Handling financial matters

One of the most challenging aspects of marriage concerns the question of money and budgets. Money is cited as the chief cause of most couples’ arguments and friction. With regard to money, the first years are always the most difficult. In this early period of marriage, earnings are at their lowest level and commodities at their highest level. Both the young husband and wife must provide for their family to progress.

 

The wise thing for the couple to do is to sit and figure out what income they can expect. They should list their necessary expenses and resolve not to spend more than what they are taking in.

A young couple obviously cannot expect to live in the same way as their parents who have been working and saving for perhaps thirty years or more. Instalment buying can make an item cost up to three times as much as one would pay for it in cash. It is much more sensible and economical to put aside money each month toward a big purchase.

In an effort to live the way their parents do or did, many young couples move into an expensive neighbourhood which they can’t afford. It is far more sensible to move into an area where everyone is in the same economic bracket as you are. A wife should learn to live within his income and be cheerful about it. This can only be possible if the husband is open to the wife about his income (a wife should have access to the husband’s pay slip). A wife should show the husband that she is always by his side even through financial hardships.

Continues next week.