Tag: debt

There are many advantages of home ownerships, but it ain’t all roses and peach n’ cream and such. Before making (probably) the biggest financial decision of your life, you should do your homework. If you don’t, your dream can very well turn into your greatest financial nightmare.

Let’s face this reality, some people out there have no business owning a home at all, ever. Most of you, however, will eventually buy a home and be perfect homeowners. You just need to do a little legwork and for some of you, address a few poor early 20’s life choices.

Love is blind, or so it’s said, but when it comes to long-term relationships, there are some differences you can’t hide from forever. This is especially true when it comes to your financial compatibility. A multitude of studies have suggested that the No. 1 source of stress in many relationships is disagreement over money-related issues. Sometimes these disagreements can even lead to divorce for married couples.

Whether you’ve been married five days or five years, it’s never too late to start to have financial conversations with your spouse, because if you don’t start to have them now, when you go to make your next major purchase you may be in for a rude awakening. This can be a nerve-wracking conversation, but luckily there are some technologies available to make it easier to tackle the conversation and understand where you stand on topics such as budget, debt and progress.

The tendency to let financial decision-making unfold in relationships without prior planning and communication leads money to be a top contender in couple conflict. All of us have beliefs about money that we bring into marriage, beliefs about how it is all going to work, but too often we do not articulate these beliefs to our partner. Our money beliefs are created, often subconsciously, with influence from our families, society, and gender-related expectations. Often, neither spouse knows what the other expects nor how his or her partner’s beliefs will mesh with his or her own. Hence, the struggle over money.

"Secrets close doors between people. The secret-keeper has to skirt important subjects and becomes silent when the conversation gets too close." ~ Jane Isay

Can we keep secrets in our marriage and expect it to thrive?  Intimacy is predicated on our ability to expose all of ourselves to someone we love. The ideal behind this idea is the belief that true love will cover the multitude of wrongs. If we're naked and exposed with all of our flaws, yet still loved, then there must be something worthwhile about us after all.

For couples today, a cheating spouse can mean more than the betrayal of a physical affair. While it may not be the first type of infidelity one thinks of, there is a new form of unfaithfulness that many couples are feeling the pain of: financial infidelity. From hidden debt to secret expenditures, lying about finances can cause a marriage to go into default.

Fortunately, there are certain indicators that can help a spouse detect the onset of financial infidelity and take action to fix any financial issues they may be facing. If a spouse’s behavior with money begins to shift and become out of character, it is vital to confront them and manage the problems before they snowball out of control.

Look, I’ve been in your shoes. You buy and buy and charge and buy for 30 days. Then, early Christmas morning as you’re putting the finishing touches on building a tricycle that’s only taken 10 hours to complete, you look at all the presents under the tree and discover a six-inch gap between the wall of presents.

Yikes! There are not enough presents! How will your children live with this gap? How will you live with yourself?