Money is something that we worry about all the time. When we’re still studying, we feel as if we don’t have enough cash to buy the things that we want, much less save. When we step into full time employment, we feel as if we don’t have enough money to repay our study loan. When it’s time to get married and start a family, we feel as if we don’t have enough savings to acquire assets or invest.

Wouldn’t it be great if you had enough money at each stage of your life to buy the things that you want?

How does it sound, if we said that regardless of how much you’re earning, you can achieve your financial goals with a little bit of financial planning?

#1 Communicate

The first thing to do is to communicate and let the minds meet before the practical steps of their day-to-day planning begins. Instead of leaving it up to one person to manage the finances, couples should have an open and honest discussion about their financial goals and make a plan for how to get there. In our experience, the majority of couples may not have jointly created retirement plans and may not feel financially secure due to a lack of communication. So speaking from the heart will save you the headache down the road to financial freedom. In Asia and also often in the west, many people were raised to feel that discussing money is taboo, they have trouble engaging in serious conversations about it. Don’t let this hold you back from having a constructive conversation on couple and marriage finance planning.

#2 Spend within your means

It’s easy to say this but how do you do this? Spending within your means would require strict budgeting firstly, then sticking to this even more strictly.

Begin by writing down all the amounts of income from all sources. If you’re in a relationship, do this together and fully disclose all information so that you can plan your finances together as a couple.

Next, list your necessary monthly expenses such as Internet and phone bills, transport costs, rent/mortgage, groceries/food and existing debt. These are necessary because you can’t function without them.

Finally, write down other necessary expenses such as your monthly health and accident insurance premiums, parental allowance as well as how much you’d like to put aside as cash savings.

Then take your total monthly income and deduct your total monthly necessary expenditure. The amount that you have left is what you have to spend each month, and this is all that you have to spend.

#3 Set aside a proportion as investments

With the amount of money that you have to spend, decide on a proportion for investing. As you’ve already set aside cash savings, this amount is solely for your investment plans such as stocks, REITs or even an investment-linked insurance policy. With the availability of investment trading apps, you can start investing from as low as $100.

#4 Save what you don’t spend

After you’ve completed steps 1 and 2, you can spend whatever is left. If you decide not to spend the money, you can top up your cash savings or add that to your investment proportion.

When things are going smoothly, we tend not to think about difficult times. But as the saying goes, it’s always good to plan for a rainy day. Here are some unpleasant scenarios that can happen unexpectedly to your partner or yourself. But with some early financial planning, they can be managed.

#1 Long-term unemployment

If both of you are like most Singaporeans, you’re both probably starting full time employment with a study loan. Or if you’re a couple buying property, you’ll have a mortgage to clear.

You’re also thinking that since both of you have a job, there won’t be any issues repaying the debt from your monthly salary.

However, what if you graduated during a time of recession and are unable to be employed for more than six months? Or what if one of you is suddenly let go of your job and has trouble getting employed even after a year?

Long-term unemployment can add stress to your financial responsibilities.

#2 Serious illness, handicap or immobility

Illnesses, diseases and accidents can happen without warning to anyone at any age. Life threatening illnesses and diseases require huge sums of money for treatment. There are some that cause immobility or a handicap that results in long term unemployment.

Such incidents can add more stress to couples who are new homeowners or young parents.

#3 Fire accident

One aspect of financial planning that couples seldom consider is fire. This can cause severe and irreparable damage to property and assets. Planning for cases of fire with fire insurance and cash savings can ensure that your financial burden is eased.