It is alarming the number of married couples who do not have a written will. This shouldn’t be the case. A written will is too important and too easy to get to not have it.
Why Your Will Is Important
This is going to sound like a life insurance sales pitch, but I don’t care. “God forbid something should happen to you, your spouse or both at the same time…”
Why Your Will Is Easy To Get
Do These Things To Make It Official
Don’t go another day without it. GET A WILL!!!
This isn’t about convincing you to give to your church. It’s not a guilt trip or a “prosperity message”. I’m not one of those guys who says “I want something FOR you not FROM you” with a smile on my face and an offering plate in my hand. For the record I fully believe in God’s design for us to be generous and his faithfulness to provide for our needs, and I happen to love churches that aren’t afraid to teach the truth from the word on the subject. Heck, I even get to speak about it myself as part of the I Was Broke. now I’m Not. team. But that isn’t what this post is about. I want to put all that completely out of your mind right now.
What I want you to think about is how Matthew 6:21 can relate to your marriage just as it does your faith and belief in God. I’ve written on this site about working together on the finances as a couple, planning together, saving together, spending together. I’ve written about communicating and valuing the marriage covenant more than the money situation. I know it is all a lot easier said than done so I want to challenge us all with Matthew 6:21 – “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”.
Most times we hear that verse in a message meant to challenge us to be generous in giving back to the church, and we SHOULD do that. But are you being generous with your spouse? Are you cooperating with the plan and sticking to it? Are you compromising and sacrificing some things you want to do financially in order to allow your spouse to do some things they want to do? Are you investing time and money in dating?
In church we hear statements like “If we looked in your checkbook it would show us where your heart is”. That’s a true statement and I hope we would see your heart for God, I do. But would we also see your heart for your spouse?
At the beginning of the year I posted the top 10 posts from 2011 based on page views. But just so you know here is a list of some of my favorites:
- Don’t Give Up On Marriage
- Financial Intimacy
- Working Together Requires Diligence
- I Didn’t Tell You Because
- Ours, Not Mine & Yours
- Nothing To Fight About – Part 1 & Part 2
A while back someone asked me if it is easier to control our finances (spending) because Shawna homeschools our kids and I work from home a lot. At first I didn’t realize where that question was coming from. But then I realized it was an attempt to make our situation different, or easier in their eyes, to justify a lack of discipline in their own situation.
My initial thought was yes it is easier – Shawna doesn’t typically go out to lunch with the girls like she might at a job, and she doesn’t use a lot of gas money to get back and forth to work. I thought the same is true for me since I get to work from home a lot.
But on second thought I realized, you know what – Shawna still spends just as much. It isn’t easy putting up with kids all day so she is always having to get them out of the house, which ends up being activities that cost money. She also does work part time so there are moments when it is more convenient to grab food on the go. All that takes driving around as much or more than the typical job working mom. So we really don’t have an advantage there.
Even though I work from home a lot of the time I still put about 20,000 miles per year on my vehicle, most of those are miles that are work-related (going to meet with customers etc). Not to mention I have WAY more un-reimbursed job-related expenses than the average person. I get to write some of those expenses off but that doesn’t mean I get it all back, and the other 12 months of the year it creates a unique cash flow challenge.
So after thinking about that question, “is it easier for us”, my response is NO! Just because our life circumstances are not exactly the same doesn’t mean the challenges of managing money are THAT different. We still have to live with a plan, giving and saving and spending within our means. Don’t let others excuse their lack of discipline based on your circumstances.
Some of the worst cases I see in coaching are those where one spouse has assumed the position of “I don’t care about money”. The fact of the matter is they do care about money but they are for some reason denying it.
Maybe they’re naturally very frugal savers or simple-livers and as long as their basic needs are met they’re content in knowing that their spouse is taking care of the bills and whatever they want. Maybe they’re naturally the spender and as long as they’re getting what they want they’re trusting their spouse is handling the details. Either way they’re not paying attention to the details.
Then the tough conversation happens, a conversation that should have taken place months or years sooner. The spouse who was supposed to be handling all the details made some mistakes, things spiraled out of control, and the “I don’t care” spouse has just learned their very well-being is at stake.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Both spouses should be aware of the details by talking about and reviewing the state of their financial union at least once a month.
Is your financial house in order? You might want to go check with your spouse – like right now.
A couple of weeks ago I introduced the Money-Do-List, a tool to help prioritize our list of hopes, plans, and dreams (goals) in a way that makes sense for where we are and where we want to be and what is important to each of us. When Shawna and I first started using this method our list consisted of mostly boring stuff by me and mostly fun stuff by Shawna. All I wanted to do was pay down our debts and save. But Shawna was tired of having no life and wanted to at least have Christmas memories and maybe a vacation. Here’s how we used the money-do-list method to compromise (all of this list is complete now):
Keep in mind December 2006 is when we went to Financial Learning Experience and got Financial Coaching for the first time. Notice we did a lot of saving before we did anything else, and the saving included fun. I wanted to get the discipline of saving started right away so that we would have margin when the unexpected happened.
We actually tackled the debts one at a time, so for example there were multiple credit card bills and medical bills listed separately rather than just one-liners. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some of the things that were on our list along the way, but this is a pretty good representation of how we prioritized the completion of things – making sure to complete practical things (debts & margin) as well as fun things (Christmas & vacation) along the way.
Sometime in the near future I’ll share what’s still coming up on our list and how it is prioritized. How are you using the money-do-list?
It’s probably safe to say everyone has heard of the honey-do list. For any married man who hasn’t – congratulations – you must be newlywed and under 30 yrs old. The term “honey-do list” refers to the idea of wives having a running list of tasks for husbands to do around the house. It comes from past eras when men were generally handy around the house and didn’t have to hire everything out. (As Shawna and I have become more financially able I have made it a point to hire more handy-man tasks out because it’s better for my spiritual and mental health, and probably everyones physical safety).
Most people have probably also heard about writing down financial goals, or “Hopes, Plans, & Dreams” as my friend Joe would say it because he is a man of many words. I’ve found a challenge in my family finances and the finances of families I’ve coached. The list of goals is long and lofty enough to take a lifetime. Some of the items on the list are way more important than others. Some items that are important to me are not important to Shawna, and vice versa. How is it possible to prioritize the list and maintain peace in the financial house?
Introducing the first ever tool on this website, the Money-Do List.
Let me know what you think about this tool. In the coming days/weeks I plan to show you how Shawna and I have used this approach to determine what order we would use to prioritize the things we’ve been accomplishing for the last several years.
Life is good. You’re so blessed, more than you deserve. The two of you CAN work together. If you hadn’t married them you wouldn’t get to experience the power of working together to accomplish your goals and dreams TOGETHER. You two do such a great job communicating about money and caring for each others wants and needs as much as your own.
You must be so happy and proud to have such a great spouse. Who cares what your family and friends think. They’re not the ones committed to being with you for richer or poorer. Any decision you make isn’t going to affect them nearly as badly as it will affect you, so you’re wisely choosing to make your relationship work.
Work hard now to get your financial relationship in order so you can enjoy the rest of your life together. It’s completely worth the effort and sacrifice.
…the voice of hope and encouragement.
This sucks. You’re broke. You can’t do anything fun. It’s all their fault. If you hadn’t married them you’d have plenty of money to do whatever you want. You two haven’t even talked about money for months because all they ever care about is what they want. Who do they think they are? You work just as hard as they do.
You should just leave. Who cares what your family or friends think. You deserve to be happy. Don’t even worry about how it affects anyone else – they’ll get over it. It isn’t going to affect them nearly as badly as it’s affecting you. Get out now while you still have some time to enjoy your life.
…the voice in your head?
One question I get asked a lot is do I use credit cards now that we’ve changed our financial ways. It’s a good question in the context of “we were broke and credit cards screwed us…but having credit cards isn’t always a bad thing for everyone…”
It’s a fair question. Some are curious to know if I am of the Dave Ramsey mentality about credit cards or if I’m ok with them. Others want to justify their “manageable” balance. The bottom line is I’m perfectly fine with couples who say they’re comfortable carrying a balance on their credit card, as long as they plan on carrying it for only about 25 days before paying it off. I don’t agree with Dave that credit cards are an absolutely don’t do, but I do have Dave’s attitude about carrying a balance – it’s stupid.
Personally – Shawna and I even to this day don’t have credit cards. First of all, we still use cash for our discretionary categories because that is the most surefire way to keep overspending under control (you can’t overspend cash). Second, we have not seen a credit card rewards program that is any better than our checking account rewards at Perkstreet. (Cash rewards are my favorite.)
So my answer for people when they ask about credit cards is “If I were in your shoes I wouldn’t use them.” But for those who are still attached to the rewards and they’re already really good at controlling their spending and paying it off every month – I’m ok with that… as long as they’re being real about it and truly living according to a plan.
