relationship finances Archives

March 30, 2021

After the Wedding: Joining Accounts & More

Hey everyone, thank you or your well wishes and sweet notes. I’m married!

But guess what? Once you’re married and starting your happily ever after, you must still discuss finances. Now our conversations are changing. Initially, it was about budgeting for the wedding and now it’s all about what are we going to do with the gifts and cash from our wedding and the way we plan to manage our finances long term. Finances and plans for your future are always changing, and you should be having discussions about money regularly.

Communicate

Even if you have a primary person in the relationship who deals almost entirely with the money and the bills, you still need open communication between the two of you so that both are aware of where you are with savings goals, retirement funds, investments, and more. Just because you’re married doesn’t mean you should be ignorant of your finances! It should be a joint conversation, one you have every time something changes, or you get a raise, or when anything effects it.

You can track all of your accounts and purchases through Mint, which is a great way for Michael and I to stay on top of our spending and saving! You can even track special accounts like money markets and investment accounts through the Mint app.

Save Together

When you plan to buy a house, money is at the root of it. Do you have enough saved for a down payment, how much do you even need? These questions will need answers!

A great way to start saving for a house or other large purchase as a married couple is to open a money market account. A money market account is an interest-bearing account that typically pays a higher interest rate than a savings account, so you can save money faster and get a higher interest rate based on the market as a whole.

Money market accounts are insured by the FDIC and the portfolios typically invest in short-term, liquid securities. They are able to offer a higher interest rate by requiring a higher minimum balance, and by placing restrictions on the number of withdrawals the account holder may take over a given period of time. This all makes them fantastic savings accounts, especially when you and your partner are saving for a big purchase!

There are also annual vacations, possible future children, and other things to plan for that require money. You will also want to start thinking about investing if you have the money to do so. A joint investment account is a great way to start working towards your long-term goals.

Invest Together

Many married couples choose to invest together. You can invest in stocks, bonds, bitcoin, mutual funds, anything you want! Investing can be fun, but you are also using real money and should make sure that you agree about the goals of your investments!

You can open a joint account through a brokerage firm such as TD Ameritrade and Merrill Edge, both of whom do not have an account minimum that you have to meet. This means you don’t have to always have $1000 in the account (like Charles Schwab) or $2500 (looking at you, Scottrade).

A brokerage account is one between an investor and a licensed brokerage firm that allows the investor to deposit funds with the firm and then they place the investment orders for you. Even though that might sounds weird, that’s actually very common. All four firms listed above are online stock brokers, which is just a person or an institution licensed to buy and sell stocks and other securities via the market exchanges.

Do research and figure out what investments work best for you, and remember that retirement accounts and real estate are investments, as well. Also, the stock brokers all have customer support and financial advisors that can answer some questions, especially about previous results of investments and they can walk you through the trading process.

Seek an Expert

If you are unsure about budgets and investing or what is best for you, consider using a certified financial advisor to help make sure you are on track for all your goals. They can also recommend investments!

Michael and I agreed to invest our money from our gifts into real estate, while also investing in our apartment with a little makeover (and by little I mean new furniture, new artwork and a new bed). We planned ahead and used our credit card to pay for parts of the wedding and received a large lump sum of points to go on our honeymoon to Mexico!

Thank you for coming all on this journey with me!

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Jessica Naziri is the founder of TechSesh.co, a lifestyle website for women inspired by tech. She has been a technology news reporter for The Los Angeles Times, CNN and CNBC.com. Since then, her work has also appeared in TechCrunch, The Washington Post, Mashable, CBS, The Travel Channel, CNN, NPR, USA Today, Inside Edition, Yahoo!, and Business Insider.

Follow Jessica on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or reach out directly via email Hello@techsesh.co.

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March 29, 2021

How To Create A Wedding Budget

Let’s be real, here. Weddings are expensive! Whether you’re paying for it yourself or you have amazing family members helping you. But no matter who is paying for it, you need to make and stick to a budget in your planning process.

Luckily, Mint has a budgeting tool and makes it easy to stick to your plans and set goals for yourself and your money.

Creating Your Budget in Mint

In the Mint app, click on “budgets” in the menu. You’ll see some suggested budgets, such as Transportation, which you can customize, you’ll see a categorization of all of your expenses, and you’ll be able to create a budget.

Click on “Create a Budget” and create your category. You set the amount, and Mint will let you know if you are staying within it! Mint lets you plan ahead and see how much you’ll save cutting back in any category. You can even plan for one-time-only expenses and recurring monthly expenses and show you exactly how your spending decisions affect the money you have at the end of the month or year.

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Don’t Forget To Consider…

When it comes to weddings, there are so many different things that you’ll be paying for, like food, music, alcohol, flowers, decor, the venue, invitations, and more! In order to create a realistic budget, you have to do a couple of things:

Discuss savings and money with your fiancé to decide a realistic amount you can afford to spend without going into debt
Decide what TYPE of wedding you want.
- For example, if you have it at a hotel, you’ll save some money by having the ceremony and reception be at the same location, and not having to book separate venues or pay for transportation for you and your guests from one location to another.
- Another example is an outdoor wedding. Many people don’t realize that you have to rent those big tents, but also have to pay for generators or extension cords and lighting, in order to get electricity outside, as well as rent tables, flatware, chairs, etc, things that may come with indoor venues.
Once you know how much you can afford to be the wedding budget, you will start deciding what percent of the budget goes to which part of the wedding. Typically, over 50% of the entire budget will be for the reception alone, because of the food, music, decor costs, along with the venue, any photo booth or anything extra you choose to do.
You’ll be able to see at a glance “Ok, my dress budget is 5% of the total budget, so I am looking for a dress in this $ range.”

Weddings are expensive and it is easy to wrack up higher costs without even realizing how quickly things add up. Account for things like transportation, dress alterations, and a wedding cake (usually a separate cost from the catering).

To find a list of all of the things you should be accounting for or thinking about in your wedding budget, look at lists such as this one from The Knot or this one from Real Simple. You can find wedding checklists in many places, but they will give you an idea of all of the details.

Track Your Spending

Once you have your budget in mind and where you’ll be spending different parts of it, you’ll need to create a spreadsheet, use Mint, or another tool, to track your spending on each part so that you always know where you are with your money.

Part of being an adult is learning to really control your money and budget for the things you want. Mint can help you build and stick to a budget, but also save for it, too! Next time, we’ll talk about money after the wedding.

Follow Jessica on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or reach out directly via email Hello@techsesh.co.

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March 26, 2021

What To Discuss For a Healthy Financial Future

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When it comes to a healthy relationship, it’s very important to talk about money management, how you’re going to budget, save, everything. Joining two lives is complicated enough without forgetting to talk about how you’re going to use money, split bills, and plan for your future.

Things like buying a home or a car, or annual vacations need to be budgeted for, and there must be an agreement between you both about how money is spent and saved. If you don’t take the time to lay it all out early on, you may both be surprised in a negative way later. You really want to be on the same page when it comes to money, or it will lead to arguments and resentment.

Here are some things that you and your significant other need to discuss, in order to have a healthy financial future:

Salaries.

You will likely have a salary disparity. One of you will make more, and together you’ll need to decide a fair way of splitting bills.

For example, if one of you make a lot more than the other, then 50/50 split may not be fair, OR if 50/50 is very important to you both, then you will need to adjust your lifestyle accordingly, so that the lower earning partner can afford half while still saving money each month.
Or maybe 60/40 works best for you, and that allows you both to be spending the same proportional amount of income towards bills.

Credit score.

You are your partner should both get your credit checked, so that there are no surprises. Ideally, this should be done once a year! You should know what each other’s score is, and learn how to improve your score over time, such as with paying credit cards on time, or having bills in your name.

Credit score impacts your ability to buy cars, houses, and more, so if one of you has a very low score, you may need to adjust whether or not you can buy a house on a certain timeline, or using both names on the mortgage. It can also impact the amount you can get for a mortgage, because you would only be using one name and one salary to apply.

Credit cards.

How are you, as a couple, planning to pay your bills? Will you split individual bills, or use a shared credit card to pay for everything and split the final total at the end of the month? How you plan to pay your bills and use shared finances like credit cards is important to discuss ahead of time.

You should also make sure that you agree on the type of credit card to get. Do you want points, miles, etc.
You also need to discuss responsibility for credit cards. Make sure you both have the same outlook. For example, some people pay off their card every month and only put on cards what they have readily available, which is a smart way of thinking of them.

Debt.

This one is VERY important to talk about before combining finances. Once you’re married, debt basically becomes shared. You should both be extremely honest about any student loans, mortgage debts, credit card debts, or others. Paying off unexpected debts can breed resentment in couples, and should be discussed before you get married!

If either of you do have large debts, you both need to sit down and make a reasonable and realistic plan for tackling it. That plan might be just the debtor’s money, or it could be the combined money, but it must be planned for.

Savings.

All of your monthly expenses and budgeting needs to account for saving money monthly, too. How much do you and your partner think is a good amount to save every month? How much have they saved previously? Experts say that you should always have 3-6 months worth of bills saved at any given time, in case of emergencies like an unexpected job loss.

How will you keep your savings? You can invest it, keep it in a savings account or money market account, or many other options.
You should also discuss what you are saving FOR. Are you going to start a separate vacation fund, or house fund, etc, if you’re earmarking money for specific things and goals.

Retirement.

Just like savings, this one is also very important. If your partner is not saving for retirement, like in a 401 (k) or an IRA, will your retirement savings be enough to keep both of you afloat? This is another place where if it is not discussed and decided, it can sneak up on you both and be a huge problem later in life. Just because you are young doesn’t mean you can ignore retirement savings. In fact, when you’re young is the best time to start worrying about retirement!

These are some of the things that you have to discuss and make plans for when you are combining lives and finances.

Mint is just one way to put everything in one place and have clear goals to work towards, as well as have everything organized and accessible. Next time, I am going to talk to you about budgeting for a wedding together!

Follow Jessica on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or reach out directly via email Hello@techsesh.co.

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