Financial Management and Family-Building

Second draft editing work on my personal finance collaboration, "Where Does It All Go?" continues to crank along at a good clip. Perhaps it was watching the news clips of the royal wedding this morning, along with the commentators' repeated statements about how the economically battered U.K. really needed something like this wedding to lift their spirits, that made me take special note of this bit:

Image source: here

A family that saves and pursues goals together becomes stronger. The children learn better financial values. Perhaps most importantly, couples that get their financial houses in order have a much better chance of staying together and increasing their mutual happiness. The University of Virginia helped to produce a report called “The State of Our Unions: Marriage in America 2009.” Read it. The correlation between sound personal finance and the health of American marriages will hit you like a Mack truck.

“Consumer debt is also an equal-opportunity marriage destroyer,” writes author Jeffrey Dew in the report. “It does not matter if couples are rich or poor, working class or middle class. If they accrue substantial debt, it puts a strain on their marriage. Assets, on the other hand, sweeten and solidify the ties between spouses. Assets minimize any sense of financial unease that couples feel, with the result that they experience less conflict.”

Save together, stay together. The happiness and well-being of not only you but your entire family depends on it. Given these stakes, it’s imperative to admit when you find yourself running down the wrong path. In the big picture, this isn’t about bills and budgets. It’s about achieving long-term happiness and security, both individually and as a family. You cannot let something as trivial as your ego interfere with this. When you’re on the wrong path, have the brains to admit it and the courage to fix it. Get on the right path and stay there.