversation will be about or setting a specific time so that it’s convenient for everyone.  Trying to have a difficult money conversation when the other person isn’t ready can lead to emotional reactions.  Speaking of emotions, put off having conversations when emotions are high.  Being calm helps to drive the conversation to solutions instead of finger pointing.

We GOALS

You’re together for a reason, you committed to being a team so act like it.  Think about the money goals you jointly want to achieve.  It’s okay to have a couple of individual goals but make sure it doesn’t impact the WE goals.

Commit to NO SECRETS

Missing this step puts can put the relationship in the danger zone. Under NO circumstances should you ever hide anything about your finances no matter how hard it is going to be to discuss, whether it’s getting back into debt after you both agreed not to or buying an expensive item when the goal was to save for the family trip. SECRETS are against the rules!

Hopefully, these tips will help you and your spouse to have less stressful conversations.  I know that they have helped my money conversations tremendously.

What is the most difficult money conversation you’ve had?

Getting started sometimes may require an outside perspective.  If you’re still not sure how to transition into less stressful money conversations, let’s talk. The Couples and Money Session may be just for you, start with scheduling a free consultation.