3 Financial Questions to Ask Before Getting Married

1. Short Term Financial Goals — What do you like to spend your money on?

When we were getting married, I told Collin that I did not want to get married if that meant we would stop traveling (I know, sounds a bit immature). But we talked about how our goal was to travel as much as we could. I like going overseas and he likes going “out west.” For the first few years of our marriage we were working to travel.

Fast forward two years and we still try to travel frequently and save up for weekend getaways and week-long adventures throughout the year. However, a new goal was recently introduced for me: graduate school. I always knew that I wanted to go to graduate school eventually, but then the time began to feel right. Our current short-term financial goals include: saving money for a birthday trip in March, saving for a visit to see my best friend on the east coast this spring, and saving for while I am in graduate school. We were nervous at first about the thought of loosing my income and yet still trying to pay off our mortgage aggressively, until we started renting out extra rooms in our home. Now we feel much more at peace about loosing my income so that I can focus on my Master’s for the next year.

2. Long Term Financial Goals — What do you want to save your money for?

I feel like our long term financial goals have changed and shifted over the years. I remember meeting with a financial advisor about around our one year anniversary, and he asked us what our long term goals were. Collin and I looked at each other and said “Maybe buying a house in a few years? And both of us going to graduate school?” We were both on the same page about how we had no idea what we wanted to do.

Now we are three years into our marriage (I will probably be amending this post around our five year mark), and we have talked about these things more. Last year we were tired of throwing our money away to rent, so we got serious about saving for a house. We thought that would be a long term goal, but then the market was favorable and we had some great financial advisors behind us. This year our long term goals are to save for our adoption process in the next few years.

3. Cushion aka the “Emergency Fund”— How much money do you need in the bank at all times before you start getting anxious?

We realized very early on that Collin’s threshold is much lower than mine. For example, in our downtown-Minneapolis-living-on-one-barista-income days there was one month where we barely had enough in our bank account to pay rent. I had a panic attack and yelled at my husband on the phone in the parking lot of our apartment building, and that was when Collin realized that we had sunken much, much lower than what I was comfortable. In his mind we were find since we paid rent “no problem.” In my mind I was thinking, “What if one of us gets in a car accident and we can’t afford medical bills and then….” (Don’t worry, I have since gone on anxiety medication). But this is a really conversation that we needed to have!

Very soon after this event, we talked about how we wanted to have $1000 in our accounts at all times for emergencies. It took us some time to save up for this, but then we did it. A year later I graduated, we both got better jobs, and I did not have discounted housing for my RA position anymore (so our rent went up almost twice as much), so we decided that our cushion would be $3000. Now that we own a home, we decided that our cushion should be $5000. This makes me feel better since our cars are getting old and we have a mortgage to be responsible for. Bottom line: it’s important to be on the same page and talk about your personal anxiety threshold for your “cushion!”

What are some things that you wish you and your partner talked about prior to getting married or moving in together?