Money and finances are not the sexiest topics to discuss with your spouse. This is the reason why many couples just push the conversation to the side. Most of them completely avoid talking about budgets, expenses, debts, and financial goals. Unfortunately, finances should always be the first discussion you need to have with your significant other.
The question now is, how often should you discuss finances with your spouse in the first place?
The good news is you don’t have to talk about finances every single day. However, it should happen regularly. It would also be great if you do it on a well-planned and consistent schedule. This way, both you and your partner will be ready for the discussion.
But if you are still unsure of how often you should discuss finances with your spouse, here are some tips to help you out:
Stick to a Monthly Schedule
Financial experts recommend scheduling a financial discussion at t the start of the month. According to them, this timing will let you go over and anticipate big expenses for that particular month in advance to reduce any stress that may occur because of sudden expenditures. This is the best time to plan for events where one-time payments are necessary such as birthdays, vacations, and biannual bills for car insurance.
They also advise that planning the month will let you prepare a plan and a budget specifically tailored to your needs for that month. Every month will always have different needs. If you and your spouse want to have active monthly tracking, you can also schedule a quick check-in every 15th of the month to check if your set budget still works or if you can adjust your needs depending on unforeseen spending.
Tips for Monthly Financial Discussions with Your Spouse
Here are tips to help you get started with discussing finances with your spouse every month:
- Designate who will lead every meeting.
It will only be natural for one person to want to lead the financial discussions. However, if both of you don’t feel enthusiastic about the conversation, you can also alternate who will run the meeting, take notes, and designate action items.
- Plan in advance.
What happens during monthly financial discussions? The last thing you want is to talk only to have some surprises. Make it a point to plan. Days before the talk, check your bills, your expenses, and the current state of your investments.
If something might potentially trigger your partner, inform them ahead of time to give them a chance to react and discuss it rationally during the discussion.
- Have an agenda in place.
It is easy to just sit down clueless about what to discuss and after 10 minutes, one of you says that everything is good and both of you just go on your way without even talking about the tough stuff.
See to it that you always have a specific agenda to talk about your long-term and short-term financial goals and decisions as a couple. Things may be different every month but make sure you include upcoming and past debt, investments, credit card statements, and budget reviews.