Evolving Personal Finance » marriage
Finding an New Balance Between Working and Caregiving
Six weeks ago, an acquaintance approached Kyle and me about a possible childcare swap. The other couple wanted to trade full days looking after one another’s children so that the primary caregiver could work per diem occasionally. They couldn’t afford to pay for childcare (childcare in Seattle is expensive, people!) so a swap was a good fit for them. I debated (with myself and with Kyle) whether to accept this offer for quite some time. The … Read entire article »
Filed under: family, marriage, parenthood, self-employment
Our New Money Management Issues
Kyle and I are 1.5 weeks into living apart but managing money together. This post is on my initial observations on the money management implications of my move to a new(ish) city, living apart from Kyle, and being paid in a lump sum for three months of work. I’m sure that over the course of my fellowship how we manage our finances will change a bit and I will have new insights by the end. Lump … Read entire article »
How Joint Money Management Is Keeping My Marriage Together
I have recently been thinking quite a lot about career transitions, two-body problems, and money in marriage. Kyle and I keep completely joint finances, which I think is a key reason that we are living in the same city and working together to optimize our two-body solution. If we had separate finances, things would probably look quite different… How We Got to Where We Are Kyle and I started dating when we were undergraduates, both graduating in … Read entire article »
What Do You Wish You Had Discussed before Marriage?
I have two questions for you today and I really want to get your answers in the comments! I’ve been thinking a lot recently about premarital preparation as I have a lot of friends who are engaged or newlyweds or are on their way to engagement. Because I believe that if you agree with your partner about your money you agree about your life to a great extent, I think that really hashing out in detail … Read entire article »
Filed under: marriage
What Constitutes Joint or Separate Finances?
I got into a (very polite) disagreement with Grayson from Debt Roundup in the comments section of his recent post, which argues that married couples should keep separate finances. (His post was in response to a recent debate Holly from Club Thrifty engaged in regarding joint finances – in print and on TV.) My position was that Grayson does not actually keep separate finances in his marriage because he and his wife have a joint … Read entire article »
Filed under: marriage
Why I Love Joint Finances
For those of you who don’t know already, my husband, Kyle, and I keep joint finances and we are advocates of joint finances for married couples. We have a completely joint money management system, which means that we have no separate money whatsoever, not even monthly ‘allowances.’ We have just one Mint account so it’s easy to keep track of our accounts and either one of us can check up on the activity at any … Read entire article »
Filed under: marriage
When Plans Change
I have a personal update for you today! It’s about how our protracted time to graduation has affected our plans, careers, and finances. I though we had some timelines and plans down, and then they were shot to heck, and now the picture is re-coming into focus. Grad School I’ve mentioned in my weekly wrap-ups here that for the past several weeks Kyle has been working around the clock on writing his dissertation. We were hoping that … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, cars, goals, marriage, personal, savings, spending, transitions
Who Is the Accountability Partner for What?
I had an interesting conversation with a couple of my FPU students a couple weeks ago. I was telling them about how much I like Republic Wireless and they asked if I am planning to upgrade my phone when they release the new one. I said that Kyle has been pushing me to upgrade but that I didn’t see the need – to me upgrading a functional smartphone after only one year of use seems … Read entire article »
Filed under: lifestyle creep, marriage, spending
Don’t Use Gifts to Avoid Joint Finances
I’m always surprised when married couples use gift-giving secrecy as a reason for having partially or completely separate finances. My opinion is that married couples should have joint finances (perhaps with “allowances”), although if a couple agrees to practice partial pooling or have separate finances I recognize it’s none of my business. I really think it’s silly when couples say that gifts are the reason that they don’t have completely joint finances. To be fair, I’ve … Read entire article »
Would Someone Date You After Seeing Your Taxes?
The inspiration for today’s post came from a very random place. I recently added a new podcast that answers listener questions, usually about relationships. One question was whether it is appropriate to ask someone out on a date in her place of work (like your waitress at a restaurant, for example). The hosts tried to think of various service relationships that come up in everyday life and how the customer might go about asking out … Read entire article »
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