Laura is a twenty-something woman out of school and happily married.
Eliminating credit card debt has energized her to knock out her car
loan and student loans. She blogs at Green Panda Treehouse about reducing debt, building
savings, and working with her husband on finances, as well as her
successes and failures.

Many people
worry about discussing finances when they have different views. Avoiding
financial talks can lead to disaster in relationships. It can build resentment
and escalate into fights that tear down and could lead to
divorce. Money isn’t the
root of the problem, it’s lack of communication.

If you share
openly and honestly your thoughts and feelings with your fiancé or spouse, you
are missing out on a great opportunity. Relationships are mutually defined and
both need to share to make it work.

Here are a few
examples of how my husband and I handle money in our
relationship. Is it
perfect? No. Does it work? Yes, because we’re
willingly to talk about our common thoughts and our differences.

Budget

We
keep a Google Spreadsheet to display and organize our monthly
bills.
This allows us to see what our joint bills are and gives a snapshot view of our
individual accounts. I can see how much he puts in his 401(k) and he can see my
Roth IRA deposits.

He’s
great at setting up the spreadsheets and I love playing around with them. I

Goals

Some
of my personal goals are to pay off my car loan and my student loans. We
also set aside money in our budget for saving. We’re working together: our
‘extra’ money goes to joint savings and to paying down the car loan. 

Investing

My
husband puts aside money for retirement, but is only semi-interested in
following his accounts. When he changed jobs and was rolling over his old
401(k) to an IRA, he asked me to look at investments to put them into.

I
get a kick out of learning new things about index funds, stocks, ETFs, etc.
While I explained why and how I came up with my suggestions, he just agreed and
made the changes. He’s more conservative with his money and his investments are
a reflection of that. I tend to invest more in international funds than him,
but the volatility is within what I can handle.

Credit Cards

I
have two credit cards (I’m closing one) while my husband has no credit cards.
After learning the hard way about high credit card interest rates, I’ve paid my
debt. I generally pay it off each month.

I
use credit cards mainly for convenience and rewards. I normally keep it at home
with me. If we go on trips, I use my credit card. He is very adverse to debt
and has not found a credit card that ‘he likes yet’. He generally saves until
he can buy it, like his car.

Paperwork

I’m
the paperwork queen. It basically falls to me to organize bill payments and
documentation requests. Due to our basic system, it doesn’t take up to much
time (5-10 minutes). If there are any issues we’ll discuss in the evening.

I
show him where I keep the files, in case something happens and he needs quick
access.

Conclusion

It’s an
imperfect system to be sure, but we make it work. The best advice we received? Talk it out and figure out what’s right for
you two.

Talking
it out can help you to understand your partner so much better and help you to
build a stronger foundation on future communication, not just with money.
Remember also that you’ll discuss these issues as your circumstances change.
It’s not set in stone.

Keeping
each other in the loop is essential to a successful marriage. Two different viewpoints can lead to a
stronger system.

How
different are the two of you? What do you two agree and disagree on?