All in Relationships
You can never be truly prepared when a spouse or partner dies. Don't be afraid to ask for help during this time. Keep in mind that the grieving process takes time and takes on so many different forms. On top of the heavy loss, there's also the need to contend with the current to-do list of life. This list focuses on the financial aspect, but as we know life is more than just about money, so please don't hesitate to find yourself the necessary therapy to help with your healing.
"I've never wanted to be a lady who lunches; I've always wanted to be a woman who works."
Financial independence is about living life on your own terms. Money is a tool, it’s neither good or bad. Sometimes though, money can make people feel trapped, especially if it’s money that is not your own. If you are up on your royal family news, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, aka Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, announced that they are “charting a new course” with how to find the balance of being part of the royal family while also leading separate, independent lives. This appeared to be an unprecedented move from “senior” royal family member, basically denouncing a part of their royal responsibilities. What struck me about their decision and goal was the additional phrase that they needed “to become financially independent.”
“To care for those who once cared for us is one of the highest honors.”
I never thought I would write this or be adult enough to have a discussion with my parents about finances, but it happened and it's been happening folks. I feel like the more I talk about money, the more comfortable I am getting and the more people around me are also getting comfortable talking about it.
"Select a partner carefully. Your spouse should have the same characteristics that are compatible with success."
A few months ago, I came across the Zeta Platform. I wish this tool was around when my then boyfriend, now husband first got together. I'm probably the one that pushed a lot of this personal finance stuff on my husband, but I don't regret any of it one bit because by the time we got married, we were significantly better of had we not talked about it. Because I'm a fan of having that financial conversation early on and I'm a fan of helpful technology, I found Zeta to fit the bill so I wanted to share it with you all today.
“When you invest, you are buying a day that you don’t have to work.”
There's many reasons why I wanted to start this site. You can find that here. After reading many personal finance books for women, written by women (and men), I don't think these five reasons are addressed enough. While I am all for equal gender pay, there are still some areas where men and women differ and these reasons are why we need to be addressing women's personal finances differently.
50 years. That’s how long it took to get rid of the “marriage penalty” in our federal tax system. What’s even worst is that some people never even knew it existed. The marriage penalty arose if two married individuals, both earning income, paid more in taxes if they file with under “married filing jointly” than if they filed taxes separately under the “single” tax status. How is this possible? It’s because the income tax brackets from single status did not rise in proportion to the marriage filing jointly tax bracket.
My husband and I started our FIRE (Financial Independence/Retire Early) journey in the spring of 2017. We agreed that we both wanted to reach FIRE but figuring out how to get there has been a bit of a sticking point. There have been countless discussions about the best approach to get there. He says our focus should be to earn more so we can save for the future and allow ourselves to indulge in the luxuries of life (i.e. steak dinners). While I agree to some extent, I think our focus should be on spending less since this is more of a controllable factor. Now I’m not suggesting we eat ramen noodles for every meal, but there’s nothing wrong with being more cost conscious.
I picked up another personal finance book from the library. Another oldie, but a goodie from Suze Orman: Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny. There's a section in there where she talks about Saving for Your Kid's College vs. Saving For Your Retirement. Suze, like she always does, keeps it real.
The reality is that if you retire without ample money to support yourself, you will become a financial burden on your children. So understand that the most generous decision you can make today - for yourself and your children - is to build as much financial security as you can, so that down the line the only thing you ask your kids for is more time with them and the grandkids, not financial aid.
A man is not a financial plan.
I recently read an article on Yahoo! News "Confessions of a Divorce Lawyer" where a divorce lawyer runs through some of the common mistakes that her clients run into. The number #1 mistake was "People don't know enough about their spouse's finances." This is the kind of thing that drives me crazy.
Let's talk money, honey!
I met my boyfriend (now my husband) on Valentine's Day. As with any relationship, our path to becoming "official" took some time. By the time we became official, we had known each for months already. Earlier on in our relationship, we've always been pretty open about the range of topics we would discuss. From family to work to goals and dreams, nothing seemed out of the question to discuss. While we both didn't know how serious we were going to be, to me it was never too early to start thinking about the future.
Dual income, no kids? Take advantage.
A few years ago, while working in IT, my co-workers which were mostly men always talked about this concept of DINKs. As a 22 year old, I had no idea what that meant. I had never heard of the term before and was pretty surprised that a term like this existed. For those that are not familiar, DINK stands for Dual Income, No Kids. It describes a childless couple where both partners work. For a period of time, many couples will fall into this category as they settle into married life. I wanted to bring this concept up because there's an opportunity here if we stop to take a full look at it. Mainly, it's the opportunity to really coral all of your finances and set yourself up for Financial Independence before kids are in the picture. What can this look like?
What's fun about commitment?
When we have our life to live
Yeah, we're just young dumb and broke
But we still got love to give
I'm sure by now you've heard of Khalid's latest single, "Young, Dumb and Broke." It's pretty catchy and once you hear it, it's hard to get it out of your head, but there's a lesson in his lyrics if we look closely.
