Your Relationships Are Often Like Your Personal Finances.

Personal relationships can be similar to your personal finances. Your relationships take a lot of dedication, organization, communication, understanding, goal setting, deposits and withdrawals. Your finances need the exact same kind of work, planning, understanding, goal setting, deposits and withdrawals. both are inexplicably connected in many ways and if one encounters some form of obstacle the other will be directly affected. Here are a number of ways you can manage your money and your relationships and help both grow amazingly together.

GOAL SETTING: Where will you be in 5 or 10 years? This could be a wonderful conversation starter for you and your life partner. The beauty of this topic is managing money can easily be connected with relationship goals. Your partner may not be happy with his or her current occupation and has thoughts of opening his or her own business or going back to school. Together you could discuss what steps need to be taken to accommodate each of your unique hopes and dreams and not sink the financial boat. If you maintain this line of communication open you can set realistic goals in money and in life.

COMMUNICATION: This is likely the most important requirement for every solid relationship. Because many fights are over money it is important to maintain an open line of communication in everything else so that talking about money comes naturally. This means that any major purchase should be thoroughly talked about. just think about how angered you would be if your spouse came home one day with a $1500 plasma T.V. or a fifteen hundred dollar dress or fifteen hundred dollars in penny stocks. If you can talk about money, that is one less thing that could result in disagreement. Communication is key in relationships and in financial planning as well. By now, hopefully you are getting the point that I was trying to make, which is how personal relationships can be similar to your personal finances.

JOINT ACCOUNT: The age old question. Some feel that having a joint bank account is important because it displays an element of trust. Some people feel that it is wise to keep the personal finances separate from the relationship due to the freedom it creates. The problem is it can cause disruptions in your relationship. Why not have both? First you should discover what your bills are and what is left over at the end of the month. In my opinion a simple formula to use is both of you takes twenty percent from your paycheck every week to save into a personal account. That money is for you and you alone. You could use it to buy a fancy pair of shoes, baseball tickets or anything you want. The remaining eighty percent is placed into a joint account that covers living expenses such as food, mortgage, retirement planning, car payments etc.. That way if you want to treat yourself, you are using your cash to do so.

STAY ON THE SAME PAGE: This is extremely important. Know what’s going on. One of you could know a lot more when it comes to personal finances. There is nothing more enjoyable in a relationship then learning together and knowing the same things. If both of you know where the cash is going, how it is being invested and what investments to make there should always be an understanding. There is nothing more upsetting than when one partner makes a solo decision and loses everything. If you continually inform each other about financial opportunities and financial decisions it will be harder to make avoidable mistakes. As the saying goes, two minds are better than one.

I hope you can see how personal relationships can be similar to your personal finances. It is inevitable that you will encounter problems and not see eye to eye with your partner all of the time. Finances are one issue that can easily be avoided with an open line of communication, goal setting, planning and understanding. If you and your mate can communicate honestly about finances and have the right plan in place, your relationship with each other and with money will grow stronger and stronger every day.