Couples Money Management—Part 2

Here’s a follow-up to the video I put out a few weeks ago on why couples should manage their money together. I received overwhelming feedback to the last one and all the experts said YES.

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Just a little bit ago, I did a video on couples’ money management and how people should manage their money together, make the decisions together for a lot of reasons. I’ll let you watch that. In fact, Aidan will post it down below. I’m surprised at the feedback I got to that. I probably understated the case.

I’ve had not one but two divorce lawyers reach out to me after seeing the video and saying, “Dave, it’s much more important than you think.” They said a lot of the divorces result from one person making all the money decisions for himself or herself and the other person running his or her own money and the disaster at the divide.

So what they’re saying to me is that 5 and 10 and 15 years into the relationship, when they do share each other’s financial snapshots, one is so good and one is so bad, bitterness ensues, et cetera, et cetera. It makes some sense. I was arguing that beyond that, there’s also a good reason: you make better decisions.

I mean, you really do. I see situations where the wife is doing an excellent job, for example, maximizing RRSPs, TFSAs, has some money in the bank, emergency fund earning 2, 3, 4 percent, whatever. And the husband has credit card debt paying 21%. That makes no sense. Or it’s a young couple and they haven’t bought their first home yet.

And one of the two has taken advantage of the FHSA—a no brainer. The other person didn’t, but the other person could have helped him or her out with the money. It’s really bad. You’ve got to come together on this. It’ll raise your happiness. I have found over and over again—said this in another video—that the person who manages money well tends to have a very positive influence on the other person.

They pull them up. You know, each of you acts as the other person’s guardrails. Make sure that you’re doing the right things. You’re working together. It can make a giant difference. Again, I understated the case based on the feedback we’re getting.