The Ultimate Guide to Managing Money Together as a Married Couple

In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we are going to talk about  the ultimate guy to managing money together as a married couple. Watch this episode on Youtube. How Andrew Can Help You: Listen to The Business Show here. Don't let another year pass by without making significant strides toward your dreams. "Master Your Money Goals" is your pathway to a future where your aspirations are not just wishes but realities. Enroll now and make this year count! Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Learn to invest by joining Index Fund Pro! This is Andrew’s course teaching you how to invest! Watch The Master Money Youtube Channel! , Ask Andrew a question on Instagram or TikTok. Learn how to get out of Debt by joining our Free Course Leave Feedback or Episode Requests here. Car buying Calculator here Thanks to Our Amazing Sponsors for supporting The Personal Finance Podcast. Shopify: Shopify makes it so easy to sell. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/pfp Chime: Start your credit journey with Chime. Sign-up takes only two minutes and doesn’t affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ Thanks to Fundrise for Sponsoring the show! Invest in real estate going to fundrise.com/pfp Thanks to Policy Genius for Sponsoring the show! Go to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quote. Indeed: Start hiring NOW with a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/personalfinance Shop Data Plans and Save Big at mintmobile.com/pfp Go to https://joindeleteme.com/PFP20/ for 20% off! Links Mentioned in This Episode: The 1-3-6 Method For Building & Managing Your Emergency Fund Relevant Episodes How Do I Set-Up My Finances As A New Couple?! - Money Q&A The Ultimate Personal Finance Checklist for Newlyweds (and couples)! From 100K in Debt to Building Generational Wealth as a Couple with Josh and Ali (The FI Couple) Connect With Andrew on Social Media: Instagram TikTok Twitter Master Money Website Master Money Youtube Channel Free Guides: The Stairway to Wealth: The Order of Operations for your Money How to Negotiate Your Salary The 75 Day Money Challenge Get out Of Debt Fast Take the Money Personality Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• 0:00Andrew Giancola?

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• 0:44Andrew Giancola?

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• 1:27Andrew Giancola?

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• 2:24Andrew Giancola?

  What's up everybody and welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host Andrew, founder of mastermoney.co. And today on the personal finance podcast, we're going to be talking through the ultimate guide to managing money together as a married couple. Now, if you guys have any questions, make sure you join the master money newsletter by going to mastermoney.co/newsletter. And don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or whatever your favorite podcast player is on YouTube. We are just my name, Andrew and Colan. You can watch every single episode with outlines from the episode as we are talking through those. And if you're getting value out of the show, consider leaving a five star

• 3:05Andrew Giancola?

  rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Alright, so the first thing I want you to do as you start to have some of these conversations when it comes to money is I want you to think about what your dream life is, the life that you actually want to live and what that means. So you're going to ask yourself, what does being rich mean to you? To one person, it may mean having a million dollars in the bank. To another, it may be being completely debt free. To another person, it may be having freedom or security or luxury. Every single person in this life is different in the definition of what rich means to them. And so you've got to make sure that you figure this out. So I'm going to give you some discussion points. Now, as we go through this episode, if you want a copy of all of these questions, if you go to mastermoney.co/resources, I'm going to give you this ultimate guide so you can have a copy of these questions

• 3:50Andrew Giancola?

  to go through when you're having conversations with your spouse. And so as we go through this, I want you to discuss a couple of questions on each point. So first, what does financial success look like? And I want you to have a conversation. One of you goes first, the second person goes right after. What is your dream lifestyle? What do you want your lifestyle to look like in the future? Now, we want to dream big first because we want to think about this as what is our ultimate goal? Okay, now we have this ultimate goal. That is going to be our North Star on how we manage and handle our money going forward as a family. And then how much is enough? How do you figure out what that enough number is? Well, the quick math to do this. Is to say to yourself, well, how much do I want to spend in retirement? Maybe you don't know, maybe you do know. But if you have a good indication of how much you think you want to spend in retirement,

• 4:35Andrew Giancola?

  you're going to do the quick and dirty math of saying to yourself, okay, I want to spend a hundred thousand dollars every single year in retirement. Well, then you can multiply 100,000 by 25 and what you're going to get is 2.5 million dollars. And so that is going to give you your North Star. Okay, I need 2.5 million dollars invested in order to be completely financially free. If I wanted to, if I wanted to continue working, I can also do that. But it's nice to be able to hit that goal so that going forward, then you know, this is my North Star. This is what I want to do. And then going forward, I can make choices based on that. See, you can't build the same future if you're chasing different visions. So you got to make sure that you align your destination before you plan your trip. And so that is what we are doing with this first point is making sure that we are aligning

• 5:20Andrew Giancola?

  where we are both going. And then we are going to work together to get to that point in time. See managing money as a couple as a collaboration. It is not what is best for me or what is best for my spouse. It is what is best for both of us. You need to align on those goals first. So those first three questions again are what does financial success look like? What's the dream lifestyle? And how much is enough? Those are the three questions you need to be asking yourself first as you go through this process. Let's go to number two. Are we savers or spenders? So this is going to be a big thing because everybody has a different money personality. Maybe one spouse is the good saver. One spouse is a spender. And what happens here is if you have two spouses with two different money personalities, friction is going to start to come up because one person is working as hard as they can

• 6:05Andrew Giancola?

  to save money in order to kind of build wealth for a financial future. And the other person wants to enjoy life now, which there's nothing wrong with either spending personality. You just have to figure out what you are going to do to make it work. So then I want you to openly discuss this. Who saves and who spends? Is there one of you that saves more? Is there one of you who spends more? Are you both pretty much good savers? Are you both big time spenders and you need to reel it back a little bit? Have a conversation about that without pointing fingers. I want you, if you think you're the saver and the other person is the spender. I want you to make sure that they say that first because if you start to point fingers, then there's going to be more conflict coming up. So you got to make sure that you approach this in the right way. Secondly, discuss how do we handle unexpected cash?

• 6:47Andrew Giancola?

  For example, if you get a tax refund this year and that refund comes in, how is that going to be handled? One person, the spender, may say, I want to go on a vacation. The saver may say, no, I want to invest this for our future in a Roth IRA and maybe a taxable brokerage account. Well, these are two very different opinions. And so how do you handle unexpected cash? Now, if there is a difference of opinion on this, with any unexpected windfall, I always recommend the 50/50 rule. What that means is that you save 50% and then you spend 50% on what you want to do. And this is a great way to compromise dollars like this when they come in so that you utilize them for things that are actually high meaning. Now, if you're in high interest debt, I don't think there's a compromise here. I think it needs to go to high interest debt and then paying that off.

• 7:30Andrew Giancola?

  But if there's something else there where you're not in high interest debt, then you can have a compromise in a conversation. The other part of this is, are we comfortable with each other's habits? What are you comfortable with? What are you uncomfortable with? Open up the conversation a little bit without pointing fingers. Again, I'm going to say that this entire episode is do not come at somebody. I want you to make sure that you are doing this in a way that is collaborative because you need to know each other's money wiring before it gets crossed. Because once it gets crossed, then it's going to cause sparks, it's going to cause issues. You got to make sure that you are on the same page. Now, early on in my wife and I's relationship, I was the saver and she would spend a little more. And in hindsight, she really wasn't spending much at all. I was just so frugal that I was trying to save every single dollar. As time has gone on, we've basically become the same person when it comes to our money personality.

• 8:14Andrew Giancola?

  In fact, I'm probably less frugal than even she is now. And so that is something that has been interesting over time to kind of watch and see how that happens. And sometimes you develop, you change because life changes and so things are going to happen. Three, what financial habits do we need to break? So I want you to start to have a conversation about this because money fights often come from unspoken patterns. Sometimes there are unspoken patterns that just start to develop. Maybe you just start to eat out every single night because you think, ah, it's just so much easier to eat out. We both hate cooking. Let's just eat out every single night. Or maybe you are both just big time. Impulse spenders where you go somewhere and you're like, oh, that looks amazing. Let's just buy it and you impulse spend on a new truck or you impulse spend on a new boat or you impulse spend on something when you go to the mall. What are some of those impulses that you may need to avoid?

• 8:59Andrew Giancola?

  Do we avoid bills or make late payments? That's the second thing. That's a very bad financial habit. If you avoid bills or you make late payments, then it's time to do something about it. And it's called automating your bill payments. Always make sure that your bill payments are automated on time. That is going to help you drastically from this bad habit. Are we emotionally shopping is the other one. So do you shop emotionally, meaning when you're frustrated, when you're bored, when you're tired? Do you start to shop and go out there and spend dollars? A lot of people do this and they don't realize it. So if you think through, okay, every single time I get stressed out, I want to go spend some dollars. Well, if that's the case, you got to make sure that you recognize that. And if you recognize that about each other, then you can start to reduce some of that impulse spending and some of those bad financial habits.

• 9:42Andrew Giancola?

  Now, the key here is to understand it on both sides because if one person leaks, then the entire ship still sinks because they're still leaking money out. So you got to make sure that you're on the same page when it comes to this. All right, number four, this is a big one and this is a deeper conversation, but it's going to dictate a lot of what's going on when you have financial conversations. Your financial upbringing shapes how you spend. It shapes how you manage money and it shapes how you talk about money. And so do we have financial role models or money trauma? So these are some of the questions that I want you to talk through. What were the money messages growing up? So the way you were raised is very different. Here's a great example. You can see people who go to restaurants and there are people who order sodas or drinks and they were appetizers and then they get their meal.

• 10:26Andrew Giancola?

  Then there are families who go out and they all get waters. They get no appetizer and they get their meal. Two very different upbringings on how both of those families are going to spend money when they come home. The way somebody orders at a restaurant can dictate a lot about how they spend their dollars. And so if you look at this, you can say to yourself, okay, what type of person was I growing up? For example, in my family, we grew up ordering waters. We didn't really order appetizers, but we'd go out to eat, you know, infrequently, but we would go out to eat sometimes and we We get our meals. My wife, for example, her family will order 10 different appetizers and get the meal. There'd be tons of food left over. They take it home. They'll get multiple drinks and they'll do all these different things.

• 11:07Andrew Giancola?

  Two very different upbringings. And because of that, we realized that pretty quickly. And we had a conversation about it and that conversation led to a bunch of very productive things. Because what happens is if you grow up in a family that's super frugal or just didn't have a lot of money. And so you just were not accustomed to having dollars on hand. You may spend dollars one of two ways. Maybe you are very frugal or you're like, I didn't have this. So I want to spend more on these types of things because I never got to experience it when I was younger. And so there's a lot of things that could happen there, but what were the money messages growing up? Two, was money a source of stress or empowerment growing up? Because that is going to dictate how you are reacting to dollars when they come in. Three, what behaviors have you brought into adulthood?

• 11:50Andrew Giancola?

  All of us are going to bring certain behaviors based on how we were brought up. And you need to make sure that you know what those are and identify what those are. Here's a great example. Okay. Back when I was growing up, my parents would spend, you know, X. They had a certain budget on how much they would spend every single year on Christmas presents. And some years, if the toy that you wanted was up to a certain amount, that's all you got was that toy. And maybe a little clothes on the side or something like that. Or if you wanted to make sure that you got multiple toys and you'd order, you know, you'd ask for cheaper or more inexpensive items and you get multiple toys. But it doesn't matter how much you get, it'd all be up to that one specific budget. So for me, I did not love that as a kid. And so on my kids, for the first couple of years specifically, I would overspend.

• 12:34Andrew Giancola?

  I would buy them way too many toys. My wife is like, what is going on? You're buying a crazy amount of toys. Under the Christmas tree, I would just fill the whole thing up. And she's like, you're buying a crazy amount of toys. What is going on here? And then I realized pretty quickly, oh, that's because I wished my Christmas tree was filled to the brim when I was a kid. And I am just kind of overcompensating for that. So that's just one example of an upbringing. There's nothing wrong with the way that my parents handled that, in my opinion whatsoever. It is probably the smart way to do it, but at the same time, I then started to overcompensate for that. So I have to talk through, okay, this is why I'm doing this. And now I had to set up parameters around what I was doing with my kids. To make sure I'm not just over buying and spoiling them too much. So that is just another story of how I think through this. Childhood money stories shape adult financial behavior. And that's one thing you need to know. So your childhood money story is going to shape your adult behavior.

• 13:19Andrew Giancola?

  No matter what you think, even if you were brought up and you were really frugal and you didn't like that. And you start to spend more money now, it's still shaping how you're spending dollars as you get older. Everything is going to shape and change the way we spend. Let's take a break and then jump into number five. All right, so now we're going to get a little more granular and tactical. So the first part, we were talking through stuff that is more so the money psychology. How you spend your dollars, why you spend the money, the way that you do. Now we're going to get a little bit more tactical here on the day to day finances. So next thing you're going to ask is who is going to manage the day to day finances? Typically, one person in the relationship is kind of handling the day to day finances. Now, maybe both of you do collaboratively, but who is going to handle some of these? And maybe some of you are taking, you know, pieces off the plate and some of you are doing the rest.

• 14:02Andrew Giancola?

  So you want to discuss who is going to pay the bills? Now, if you automate the bills, nobody really has to pay the bills. You just have to kind of track where that money is going out. Two, who sets up the budget or the spending plan? Is there a budget or spending plan? Or are we going to be the type of people that kind of do the reverse budget? Meaning you save off the top and then you spend whatever is left over. You save first and then spend what you have left over. If you do a reverse budget, you don't have to budget as much. Who is going to track your net worth? And are you going to meet monthly to have conversations about money? Because that is going to be a big deal and I'll talk more about that later on in this episode. But I think you need to be meeting monthly and making it fun. Have a couple of drinks or whatever you want to do to enjoy this process. But thinking about how you're going to do that. Now you can divide these tasks up or you can have one person do it all.

• 14:46Andrew Giancola?

  Another big question on that is who's going to do the taxes? Because nobody likes doing the taxes and it is not fun. And it's one of those things that you must do. So who is going to do the taxes as well as another question on that? Number six, how much is too much to spend without telling each other? So every couple needs financial boundaries when it comes to spending money. So can someone spend a thousand dollars without telling you? Well, if that's makes you cringe and you do not want that to happen ever, then you need to start to set up some of these financial boundaries. So what's the spending limit before we have to check in? You have to check in for some of you out there that are like, oh, I gotta check in to even be able to spend my own money. That's not what I mean here. What I mean though, is if you're gonna make a big purchase, you guys both need to be on the same page with this because if you are collaboratively putting your dollars into the same account,

• 15:31Andrew Giancola?

  then you need to make sure that you are having a conversation about this. Secondly, is do we need permission or just a notification? So you just need to identify that. If for those of you out there is like, I'm not getting permission from anybody. Okay. Well, do you just need to notify them or just tell them, hey, I'm gonna spend $2,000 on this handbag, or I'm gonna spend $2,000 on new tires for my car. I'm gonna spend $1,000 on golf clubs, whatever it is. You just come up and tell me because transparency now is gonna save you from having therapy later. You gotta make sure that you have those parameters set up. It's very important to have some of those boundaries, especially when you're in a relationship. It's positive communication. That's all it is. It's making sure that you both are communicating as you go forward. Number seven is do we have the same definition of an emergency?

• 16:12Andrew Giancola?

  So without boundaries, emergency funds can turn quickly into slush funds, meaning you could just start to dip into emergency funds without really it being an emergency unless you both are on the same page. So what qualifies as an emergency? Is it something like the car breaks down, the house has a major issue? You have a big meltdown and you have a medical emergency. Are all those emergencies? Or is it really just for job loss and we need to make sure that we have enough extra cash on hand for some of these other quick emergencies that may pop up? You need to make sure that you identify that. What doesn't count as an emergency? So if there are a lot of things popping up in your relationship that you're saying to yourself, that's not really an emergency. I don't think we need to be using the emergency fund for this. Make sure you kind of qualify what doesn't qualify as emergency. And then do we use savings or do we swipe a credit card?

• 16:57Andrew Giancola?

  So for us specifically, if we can afford to take care of that emergency, I will pay cash for it and not dip into the emergency fund. But if I need to dip in the emergency fund, I will because that's what it's there for. Some of you out there are trying to have this trophy of an emergency fund that you never draw down on. And I get it. It gives you security. It gives you financial peace. It helps you sleep better at night. But the emergency fund is not a trophy that you have in place. It is something that you're going to use and you're gonna have to reload over and over again. That's why we created the 136 method, if you haven't heard that episode, go check it out. But that's why we created it was because you're going to have to reload over and over and over again. And so making sure that you have what an emergency is and what is not an emergency.

• 17:38Andrew Giancola?

  And then taking some of the gray areas on a case by case basis is going to be very helpful for you. It just helps you establish positive communication. Number eight, this is the big one, and I have an opinion on this. I'm going to give you my opinion, but you can do whatever works best for you. Okay, I'm going to say that caveat on here upfront. Are we combining or are we having separate bank accounts on this one? I don't think there's a right or wrong answer, but I do know what works very, very well for most people in relationships that I have seen in the past. What do I do? My wife and I, from the day that we got married. Now, there's different caveats to this. We both were broke. We were in our early twenties and when we got married, we had a combined bank account. And we still have a combined bank account.

• 18:21Andrew Giancola?

  Literally everything is combined from brokerage accounts. Roth IRAs are obviously separate just because you're going to have two. But everything else is combined outside of like retirement accounts. And the reason why the retirement accounts are separated only is because you can open two retirement accounts, get more money into retirement accounts. But outside of that, everything else is combined. Our checking accounts are combined, our savings accounts are combined, our brokerage accounts are combined. Everything is combined and I truly believe that that is the best way to go, especially for us. Now you may have a difference of opinion. Every time I bring this up, people get upset that I say you need to combine your bank account. But I don't really see why you have to over complicate the situation by having separate bank accounts. Because if you have separate bank accounts, or if you're that couple that Venmos each other all day long, just stop it.

• 19:04Andrew Giancola?

  Come up with a better solution than having to do that. And so if you have a combined bank account, you know what your monthly bills are, even if you want to have extra separate accounts for whatever reason that is. I cannot really come up with a good reason on why, maybe you have one. But if you have separate bank accounts, at least know what your monthly bills are. So you can have a combined checking account and just funnel that in every single paycheck. So it's an even amount and you can get your bills paid automated. Cause if you are manually doing this, you're spending way too much time managing money. You need to automate your finances as much as possible and it's much harder to automate when you have. Have multiple separate accounts that make no sense. It just makes your financial situation more difficult. You hear people out there say, well, if you can share a bed, you can share a bank account. If you share a house, you can share a bank account.

• 19:47Andrew Giancola?

  And there are a lot of things out there. And I've had a lot of reasons come at me of reasons why people want a separate bank account. I haven't heard a good one yet. And so maybe you have a good one and that is okay. This is just my opinion. Don't get mad at me. I'm just telling you how I feel because I know how easy my financial system is and how easy it is for me to manage money without even having to think about it because our money is just combined into one account. And so think through this, but if there is something that works better for you, more power to you. I'm not going to stop you and say, you're wrong. I'm just going to tell you how I feel about having combined or separate bank accounts. So I want you to discuss, will we have joint or separate accounts? And come up with a system, making sure that you have it in place. If you're going to have separate, just come up with a system that's going to work for you. Who contributes what?

• 20:31Andrew Giancola?

  You need to make sure you know that. And in some situations, maybe one person contributes all the bills and the other person gets the groceries. I don't know what your situation is, but you come up with that. For us, everything gets put into one account. We just spend it. We don't have to think about who contributes what, or try to piece it all together. And then you come back with bitterness saying, oh, I contributed all this and you're not even going to help me with this. There's just so many different scenarios where I don't like separate accounts and there's reasons why. How are bills paid and tracked? Well, if you have one account, you can just automate all your bills. You don't have to think about it. But if there are two separate accounts where you guys are trying to keep score, then all of a sudden, you got to make sure that you are tracking and paying bills in a specific way. And you got to keep score here and there and there. And you got to Venmo each other or whatever you do with cross functionality there. And so I would avoid assumptions.

• 21:16Andrew Giancola?

  They always lead to resentment, making sure you all know. How are bills paid and tracked? It's going to be very, very important. So that's a big one. Again, pretty strong opinion on that, but it's up to you on how you want to handle that. I am not going to tell you you're wrong for doing it a different way. Next, we're going to go into big picture planning. If you've heard any recent episode of Health Corner, you know that I have spent the last few years trying to optimize my sleep. I've tried sleep trackers, cooling my room, changing my nighttime routine, all the different things, but nothing really matters as much as having the right mattress. And that's one of the reasons I love Leesa. A great mattress is one of those things that you use every single night and you spend a third of your life sleeping.

• 22:00Andrew Giancola?

  And it can make a huge difference on how you feel the next day. Leesa has mattresses designed for different sleep positions and comfort preferences. And their sleep quiz can help you get matched in less than two minutes. Plus, they're designed and they're assembled in the USA and they come with free shipping, easy returns and a 120 night free sleep trial. So go to leesa.com for up to 30% off mattress plus and get an extra $50 off with promo code PFP. Exclusive for my listeners. That's L-E-E-S-A dot com, promo code PFP for 30% off mattresses plus an extra $50 off. Let them know we sent you in the survey after checkout.

• 22:44Andrew Giancola?

  Leesa.com promo code PFP. My relationship with money has changed a lot over the years. Early on, I thought building wealth was about making more money. Now I know it's really about having clarity. When you know exactly where your money is going and whether you're on track, you make better decisions. That's one of the reasons I love Monarch. It's the personal finance app that tracks everything from your accounts and investments to your savings, goals and spending. So you can see your entire financial picture in one place. One habit that's made a huge difference for me is my five minute drill every single morning. I open Monarch, check my spending, investments, cash flow and net worth, and I'm done in just a few minutes. It gives me confidence that nothing is slipping through the cracks.

• 23:28Andrew Giancola?

  I also love the AI weekly recap because it'll flag spending changes, upcoming expenses or shifts in my net worth before they become a problem. Instead of reacting after the fact, I can make adjustments early. It really feels like having a financial Advisor in your pocket. Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code PFP at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code PFP. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know it's not just me anymore. It takes a great team behind the scenes to make everything happen. And if I had to hire someone tomorrow, I'd want someone who could jump right in and make an impact.

• 24:12Andrew Giancola?

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• 24:55Andrew Giancola?

  And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It's kind of amazing how much can change in just a single year. Every summer, the kids are a little bigger, a little more independent, and life looks a little different than it did the year before. And it reminds me that while we can't predict the future, we can prepare for it. That's one of the reasons I like PolicyGenius. See, PolicyGenius isn't an insurance company.

• 25:39Andrew Giancola?

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• 26:25Andrew Giancola?

  All right. So when it comes to big picture planning, now we want to make sure that we are thinking through some of the bigger things out there. So first, what is our retirement plan? You want to talk through, most couples don't talk about retirement until it's too late. You want to be talking about it all the time, to be honest. And so you want to discuss, are we contributing enough? Do we have enough money going into this account? Run the numbers, make sure you do. Do we want to retire earlier? Do we want to wait till we're 65? That's a big one you want to ask. Because if you want to retire in your 40s or your 50s, it is very possible. We have a lot of people coming on this show that have shown you that it is possible. But you got to make sure that you have the plan in place together. You both have to be working towards that goal in order to make that happen. What lifestyle do we expect? So this is your dream situation. What lifestyle do you expect after you started to run your numbers?

• 27:09Andrew Giancola?

  Because retirement is not an age. Retirement is a number. And once you hit that number, you can have financial freedom. So you need to discuss that number. Next, number 10. What is our investing philosophy and why? Both people in the relationship need to at least understand why you're investing the way that you are. Because if for some reason, there is a pullback in the market. So for example, we've had multiple pullbacks in the market over the course of the last couple of years. We had the COVID-19 pullback, we had the big tariff pullback. And if you don't know what your investing philosophy is, one person in the relationship could be going to the other person in the relationship saying, why are we investing our dollars like this? We just lost $25,000. We just lost 20% of our portfolio. Why is this happening? If you don't understand it, you're going to start attacking one and it's going to cause to fights and lead to issues.

• 27:53Andrew Giancola?

  You need to at least understand why you're investing the way that you are. If you don't like it, or you don't like talking about investing, at least just understand the basic principles of why you are doing what you're doing. This is your financial future at stake. And so it's really important to make sure that you do this. So are you going to invest in real estate? Are you going to invest in index funds? Are you going to invest in both? Are you going to invest in businesses? Are you going to do something else? Think through what is your investing philosophy? Do you want a risk tolerant portfolio? Or are you going to have a more conservative portfolio over time? What is your risk tolerance? Are you willing to get maximum growth because you have a longer timeline? Do you have less of a timeline? And you need to have a conversation about making sure you're more conservative and adding bonds to your portfolio? Are you going to get an advisor? Or is it going to be DIY? All of these need to be answered with each other.

• 28:38Andrew Giancola?

  And you need to agree on them because if one person says, oh, we need an advisor because we don't know what we're doing. And the other person's like, no, I can do this. I can figure this out. Well, you need to be sure that you're on the same page. And maybe the person who doesn't want an advisor just doesn't want to do it because they don't want to pay those fees. Well, you can find a low cost person or you can find someone who puts a financial plan together for you on a fee basis instead of taking a percentage of assets. And that way you could come up with something that works really, really well together. Because you can't grow wealth in confusion. You can't be on different pages when it comes to your investing. It's very important for your future and you're literally buying your freedom. Take a little bit of initiative and make sure that you at least understand why you're doing what you're doing. 11, this is a big one. What debts are we bringing into the marriage? Debt doesn't disappear with I do.

• 29:20Andrew Giancola?

  And so you need to understand what debts are coming into this marriage before you're married. And now that you are currently married, what debts do you both have? There could be student loan debt. That'd be a reason to separate your finances. If you each have your different student loans and you want to try to pay it off. My wife and I came into the relationship. She had a little bit of student loan debt. She had about $20,000 in student loan debt. I didn't have any, but guess what I did? Now, since we're married, that student loan debt is mine. So now I'm taking that debt on and I attacked that debt as fast as we possibly could. And we paid it off in a year. But can you do the same thing? It's a big question that you got to ask yourself. Credit card debt. If someone's bringing in credit card debt, it's a big pants on fire emergency. You need to get that paid off as fast as possible can. Do you understand the implications of that credit card debt? Do they understand the implications of that credit card debt?

• 30:05Andrew Giancola?

  And why you have to pay that down so fast? Credit card debt has a really, really high interest rate. And it is destroying your ability to build wealth. And so you've got to make sure that you are paying off that credit card debt as fast as you possibly can. Car payments. Do you have car payments coming to the relationship? Do you have personal loans coming to the relationship? You're not just marrying the person, you are marrying their money history. And so you've got to know, once you're married, that debt is also your debt going down the line because you both are managing money together. Okay. So you've got to make sure that you take that on going forward. 12. What's our plan if one of us can't work? So if you have a job loss or an illness, that can unravel finances fast. And so what would be your plan if that would happen? Would you get emergency savings or disability insurance or career pivot strategy? You've got to think through all those as well.

• 30:50Andrew Giancola?

  13. This is a great one, and really this one needs to be ironed out pretty quickly because there's a lot of money disputes that happen based on this. What is our plan for large purchases? Let me give you an example, okay? You can talk about houses, you can talk about cars, you can talk about renovations, you can talk about vacations, all those different things. House, car renovations, vacations are all big purchases that come up all the time. Here's one example. My wife and I are very clear on how we handle big purchases. We have an entire plan in place to do this and it's not anything complicated. We just have discussed it and it's very easy. So the other day our dishwasher broke. Well, we had a couple of options here. Our dishwasher broke and we could replace it, we could get it fixed. But getting it fixed would be about the cost of like an entry level dishwasher. We could replace it and get a new, we could get a used one out there, you know, get a refurbished one, something like that.

• 31:34Andrew Giancola?

  That's not really something I do anymore. I used to do that when I was super frugal, but it's not something I do much anymore. Or three, we can buy a new one that's going to last as long as possible for the lowest cost. And so we picked option three, meaning I went out and was looking at dishwashers. And I was like, which one is going to last me for over 10 years? Or has the highest probability of lasting me for over 10 years? And I can buy at the lowest cost. And so we decided on one, we found the dishwasher, we paid in cash for it, it came into the house. We did not pull from the emergency fund for that one because we had the big purchase of like quick home renovations like that. If we can pay for it with our monthly budget, then we will. And so we took that, had the dishwasher installed, bought it at Lowe's, had it installed, they installed it for us. Bing, bang, boom, it was done. We literally made the decision in 10 minutes.

• 32:19Andrew Giancola?

  My wife went and looked at the dishwashers, kind of picked out the one she liked based on the Brands that I sent her that were supposed to be long lasting, no free plugs here. And then she took the dishwasher. She told Lowe's, hey, I'm gonna pay for it now. Paid for it in cash. Lowe's came and installed it and it was all done in a week. Dishwasher broke a week before. It was all done within the next couple of days. And so very quick process. There's no, oh, well, you need to transfer me money here before I buy the dishwasher. And you need to do this, this, and this. No, it was just all one account. We just bought it and we moved on with our lives. And so reducing that friction is really, really important, even on big purchases. Do we wait for cash or do we use financing as a big one on big purchases? Well, you know, for renovations or vacations, you should never be using financing.

• 32:59Andrew Giancola?

  But when it comes to things like buying a car or buying a house, it might be a little more normal to use financing. You gotta think through that a little bit. Who has the final say on this? Or is it both of you making sure you work to collaboration to get an answer? Big money decisions need joint accountability and you need to make sure you're on the same page. 14, and here's a big one. How do we handle financial disagreements? So money fights are common but predictable. And so you gotta make sure how you're gonna handle these conversations. Do we talk or do we shut down for a little bit and cool off? Do we escalate or do we mediate? Do we talk to somebody else? Is there a veto rule? Meaning, is there a rule that you can have in place to ensure that if anything is over a thousand dollars, you can veto that rule?

• 33:41Andrew Giancola?

  You know, you gotta talk through those conversations because healthy finances equals healthy communication. And so you're making sure that you have those in place and having those parameters in place is gonna be really important. Next, we're gonna talk about legacy planning and family planning.

• 33:53Andrew Giancola?

  All right. So when it comes to legacy planning, this is a big thing that we love to talk about here on this podcast because I believe in building generational wealth. And I love the concept of generational wealth and how you can build wealth for your families for generations and generations. And so making sure you preserve and protect that money is gonna be a very important thing and a big part of your plan. So your will is just one part of this plan, okay? Because let's first talk about, do we have an estate plan in place? Okay? So the will is a big part of that, but do you also wanna have trusts in place? So my wife and I have been rethinking about this a lot now that we have three kids. We have multiple businesses and we have a lot of things going on at the same time. And we're saying to ourselves, well, if we both died in a plane Crash. What will we actually do? Like, what would actually happen with our dollars?

• 34:36Andrew Giancola?

  And so we've been thinking deeply, a lot about that and how we're going to handle those dollars. And so at first, we actually disagreed a little bit. And so we were started to talk through and have the conversation. And it was so easy to have this conversation because we know that we can come to a conclusion that we both agree on. And so part of that conversation was, well, if the kids went to certain individuals within our family, how do we make sure that they have enough money to maintain our lifestyle and our house? To make sure that the kids are taken care of as they go into adulthood, all those different things. So we realized pretty quickly, oh, we're probably going to A, make sure that we put everything into a trust so that it is directed towards the kids when they turn of age. But secondarily, we also want to make sure that we have an additional life insurance coverage in place

• 35:21Andrew Giancola?

  in order to make sure that everybody involved is able to take care of the kids without any financial burden whatsoever. And so as you start to think through this stuff, you realize pretty quickly that you're going to have to make a couple of different changes and tweaks. Each time you have a new child born, you're going to probably have to make some additional tweaks. And so making sure you have the right plan in place is really, really important. So who makes decisions in a crisis when it comes to this kind of stuff? And have we documented our wishes? You got to make sure you're documenting all this stuff. Trust and Will is a great place to go. If you want to put together, you know, a simple will or trust. If you have a more complicated situation, then I would go to an attorney. I've used Trust and Will for years. I'm going to go to an attorney now though, because my new situation, the new ideas I have, I have some creative ideas on how to do this. I got to go through to an attorney and make sure I can actually do it all.

• 36:04Andrew Giancola?

  So it's going to be one of those things. I am a mad scientist when it comes to kind of financial situations like this. And so I want to see if I can actually do it. I think I can, but we're going to see if I can actually do it. Number 16. Oh my gosh, this is such a big one. And most of you don't realize how big this is. How will we teach our kids about money? So if you have kids, the most valuable thing that you can do is not just give them money. Giving them money doesn't really do much, but teaching them how to handle money is going to do more than anything you can ever do when it comes to finances. Obviously, there's more things you're going to teach them in life that are much more important than just money. But teaching them how to handle money is one of those life skills that they are not going to get in school. And so it's up to you to teach them about this. Will they get an allowance or will they earn money? How will we teach saving, spending, giving and investing? And do they see us talk about money?

• 36:50Andrew Giancola?

  Are they going to see us have conversations about money? The problems we're having, but also the good things that are happening with our dollars. Generational wealth requires generational wisdom. I believe families should talk more about money. If you grew up in a family that didn't talk about money whatsoever, how do you feel about that? I would love to hear more about that because it's interesting to think through. The more you talk about more money, the more comfortable you're going to get with money. The more comfortable you're going to get with financial situations, the more you're going to see of what's going on. That's why I talk about it so much. I truly believe we need to talk more about money. And people who have said for years that it is taboo to talk about money are just trying to suppress your growth when it comes to financial literacy. And so I want to make sure that we have conversations about money more. Honestly, I wish we even talk about it with our friends, talk through situations. How do I solve this problem without having any guilt or stress around what they're going to think about us?

• 37:35Andrew Giancola?

  I wish it was a little more open and it's really good if you can find people in your life to be open about that. And so teaching your kids about money is really, really important. I will have conversations with my kids all the time. So I will chat through different scenarios that we are going through and chat through different things. My oldest is six, the middle one's four, and the youngest is now seven months. And so with the older, with the boys, the older two, I will talk to them all the time about money. And we'll just have conversations about it and it's simple conversations about how things work with money. And they understand what an asset and a liability is. They understand how money works. They understand what it's for. They understand that it can also buy your freedom. There's a lot of just different little conversations that you can have with them in ways you can teach them. We're going to come out with more content on that. So just get ready because I think we got some cool stuff coming for that. Number 17, how will we handle windfalls?

• 38:19Andrew Giancola?

  Like bigger windfalls, surprise money, meaning an inheritance or gifts from family. How will we handle that money? Secondly, do we save, spend or invest those dollars? Make sure you just have predetermined parameters. Again, the 50 50 rule can help with this, but fast money brings fast tension. So making sure you plan for it before it hits your account is really, really important. 18, how do we feel about prenups? Now, I have no expertise in prenups. I don't have a prenup because like I said, when we got married, we were both broke. And so we built our wealth together as a team over time. But if you are someone who is getting married and one person has a lot of money and the other person is coming into a relationship, or if you don't know each other very well, or whatever the reasons are, I don't know what your reasons could be, you need to have this conversation.

• 39:03Andrew Giancola?

  Will it be an emotional conversation, or will it be a logical conversation in your relationship? Does family wealth play a role in this? For example, if you are marrying into a wealthy family, they may want their child to sign a prenup. What does a prenup protect? You can outline a prenup. I think you can get pretty creative when it comes to a prenup as well, but just having those conversations can be really, really helpful. The number 19, do we meet regularly to review our finances? So consistent communication is going to make sure that you are on top of this. Now, my wife and I, we used to meet and like sit down at the table and have a really like documented meeting about our finances and we tried to make it fun and you know, enjoyable. Now we're around each other a little bit more and so we kind of do it on a day-to-day basis because there's a lot of conversations we have to have day-to-day with businesses and those types of things. And so we typically are having those

• 39:47Andrew Giancola?

  conversations more frequently. So your frequency may increase, or it may decrease based on your life circumstances. If you have pretty simple finances, you can meet every month or every two months and just kind of review some of the stuff that's going on, especially if you have a fully automated system, or you use some of the automated dashboards out there. It's going to help you be able to be on the same page pretty quickly. But do you have monthly check-ins? And are we tracking progress towards our goals and how? That's the fun part about those meetings, is tracking your progress and you're seeing, hey, my net worth is increasing, or my negative net worth is decreasing, or some of the things that I am doing are just making a huge impact on our finances over the course of the last 12 months. Look how far we've come. It is so cool to see that over time as a team, as you start to go through this. So, those are the things that I want you to go through. Those are the things I want you to think about and how I want you to

• 40:32Andrew Giancola?

  manage money together and conversations that you need to have. Obviously, you've got a lot of homework here. You've got to have a lot of conversations about money. Take it one at a time. Again, you can go to mastermoney.co/resources to get this free download and make sure you have this free guide on hand today. Again, our goal is to bring you as much value as we possibly can. I hope we did that for you today. Thank you again for being here. If you're getting value out of this episode, follow the show, leave a five-star rating and review, and don't forget to share it with a coworker, family member, or friend. Again, thank you so much for being here and we will see you on the next episode.

• 41:18Speaker 01

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