Thank you to TurboTax for sponsoring my writing about household finances.Learn more about how TurboTax can help you find every tax deduction you deserve. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.
When my husband and I first got married we kept all of our finances separate. We had separate bank accounts, paid our own student loans and car insurance. We even came up with a way to spilt up our new living together expenses such as rent, utilities and groceries. But after less than a year of marriage it became clear to me that we had to merge our financial lives as well.
Before we got married I had already been working full-time for a couple years and had my own bill paying, saving, and spending habits. I worked at a bank so I pretty much balanced my check book on a daily basis. I had a savings account and had just started saving for retirement via 401K and IRA accounts. My husband on the other hand was fresh out of art school and had a terrible habit of misplacing ATM cards, checkbooks and incurring late fees on monthly bills. My new husband’s lack of basic bookkeeping drove me insane! Our newlywed money talks usually ended me breathing fire or my head exploding when my husband would look at me and ask “What exactly IS money?” And “Why would we want to buy a house?”
My dad is a CPA and accounting professor so he encouraged me at an early age to have a basic understanding of money and how to manage it. I’m so glad that he spent the time helping me balance my checkbook and explaining things like the importance of paying bills on time and keeping track of your credit report. His money managing knowledge and personal experience have been a great resource over the years for me and my husband. He’s helped us work through many financial decisions both big and small.
Now, at almost thirteen years of marriage the family finances are still mainly my turf although my husband has a greater appreciation of my efforts to keep us financially sound these days. Those Freudian like conversations about money still occur today at our house today although I try to avoid them whenever possible.
Speak Your Mind