Ms. Money Savvy » Marriage

State of the (Financial) Union

savvy — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:45:55 +0000

It’s been a busy few months. Between home improvement projects, a new job and some travel, I haven’t been keeping a close watch on our finances. We’ve spent five figures on irregular expenses since May which is just plain crazy. Therefore, Mr. Savvy and I have set aside a date to review the ’state of the union’. We will take a look at our past spending as well as planned future spending and figure out how best to optimize our bank accounts, credit cards, etc. We both have reward cards and debit cards, we have both individual and joint accounts and it’s getting to be a lot. Our homeowners insurance just went up as well so there’s definitely work to be done.

How often do you seriously and completely review your finances? I would suggest no less than once and year. You may discover ways to save money or ways that you’re just plain wasting money. After our state of the union, I will post the decisions/changes we make. I invite you to do the same.

Tell Your Story to BusinessWeek Magazine

savvy — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:57:24 +0000

From Brian Burnsed of BusinessWeek magazine -

I’m Brian Burnsed, a reporter with BusinessWeek magazine. I’m working on a story for the magazine about how hectic tax season can be and how it can sometimes become a source of contention among couples. I was wondering if any of you find that during tax season you and your spouse tend to drive each other crazy because of differences in tax habits (i.e. wife wants to file early, husband tends to wait until the last minute or vice versa, ect…) or, if there are any CPA’s, EA’s or attorneys out there who have tales of clients squabbling with each other over taxes. I’m not looking to dig up deep seeded resentment among married couples, but rather have you talk in a fairly light hearted manner about some of the problems that tax time has caused for you in the past. If there are any of you out there who are willing to share your stories, I would relish the chance to speak to you. If you could, call me at your convenience at 404-240-7392 or e-mail me at brian_burnsed@businessweek.com so we can talk about this further. My deadline is Friday (2/22/08), so if we could talk soon it would be a huge help. Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing your stories.

Please contact Brian directly if you’re interested.

Beware of Having All Joint Accounts

savvy — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 13:00:57 +0000

While I am definitely NOT one of those women who suggests you have a secret stash and hide money from your spouse, I also am not one of those women who suggests you merge every last thing and only have joint accounts. It is imperative that you maintain your own credit, even after marriage. If you become widowed, you may find that all that joint credit history disappears along with your husband. The article below details the story of woman who experienced just that.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/10/11/business/bahr/20_16_0010_10_07.txt

I urge everyone, male and female, to maintain some type of credit in solely their name. This can be as simple as maintaining a credit card you had before marriage or putting a future loan (such as an auto loan) in one name vs both. A little foresight can save you a lot of grief later.