Your Money and Your Man: How You and Prince Charming Can Spend Well and Live Rich

by Michelle Singletary

Overview

“Money may not be able to buy you love, but conflicts about it can certainly bankrupt your relationship.”
–Michelle Singletary

Here at last is the lowdown on how to manage your finances with the man in your life. Money is the #1 problem couples fight about, says beloved Washington Post financial columnist Michelle Singletary. Acknowledging that most fights about money are usually about something else–like feelings of fear or resentment–Singletary stresses the value of open dialogue. In her trademark no-holds-barred style, she shows us how to handle the entire range of financial issues couples face–from splitting the dinner bill when dating to planning for retirement together after years of marriage.
Singletary speaks to the hearts of women as they try to successfully merge their money and future security with those of their man. Acknowledging the emotional weight of shared investments, she brings her own experience as a wife and mother to the table and doles out advice in a voice that, while encouraging and rational, is never less than frank on tough topics.
From sizing up a potential mate’s financial responsibility (or lack thereof) to figuring out how best to share bank accounts and expenses once you’ve made the leap, to determining how to teach your children about money, Your Money and Your Man focuses on the undeniable role that finance plays in every stage of a long-term relationship.
Including typical questions from readers of her syndicated column and advice from one of the savviest financial experts she has ever known–her grandmother–Singletary shows women that they can live happily ever after with Prince Charming, even if he doesn’t have a royal bank account!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780345479709
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/30/2007
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.24(w) x 7.97(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Michelle Singletary’s Washington Post column, “The Color of Money,” is now syndicated in more that 130 newspapers across the country. She is the host of Singletary Says on the cable network TV One, as well as a regular contributor to NPR’s Day to Day and has appeared on MSNBC, CNBC, Nightline, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The View, and The Diane Rehm Show. Singletary is a graduate of the University of Maryland and has a master’s degree in business from Johns Hopkins. For more than fifteen years, she has covered business and personal finance, first for the Baltimore Evening Sun and then for The Washington Post. She lives in Maryland with her husband and three children. Visit her website at www.michellesingletary.com.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction
 
In all the years I’ve been a personal finance columnist for The Washington Post, I’ve received scores of letters and e-mails from couples (many during the regular online discussions I host). I’ve had the chance to see how many couples mismanage their money.
 
It’s heartbreaking.
 
Again and again, I see what happens when couples fail to communicate or compromise, marry people who don’t share their financial goals, or act like they’re roommates, not people partnered for life.
 
I’ve heard from couples with good incomes who are near bankruptcy because they can’t budget. I’ve heard from couples who make major purchases without consulting their spouse. I’ve heard from couples who hide purchases. I’ve heard from couples who try to outspend each other like children fussing about who got a bigger piece of pie.
 
I’ve heard from women who boast about having secret bank accounts because they don’t fully trust the men they chose to marry. I’ve heard from couples who argue over who should pay what percentage of the household bills. I’ve heard from couples full of resentment because one person makes more than the other.
 
I want to smack them.
 
Here’s a universal truth about your money and your man: Money may not buy love, but fighting about it will bankrupt your relationship.
 
How is it that people can proclaim to love one another, sleep with each other, and even have children together, yet won’t do what it takes to stop fighting about money?
 
I know why.
 
And deep down, you know why, too.
 
Couples fight about money because they have “issues.”
 
Perhaps your husband was overindulged as a child. As an adult he feels entitled to the best this world has to offer, regardless of whether he earns enough to pay for it all. Or maybe your boyfriend grew up not having much of anything, and worries now about having enough money all the time. The result is, he’s so frustratingly frugal that when he pinches a penny, he dents it.
 
The fights are not about the money. They are rarely about the money. For example, I received a letter from a reader who wrote: “I grew up very poor and never wanted to live a ‘poor’ life as an adult. I was able to get myself through college and get a decent paying job. I married quite young, at twenty-one. He was twenty. Twenty years later, we are getting divorced. And the number one reason was the issue of money.”
 
Specifically, the woman wrote, the divorce was precipitated by her husband’s unplanned purchase of a truck. “He just went out and bought it,” she said. “I feel horrible to have my marriage dissolve over something like this, but I felt like he had a total lack of respect toward the family financial situation. We had $20,000 in credit card debt and no money in savings. On top of that, he purchased season tickets to a major sports event. I emotionally left the relationship at that point. My family is broken. My heart is broken.”
 
You might think this couple’s marriage was ruined by money problems. Sure, the letter writer’s husband put his family deeper in debt by buying a truck they couldn’t afford. But the breakup wasn’t really about the money. It was about this couple’s failure to work as a team. The husband wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. Damn anybody else.
 
It was the last line in this woman’s letter that confirmed what I’ve always known about love and money. She wrote: “In my case it was a case of disrespect from my spouse.”
 
It’s a lack of communication and compromise that torpedoes relationships, not a lack of money. Many couples think that if they made more money, their financial issues would go away. They wouldn’t. The problems would just become more expensive.
 
This book is aimed at women in two different situations. It’s for women who need to start paying attention to the red flags that indicate they’ve got some serious money issues with their boyfriends or fiancés. It’s also for married women who know that issues precipitated by money may be weakening their marriage or, even worse, destroying it.
 
Although there is little data showing that money conflicts lead directly to divorce, money is still one of the top reasons why couples fight. Surveys show that the biggest strain on a relationship is managing finances, followed by compatibility issues.
 
A well-known children’s rhyme comes to mind when I think of couples and money:
 
 
First comes love,
 
Then comes marriage,
 
Then comes baby in the baby carriage.
 
With that rhyme in mind, I’ve written Your Money and Your Man in four parts. The first part, “First Comes Love,” addresses the financial issues that often drag dating couples down. One of the most important lessons from the first part is to watch carefully how your man handles his finances. His money management is the best barometer of what’s in store for your relationship in the long term. If he jokes about not balancing his bank account or that his credit cards are always maxed out, most likely your man is not going to keep his money right. Trust me, Prince Charming won’t seem so enchanting when he’s messing up the checkbook and the two of you are being hit with bounced-check fees every month.
 
In the first part, I’ll also discuss the dangers of cosigning for your partner before marriage, prenuptial agreements, the financial pitfalls of shacking up (oh, sorry, I mean cohabitation), the dos and don’ts of sharing intimate details of your finances, and the financial conversations you should have after getting engaged.
 
In the second part of the book, “Then Comes Marriage,” I’ll discuss the foolishness of overspending for a wedding, as well as joint accounts, secret accounts, and household budgets. I’ll also talk about getting out of debt.
 
The third part, “Then Comes Baby in the Baby Carriage,” will give you tips on how to teach your children about money and pay for their education.
 
Finally, the fourth part, “How You and Prince Charming Can Spend Well and Live Rich,” addresses saving, investing, retirement planning, and financial priorities—as well as what to do when living “happily ever after” means “separately.”
 
Ultimately, what I hope is that you and your man will find a way to have a relationship that is financially balanced. That balance can happen if you follow these three simple Cs—communicate, compromise, and set common goals.
 
When it comes to your money and your man, you will not live rich if you don’t find a way to communicate honestly about your financial differences. You will not live rich if you don’t learn to compromise. And you will not live rich if you don’t set common financial goals.
 
Follow the three Cs and you will be able to trust your man with your heart and your money.
 
 

Table of Contents

	Introduction	xiii
Part 1	First Comes Love	1
Chapter 1	A Man is Not A Plan	3
Chapter 2	A Home is Where Your Wealth Is	10
Chapter 3	Major Money Milestones	17
Chapter 4	Dating With Dollar Sense	23
Chapter 5	Why Do Fools Fall in Love?	27
Chapter 6	It's How He Handles His Money, Not How Much He Makes	31
Chapter 7	Dating and Debt Sense	36
Chapter 8	First Comes Love, Then Cohabitation	50
Chapter 9	The Financial Rules of Engagement	65
Chapter 10	The Most Important Premarital Documents	72
Part 2	Then Comes Marriage	85
Chapter 11	Coing to the Chapel? Don't Come Out Broke	87
Chapter 12	Greedily Ever After	94
Chapter 13	To Merge or Not to Merge	98
Chapter 14	House Rules	110
Chapter 15	What We Have Here is a Failure to Compromise	114
Chapter 16	What We Have Here is a Failure to Set Common Goals	116
Chapter 17	What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate	133
Chapter 18	Play Defense in the Credit Game	139
Chapter 19	A Taxing Time	160
Chapter 20	Survival Skills On One Salary	165
Part 3	Then Comes Baby in the Baby Carriage	175
Chapter 21	Create a Financial Foundation for Baby	177
Chapter 22	Have Two Wills So There's a Way	182
Chapter 23	Making Kids Money-Wise	185
Chapter 24	Save For College to Avoid Saddling Children With Debt	192
Part 4	How You and Prince Charming Can Spend Well and Live Rich	199
Chapter 25	When You Don't Live Happily Ever After	201
Chapter 26	Getting Down to the Basics	207
Chapter 27	How Much is Enough?	241
Chapter 28	It's Not About You	245
	Acknowledgments	251
Appendix	Resources and Helpful Links	255
	Index	267

Editorial Reviews

Singletary is a …a font of no-nonsense financial wisdom, much of it dispensed in the name of Big Mama, the grandmother who raised her. The book is bursting with excellent and clear instructions for women both single and coupled on everything from budgeting to investing to handling taxes…Taking Singletary's advice does require a grain of salt. Some readers may be turned off by her frankly Christian outlook, with scriptural quotes throughout. And some of her rules, summed up at the end of each section, seem more like moral judgments.
—The Washington Post

Anya Kamenetz

One test of a really useful personal finance book is how far you get through it before you have the impulse to put the book down to start acting on its advice. In the case of this volume by Washington Post financial columnist Singletary, it's all you can do to keep reading as she presents tip after tip. Divided into sections that deal with particular life events (dating, marriage, children, divorce, etc.), the book presents advice on everything from when to share financial details with a potential mate to how to fix your credit rating. It also provides lots of useful information for beginners, explaining, for example, the difference between an index fund and a managed fund. Singletary's tone is refreshingly straightforward; though she's lively and opinionated (she's against pre-nup agreements, for example), she resists preachiness and concentrates on providing detailed counsel on how to develop good financial habits. But the book's main attractions are Singletary's excellent advice on how to find financial compatibility with husbands and boyfriends and her suggestions for maintaining effective communication about finance throughout a relationship. (Feb. 7) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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