Managing wealth when you are married

A short video on "Money Matters"


Wealth Management does not just limit to growing your wealth but this also mean how you manage your wealth when you are married. How you are going to organised your household spending, housing loan etc. You will be surprise that husband and wife spending style may be very different and this is one of the conflict most couple have.

So, today tips on wealth management is about how to manage your money when you are married. Do not only think about this after you are married. Start preparing for that and understand your partner well before hand on money issues. Trash out the differences and come up with a muture plan that suit both of you. When planning a marriage, huge amount of money will be spent in hosting the great day. My advise is to spend within your means. Do not spend lasvishly and after two month into marriage realised that a huge amount of credit card debt have generated and unable to repay. Very soon, husband and wife start to querrel and then leading to a divorce. This are true life experience that I have seen. Sometime I just wonder why people just spend outside their means for a grand wedding that utimately lead to a divorce due to money issue.

There are also some who do not understand their partner spending pattern earlier and upon marrage, realised that the partner has huge debt or run into bankrupcy. So to avoid such situation, my advise is for young couple to think and talk about money and wealth management before they are married.

Marriage is a very important decision that bring us to our next step in life. So be as prepared as possible mentally as well as financially. Other than the wedding, you may need huge amount of money to purchase a house. In planning on your house, consider how much you should spend. Do not only consider if you could repay your monthly housing loan per your today expenses. Remember, once you are married and have your own home, you need to spend on utilities, TV/radio licences, taxes, groceries expenses and household expenses. It may be just a few ten of dollars here and there, but when you add them together, these can be a tidy sum. So, consider these expenses and at the same time, put aside some money as savings for your future needs and the balance will be what you have for your housing repayment. With this amount of money plus any other form of money eg your CPF (Central Providen Fund), you will than decide on the size, location and type of house to look for. Remember, as you grow older your CPF will reduce and your income may reduce, so factor this in when you decide on your purchase as most commonly housing loan will last for 10 to 30 years.

Preparing for a family is also a key to Financial Planning. Do not wait till your child is born to dig your wallet to see you have enough to buy him or her milk powder and give her the required education. For those who are well to do, they may wonder how much to set aside for their child education on enrichment classes, activities, food or spend on a holiday together etc on an annual basis. They could start putting aside a regular saving monthly to ensure that they will be able to provide for their child. Start doing so as earlier as possible as the more prepared you are the more ready you will to start a family financially. Even for an average family, they still need to spend quite a bit on every children. Milk powder, child medical care, toys and child daily use such as baby wipes, diapers, shower and body lotion cost money, so be prepared.

Your child health is very important. Giving her good medical care if needed is very critical but could be very expensive. I remember once I heard of a parent who told me how he has spent $1,000 (about 40% of an average monthly income) for just few day stay in the hospital when his child has a fever. Although all of us do not wish our child to be sick, but the fact is that with virus around we really do not know what will happen. We just wish that we could do the best to protect our child. Having child hospitalisation insurance coverage could be a good form of financial planning as it ensure that you are able to provide for your child medical expenses. For detail on coverage and what it protects, you may wish to seek advise from a financial planner.

Preparing for child higher education is another important consideration. Most of the time, the parents will be in their 50s or 60s when their child is entering university. With the competitive job market, one will not know if we will still be employed. In recent times, we have heard of many instances where managers are retrenched and may have difficulty getting the same high paying jobs. We do not wish our child to miss university education because of this. So, start saving as early as possible or get a financial planner to assist you to plan your saving and when the time comes, you are sure you have the money for your child education.