Finance and Investments

The biggest investment we make, emotionally and financially is in marriage. Figures vary but almost half of marriages end in divorce. It therefore makes a lot of sense to sort out financial issues prior to marriage - it should in fact be a priority. Here are four areas that should be at the top of the discussion list.

ANCESTRY
How did your parents deal with money, how does that impact how you deal with it, and how might that impact a couple's relationship?

Because so many of our money behaviours are learned, couples should share their earliest money memories - whether their father hid money from their mother or how either parent fretted over the funds available.

CREDIT
While it's about the least romantic subject imaginable, your credit history holds a chunk of your permanent financial record.
Full disclosure on the credit front is useful for two reasons. It is a good starting point for a discussion about what you've learned (or still need to learn) about handling money.

CONTROL
Figuring out who will pay the bills each month may not seem to be an important conversation or assignment. But it gets tricky when both people want to take it on.

AFFLUENCE
Here's another question that tends not to come up during courtship: Just how rich do we want to be one day?

There is no right or wrong answer, it's just about understanding, going into a marriage, what that would really mean.

More on these sorts of discussions can be found in my book "Girls Just Want to Have Fund$."