How to Have an Effective “Money Date” with Your Partner

What does a healthy financial routine look like in a relationship? For Heather and Doug Boneparth, it’s a quarterly “money date.” From starting with wins to knowing when not to open a spreadsheet, they break down how to make money talks actually work.

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So, you know, one of the main things we wanted to do was get Heather back into the fold with our finances. So we were able to configure a routine, something that we strongly believe in when we talk about the subject of love and money and, and talk about in the book this idea of a money date, how to appropriately structure your conversations around your finances so that you build a practice around money.

So is it a monthly meeting?

It’s a quarterly meeting.

Quarterly meeting. And how long does it typically take? Three to four hours, two hours.

No, I’d say a couple hours is as far as it usually goes. The reason we, felt that the monthly meeting wasn’t working was for several reasons. One, um, it’s easy to cancel when you know there’s gonna be one the next month if you’ve got stuff going on and you’re like, I don’t know.

And then two, you really wanna be able to see and feel the change from one to the next. You wanna be able to, uh, see and feel, um. Whatever had happened over the last three months really meaningfully, and I don’t know if you’re gonna get that month to month. I know you’re not. This is what, this is what I do in practice for those clients that want to engage in the comprehensive planning, quarter to quarter shows me meaningful change.

It teases out seasonality. It definitely does a better job of giving me perspective over whatever data we’re observing. But when you’re together, are you looking at your net worth statement, your spending summaries? Are you looking at your investment portfolio to see what decisions are being made, and then are you discussing all of it and why you’re doing what you’re doing?

E) All of the above and more. So, you know, you gotta get into the facts and figures. Of course, I don’t recommend starting here. I know a lot of people who would wanna run away. If the first thing you do in your meeting is put forward a spreadsheet or a budget, that’s typically not the best on ramp, you have to do that.

So yes, your net worth, meaning you now know where everything is. Asset location, account location, their values, how money comes in and out of your relationship. Yeah, you should have an opinion on how your spending was. Did you meet your mark? Were you running a deficit or a surplus? Easy things you can do to get, you know, productivity higher.

Focus on, start the meeting with your goals or start your meeting with the wins, right? The on-ramp to having productive conversations is, what did you do right this quarter? What were the victories? Celebrate to that. Framing matters. Yeah, and beginning with the positive is so important to set the tone for the meeting.

Ending with positive too, always.

Yeah, it’s the compliment sandwich.

Absolutely, you wanna build that momentum in the front. These are the things that make for great on-ramps into this practice.

Before you obviously get into here’s a net worth statement and cash flow.