To Personalize Your Joint Financial Goals, Start With These Questions
For organizing your own thoughts on your finances, there are three ways you’ll benefit from these questions.
Before setting financial goals with your romantic partner, take a beat for a quick quiz that will bring clarity to the conversation.
This free CFPB tool gives you a pulse on your own financial wellness. (The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a U.S. government agency created during the Obama administration as part of the Dodd-Frank Act — that’s probably where you first heard of Elizabeth Warren, who fought tooth and nail for this agency to be passed into law. The CFPB was established to protect consumers from predatory banking and lending practices following the Great Recession in 2008.)
The quiz covers topics you may already be comfortable discussing with your partner. Or maybe you’re new talking about money together. Either way, the important thing to remember is that your core values, concerns, hopes, dreams, and unified financial goals are all tied to ongoing teamwork based on trust and healthy relationship habits.
For organizing your own thoughts on your finances, there are three ways this quiz is particularly helpful.
#1 —Quantify your financial attitudes
While many money management tools exist, few are focused on how we feel about money — or our relationship to money.
How did your parents handle debt? Do you want to mimic how your father refused to discuss money? Or, do you want to be less stingy than your grandparents were with their life savings because you feel they missed out on, living life?
These questions can be more difficult to quantify than the dollar amount in your 401K or monthly student loan payment amount. But, attitudes, habits, and histories with money have a monumental influence on how we react to financial stressors and supports.
Money is Americans’ #1 source of stress and, according to science, can break down intimacy in relationships by eroding each partner’s mental health.
Because this tool is geared toward quantifying sentiment more than dollars and cents, partners can reach a deeper layer of the iceberg that’s sometimes hard to see.
Because each person’s situation is unique and subjective, it is hard to describe financial well-being using only numbers like income, net worth, or credit score. Financial well-being means having financial security and financial freedom of choice, in the present and in the future. More specifically, having financial well-being is when you have control over day-to-day, month-to-month finances; have the capacity to absorb a financial shock; are on track to meet your financial goals; and have the financial freedom to make the choices that allow you to enjoy life.
- CFPB, Consumer Tools
#2 — Take a snapshot before goal-setting
At Enriched Couples, we often work with engaged and newlywed couples. At this stage in life, it’s especially common for partners to ask themselves “How should we merge our financial lives — bank accounts, student loans, credit card debt, house payments, and such?”
That’s a valid question — but one without a universal answer.
While writing a new set of joint rules for the financial partnership, it’s useful to understand one’s own financial health. Evaluating and unpacking the financial issues that concern or encourage each partner — as individuals — supports healthier communication.
Before setting goals as a couple, using this tool provides a snapshot of the “before” picture.
This questionnaire and scoring method can help you take stock of your financial well-being. Maybe you’re planning to take action to improve your financial life. One of the key questions you might ask yourself afterward is, “Am I better off than before?” To answer that question, you can use our financial well-being questionnaire and your resulting score. Together, they let you accurately and consistently measure your financial well-being before and after taking steps to improve your financial situation.
- CFPB, Consumer Tools
#3 — See how peers are doing, you’re not alone
Finally, this tool offers the benefit of peer comparisons. The nationalized survey data can help partners individually and collectively understand where they fit amid their peers across the country.
Why is this useful?
Couples are routinely curious about the ways their peers are approaching similar life choices and challenges. Knowing you’re not alone or a complete outlier can also be a relief or even reduce shame about perceived weaknesses.
The tool allows you to compare your financial well-being score to other adults in the United States. The comparison of your score to others’ scores is made possible by our national survey. In late 2016, we collected responses to our financial well-being scale in a nationwide survey of U.S. adults for the first time.
- CFPB, Consumer Tools
Annette Miller is the Cofounder and CEO of Enriched Couples, a financial therapy platform that uses psychology to guide couples through unifying their values, financial priorities, and future goals.
