Money “Dates”
The idea of “Money Dates” has recently resurfaced in my mind. I was having a discussion with my husband about our finances. We had just rebalanced our portfolio, with the help of our advisor, Jim Ludwick! In addition to giving us advice, Jim has been after me for months, bugging me to get him my investment account statements. Well I am not that bad with procrastinating, but the deal was we had to give each other portfolio advice. So I think that was what took me longer to get organized.‚ò∫ It’s much harder to give advice to another professional!
Have you ever heard a saying: “The cobbler’s kid has no shoes!” This is not entirely true of me, but what I would like to learn to do better is implementing more frequent, short and fun get-togethers with my significant other about our money. Let’s call them “Money Dates.”
Have you been on one?
No worries if there is no significant other around. That’s why you have US!
What I noticed from our financial planning practice is that clients who consistently and frequently review and update their finances do much better. The reason is simple: they can determine sooner if they are off track!
Here is what I proposed to my significant other:
Let’s “meet” once per month and discuss:
• How much money did we make? (I get paid once per month and Yuri is on commissions, so he is paid even less frequently)
• How much did we save?
• Has our debt increased/decreased?
• Any unusual expenditures we should anticipate in the next month
That’s it. I envision this discussion to take no more than 15 minutes. I plan to use our best tools (link up a blog) and mint.com to provide us with a snapshot of our finances.
I invite you to join me in this practice. It’s a short, but very powerful, date. Measuring your progress is the best tool out there to assure you are on track!
Happy money dating.‚ò∫
