Archive for Finances
Part Two: Finances and the Late Bloomer Marriage
Posted by: | CommentsLast Thursday, I wrote about how Husband and I manage our finances (mostly from a day-to-day standpoint). Today, below are some questions for you to answer that may provide direction around the larger issues, such as retirement, healthcare and insurance planning, nest eggs, children’s college education funds and other large investment-oriented decisions.
First, you are going to have to talk to each other about it. I know this seems obvious, but I cannot believe how many women don’t want to broach this subject with their “intendeds” or new husbands. The intimidation factor seems alive and well. I get the sense that many of these LBBs just don’t want to rock the boat now that they’ve found “the one.”
Well, start rocking.
I’ve learned that asking questions is a good place to start. It’s less confronting somehow. Below are some things to consider and questions to ask your partner that will help get your set up for decision-making:
- Know who you are marrying (or married to). Ask yourself what you’ve witnessed to date. Is he/she a saver? A spender? A planner? Now ask him or her who they think they are. Do they match?
- Determine your values, long-term goals, and dreams for the future. Now ask him or her what their ideas are. Do they match? If not, can that be resolved? If not, are you prepared to financially support your ideas without him or her? Are you able to watch him fund something you wouldn’t spend a nickel on? (Trust me, he or she probably thinks the same about one of your hobbies, too.)
- If children are involved (either planned for or currently around), make those financial decisions early. How do you both feel about paying for their first car? Their college? Their jail bailout? (On that last one, seriously know the answer. Life is known to throw you curve balls at the most inopportune time.)
- Know when and how you want to retire or make a career shift. At what age, ideally, do you want to stop working? Do you want to stop working altogether or morph it into something more meaningful where money is no longer the goal? By when? How much money will you need? And, are you committed to putting away enough?
- Where do you want to retire? Husband actually mentioned leaving the U.S. once to me, which begged the question – Mexican village or Swiss chalet? It makes a difference.
- Understand how you’ll deal with the larger health issues, especially the unpredictable ones. They are usually expensive no matter what way you cut it. How is your health? Do you both take care of yourselves? Could you do this better? How can you support one another here? How much insurance (health insurance, long-term care, etc.) do you need? What are your assets if you need to liquidate some to handle health issues? And, are you prepared to do that for each other?
Some of these questions may beg the obvious answer, as in well, of course I’d sell my antique baseball card collection to take care of her hospital bills.
But, not so fast. Remember, you found each other later in life. There are fully-formed ideas swimming in your partner’s brain that you may not be aware of.
What if he believes selling the house and moving to a smaller condo is the answer? And, your dream was to die in that wonderful house? You could give a flip about the baseball cards.
And, then there are the “others.” There are other people in their lives, from children to friends, some of whom may have been around longer than you. They may have opinions, carry much weight with your partner and can sway (snap) decision-making. So, if you and your partner have determined these things early (and have things in writing early), it will make those unexpected life changes easier to deal with.
Any more questions you believe are imperative to ask?
Disclaimer: Again, I am not formally providing financial (or health) advice. This is just me telling you about my experiences and what has worked for us. Please speak with your accountant, attorney, tax guy or whoever you go to for real advice around finances. 
Part One: Finances and the Late Bloomer Marriage
Posted by: | CommentsIf you get married for the first time later in life, a little issue will arise sooner than later. Money.
While all couples are advised to handle this issue tout de suite (and before the wedding), the late bloomer bride has a few complications thrown in that our younger counterparts probably do not have to deal with right away. Just by the nature of being older means a number of things:
- You probably have money of your own
- You hopefully have some retirement funds set aside
- You might have children to consider
- You really should be thinking about health issues and how they already or may impact your future financial status
- You most certainly already have ideas about money
- You most definitely have thoughts about the level of comfort, joy, dream-fulfillment and other goodies
Recently, several late bloomers have asked me for direction in finding good advice on how to deal with money when coupling for the first time.
First, see our article section on finances.
Next, I thought I’d go ahead and give a peek under our kimono so you could see how Husband and I handle our finances.
(Minor digression: It’s hard to imagine now that just a few decades ago we would not be having this conversation. Not too long ago, the men brought home the pig and the women “oohed” and “ahhed” over his hunting skills while making brisket, sloppy joes and all other manners of good eats from said pig. But, today? Well, Women influence 85% of all consumer purchases in the U.S. and wield over $5 trillion in purchasing power. And, if you are over 40 and contemplating marriage, the last thing you want is someone (man or woman) telling you what to do with your dough. But, yes, LBBs, there are strategies available to you.)
For five years Husband’s and my system has worked beautifully. It goes like this. We have several, separate financial “buckets,” including
- Our joint checking account
- His personal accounts
- My personal accounts
- His retirement accounts
- My retirement account
Husband and I have an arrangement where we split all joint expenses 50-50. The joint checking account is used for mortgages, groceries, dining out together, the utilities, vacations, etc. We have a semi-budget and put that much in each month.
(We do not get crazy around the grocery bill, either. Husband eats his weight in cereal and milk while he cannot keep up with my wine consumption. I figure it works out, financially, in the end. I never understood those couples who have a list on the refrigerator around who eats what and who pays for what gets eaten (or drunk). But, to each his own.)
For the joint account, I had suggested a percentage based on our incomes. That way if one of us made more money, then the other would pony up more. Then, in the end, we would both be giving equally based on what we had. No, he wanted an equal split. Okay, then.
We also have our own accounts. Husband doesn’t know what I do with it (or just how many online sites have “stored” my credit card for easy one-click shopping). He doesn’t care. Well, he probably cares. But, he figures it’s my business. As for him, most of the time I don’t know how much money is exchanged to get those boxes the UPS man delivers that are marked “airplane parts.” It doesn’t matter so long as the bills get paid and the retirement accounts stay robust.
Where it can get really sticky is around retirement, healthcare and insurance planning, nest eggs, children’s college education funds and other large investment-oriented decisions. This is where sitting down, talking and planning becomes imperative. My advice? Check out Monday’s post, where I’ll try to provide some direction.
Disclaimer: I am not formally providing financial (or health) advice. This is just me telling you about my experiences and what has worked for us. Please speak with your accountant, attorney, tax guy or whoever you go to for sage advice around finances. After all, you don’t want someone who paid $200 for a hair-dryer the only one giving you advice now, do you?
Gird Your Loins. Marriage and Taxes.
Posted by: | CommentsI am a word person. Always have been. You can play with them, re-order them, make them say all kinds of interesting and creative things. Numbers? Well, I only like them when they are really, really big, sitting in my checkbook not committed to anything in particular. Just waiting for me to log on to www.zappos.com.
Husband is a numbers person. Taxes, financials, accounting. He does it all. He likes to order them, file them, basically beat them into submission. I do believe I have married the only man on the planet who gets positively giddy when the UPS man delivers the new year’s tax code book. Seriously. See this?
That’s Husband holding the tax code. He is smiling, he says, because this rather thick book is filled with all kinds of goodies about deductions.
When Husband first brought up marriage with me, he quickly backtracked saying we should just live together. It’d be cheaper, he announced. He’s right. Marriage has not been kind to our tax status.
Recently, I came across an interesting article from the UK on how couples are wedding later in life. The line that got me was: The figures sparked, once again, a debate over whether married couples should enjoy tax breaks.
In the U.K., according to this article, it has been calculated that approximately 1.8 million low-earning couples are materially worse off than their single parent counterparts, losing on average £1,336 a year because they live together.
I made a huge mistake in mentioning this to Husband. (One thing you learn early in marriage is that timing is everything. You have to know when to bring up stuff.)
Mentioning this blog post, in development, gave him an excuse to rail about Congress, the current administration, the mounting national debt (or the national black hole), and how I still haven’t printed out some report form Quickbooks that he needs, like, yesterday.
But, this is not unusual. Every time tax time comes around, Husband grumbles about how much more money we’d make it we were just legally single and living together.
According to this year’s tax code, the marriage penalty starts, Husband says, somewhere between $86,000 and $137, 000 – jointly. Quite a spread. And, if we made the low end, well, we’d have to live with my mother. Forget being married.
The tax ramifications around marriage are different for every couple. So, just for grins, I googled.
- Marriage and Taxes from the Groom Grove (don’t ya just love that title)?
- Bad Tax Idea: Getting married without checking on the tax ramifications, by Profitable
- The Marriage Calculator: Financial Consequences of Marriage Decisions by the US Dept of Health & Human Services
- The Myth of the Marriage Penalty by Liz Pulliam Weston on MSN Money
- Getting Married by TurboTax
- Marriage Penalty: I don’t think so by Living Single blogger Bella DePaulo, published by Psychology Today
Read it and weep.
(Note to all readers: I am NOT giving out tax advice. You’ll need someone much smarter with numbers than me for that. Talk to your accountant.)
Shifting Financial Roles in Today’s Marriage
Posted by: | CommentsI’m not sure how I feel about this. A new report from Pew Research Center came out this month that shows Husbands around the country are making financial gains by being married. This is new, apparently. Wives are bringing bacon to the table like nobody’s business and men are, economically-speaking, the better for it.
Historically, women had to get married to reach certain economic thresholds. But, now due to women making their own money (and sometimes lots of it), they are actually adding to men’s financial status (versus the other way around). Also, as of December 2009, women account for 47.4% of the workforce – a new record.
Yeah, for us.
I am cheering inside that women are finally making gains in the workforce, being paid higher (though still not equal) wages, and having more choice than ever around career, motherhood and marriage. (Another threshold has been hit: a marked decline in the number of Americans who are married at all. Among U.S.-born 30- to 44-year-olds, 60% were married in 2007, compared with 84% in 1970. In other words – if you want to get married, go ahead. If you don’t, don’t.)
Another part of me grew worried about this economic trend. And, I think it has to do with the way the news is being reported. It all sounds like men and women are, once again, being pitted against one another. Like who is winning and who is losing, who brings the most and who doesn’t. Ick.
Don’t get me wrong. I was raised by a feminist (seriously – she was part of the League of Women Voters and everything). I appreciate the gains made in male-female relationships and roles. So do a lot of people – men included.
About million years ago (being facetious), my college poetry teacher talked about the women’s movement one day in class. He said he was so relieved. It meant the full burden of being the breadwinner, the strong one, the everything in a relationship was being lifted. He could finally share “the load.” At the time it sounded quite enlightened. (He was interested in my roommate at the time, so there may have been some other intentions there, too. But, I digress.)
However, I do believe, if I was single I would have heard this news in one way. (Again, yeah, for us.) Now that I’m married I hear this news under a different perspective. I am thinking – how can I make sure Husband – who also has heard of this news — continues to be empowered to 1) do fulfilling work and 2) bring home lots of bacon for it? I mean, I don’t want him to feel emasculated. (He tells me he’s not that delicate.) I also don’t want women to feel the pressure either. Something more equal would be nice. I really only want one leg of the marital pants – not the whole garment.
This Pew report was carried everywhere (newspapers, on Good Morning America, online, you name it). Some of the headlines simply talked about how marriage was becoming more equal, economically speaking. Other headlines were waving a flag like we’ve won a war or something. “Marriage Benefits Men More Than Women,” “The Rise of Wives,” “Modern Marriages: The Rise of the Sugar Mama,” and “Women’s Earning Power Shifts Economics of Marriage” to name a few.
In society we have rewarded men for their ambition. They must all want to be CEOs to be considered valuable. (Personally, I take issue with this. Ambition comes in all forms.) But, we may have created an impossible scenario for them, leading us to believe that this news (women actually adding to the marital pot of gold) is actually really, really big news. Not only should they all be CEOs, but they all should watch out because women are hot on their tails (economically speaking, that is).
I’m not so sure it’s nice to imply a group (in this case: men) are falling behind. And, that someone else is winning. I want equality, not overtaking.
Am I being oversensitive?
Below are some reports, research and commentary on this whole topic, if you’d like to read more:
- Pew Research Center Report: Women, Men and the New Economics of Marriage (executive summary)
- Women’s Earning Power Shifts Economics of Marriage (Discovery News)
- Marriage and Women Over 40 (New York Times Well blog, by Tara Parker-Pope)
- College Educated Women More Likely To Stay Married (Science News)
- She Works. They’re Happy. (New York Times, by Tara Parker-Pope)
- Four Wrong Assumptions About Women and Marriage (Jezebel, by Anna North)
- The Impact of the Current Economic Downturn on Women: Testimony to Joint Economic Committee (http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/B260jec.pdf) (by Heidi Hartmann, Ph.D.) (Note: 2005 research)
- Pepperdine Report on women and the labor force
Marital Gift Giving: ‘Tis the Season for Expectation Management
Posted by: | CommentsAh, ‘tis the season for making merry, singing carols, drinking liqueurs you normally wouldn’t touch, and giving presents.
The gift giving is one of my favorite parts. I love Christmas shopping. Always have. After all, we’re talking justified shopping. I love every aspect of it – the lights, the crammed shops, the hunt for that perfect something. Total glee.
Husband, on the other hand, positively, absolutely despises any kind of shopping. He complains every Christmastime that he doesn’t know what to give. (The fact that Husband has given me some of the most amazing presents I have ever received belies this angst. But, hey, you feel what you feel.)
As December creeps along, I begin to see the wrinkles start in Husband’s forehead as we draw nearer to December 25. Husband asks for my Christmas wish list. I oblige. I tell him the truth – I don’t care, as long as it comes from him. In fact, don’t get me anything. (Oh, but do get me a card. He gives the best cards.) Husband continues to worry. Nothing I say seems to matter.
Apparently – if you are Husband — giving your spouse that perfect little something can drive you mad.
I understand some of this. For one, when you are someone who has gotten married later in life, you have already filled your life with things you love. You’ve had a lot of earning years, not to mention physical years on the planet, to accumulate. So, your wants are fewer. This makes for an interesting conundrum around giving to your new spouse.
When older, three major “categories” of desires emerge. You are left with:
- Things you want. But, since you can afford it yourself, you just go buy it.
- Things you want. But, these wants are pricier and a little more luxurious so you hesitate to gift yourselves with such extravagance. (Like jewelry, for me.)
- The surprises. Things you didn’t even know you’d like but somehow someone saw it, thought you’d be into it, and gifted you with it. You’re thrilled.
So, really, you’re left with two and three. Category three freaks out Husband. He doesn’t like surprises and wants to know what will thrill me. Yes, this is a good thing. But, it also leaves us with category two, which makes me feel a bit greedy, needy and guilty. I mean the world is in economic chaos at the moment. Do I really need a diamond tennis bracelet? No. Want one. But, will live without it.
But, we’ve taken an oath of honesty – that we’ll tell each other the truth – so I hurl verbally provide Husband with the “A” list at first. (Or, now known as the four horses of the gift-giving apocalypse.)
- A puppy
- A house
- A diamond eternity ring
- A trip to Sweden
Not necessarily in that order, either.
I also feel guilty in this honesty. (Did I mention the economic chaos?) I tell him, I’ll live without any one of them, was not expecting him to deliver the entire list, and, really, he shouldn’t feel the need to stick to that list at all. To add to my remorse for providing such an extravagant set of desires, he e-mails me me for a Christmas wish list again. This means, List A didn’t pass muster. (Or, he didn’t think I was serious.)
So, I try to be realistic. I give him a list that spans the economic – and kindness — scale. I try to get creative when Husband asks what I’d like to receive as a gift. I suggest
- A “day of romance” (Can you hear Husband’s eye rolling on that one?)
- A day where we go to the Washington, DC Design Center to look at furniture (No buying required. However, I demand he finally point out what he means by a quality couch since after three years I’m still clueless as to what he is talking about.)
- Detailing my car
- A big coffee table book on Sweden
- Less expensive jewelry (I had to sneak that one in.)
I ask Husband what he would like from me. No answer. I’m left with figuring him out. But, I’m not worried. I can shop ‘til I drop.
I don’t hear back on this later wish list. This is a good sign. But, the silence kills me, and for some reason makes me feel even guiltier for asking for anything – because the worried brow is still there. So, I tell him don’t get me a present, which is where we started. I up the ante. I say, let’s not exchange presents at all.
But, then he also knows, no matter the good intentions, I won’t be able to stick to this. I’ll see something that’s perfect for Husband and be compelled to get it.
So, he continues to worry.
And, I continue to worry about him.
To make myself feel better I go Christmas shopping.
