Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Anthony Kirlew of Life is a Bank.  I am passionate about the need for quality financial education among married couples, and I think this post provides a great overview of the areas that you need to understand.  I’ll be back from my brief “paternity leave” on Monday. Enjoy!

Money is at the top of the list of issues that married couples argue about.  There are a host of money-related items to disagree about from not having enough money to differences in how to use the money that they have.

One way to reduce – and ultimately eliminate – these unwelcome interactions is to be open with each other about your “financial IQ” and set out on a course of learning about money and personal finances together.  That said, here are a few things to keep in mind.

First, both spouses may not have a genuine interest in personal finances (such as the case with my wife).  I would recommend that each spouse really makes an effort to learn the basics and more if possible.  We have all heard the story of the widow whose husband handled all of the finances and when he died, she was left not knowing anything about their finances (which included not knowing about his life insurance or his will).

Secondly, you each might have different learning styles, so what works for one may not work for the other. The good news is that financial education comes in many forms including books, videos, personal finance blogs, seminars, and one-on-one sessions with financial professionals.

The Money Basics That You Need to Know

So what should you seek to learn about with regards to money?  Here are my recommendations:

Budgeting

My philosophy on budgeting is to run your family budget like a business budget.  Your salary (income) is your accounts receivables (money coming in) and your bills or expenses are your accounts payables (money going out).  The receivables HAVE to be greater than the payables.

If not, you have three options: increase the receivables, decrease the payables, or do a combination of both.  You can increase receivables by putting in extra hours at work, taking on a second job, or starting a side business. You can decrease payables by looking at what you are spending and finding areas to cut back such as not having a $4 coffee every morning, not having multiple premium cable channels, or canceling gym memberships you don’t use.

(Note from Dustin: In my opinion, all financial success starts with a solid budget and open communication. Personally, I’ve tried a lot of approaches, and I feel that You Need A Budget is the best option out there for budgeting software.)

Credit

Learn the power of having and maintaining good credit. In a perfect world, we would not use credit, but if you need it, you will pay far less for the money you borrow if you have good credit.  The solution to maintain a good credit rating is never taking out a loan you do not have the means to pay back and always paying back your loans on time.

Savings

There are several different forms of savings from the emergency fund to a 3-6 month reserve, to long-term savings for major purchases such as a down payment on a home. It is important to establish your personal savings goals, and learn what financial vehicles exist to help you save.  You might be surprised to find certain financial instruments (such as insurance policies) that can serve more than one purpose such as helping you save while also providing a death benefit.

Debt Management

If you have debts, make sure you know the fastest way to pay them off.  A great way to pay off your debts is to use the debt snowball method where you pay off the lowest balance debt and then add that payment to the payment of the next debt on the list which allows you to continue to make larger and larger payments on your debts which knocks down the balances faster. Using the Infinite Banking Concept, you can possibly take this to the next level by paying off the debt snowball with a loan from yourself (more on that later).

(Note from Dustin: Our family used the good, old-fashioned Debt Snowball to pay off our debts, and it was one of the best decisions we ever made.  We did not leverage our efforts through the use of loans back to ourselves, as suggested here, and I am not endorsing that approach.)

Insurance

Although many people don’t like talking about insurance, you need to make sure you understand what you need and what you don’t need. There are some types of insurance that you cannot live without (by force) such as car insurance and homeowners insurance. But what about life insurance, renters insurance, health insurance, and the like?

I could write a whole blog post on just insurance alone but suffice it to say, you need to have an understanding on what is available and what will benefit you in your current situation and down the road as your needs change.

Investing / Retirement

I put these together because ultimately your investment activity should be building your nest egg or retirement fund.  There are lots of different types of investments out there and I will just say this; if you don’t fully understand what you are putting your money in, why you are doing it, and what the outcome will be, don’t do it.

In general, I would stay away from stocks and mutual funds because they are really a gamble (and this is my personal opinion and experience, not investment advice). One of the best investment vehicles that I have personally found are dividend paying whole life insurance policies.  Many will tell you that they are not a good investment and that you should “buy term life and invest the difference” but I will tell you that most people never invest the difference, and those that do have taken huge losses by listening to the “gurus” that preach this because their mutual funds tanked.  Dividend paying whole life insurance companies have produced positive returns for years – even during the great depression.

(Note from Dustin: I felt the need to interject here to let you know that I am personally in the “buy term and invest the difference” camp on this issue, so that’s the approach our family has taken.  However, like most issues, I like to be open-minded and invite opinions that are different than my own, so here you go. )

The Infinite Banking Concept

This is a term that you may not be familiar with, but it is a financial strategy that I am personally passionate about. It is through the Infinite Banking Concept that you are able to leverage certain aspects of insurance policies to create a personal financing system with the additional benefits of retirement funds as well as a death benefit to leave to your family when you graduate from this earthly life. Of all of the arenas of personal finance I mentioned to study, I would put this at the top of the list because it will empower you to accomplish all of the others more efficiently from savings to paying off debts, to building a retirement fund.

(One final note from Dustin: Again, I have not used this Concept, so I cannot personally endorse it.  I tend to prefer to keep things fairly simple with our finances, but I also don’t discount other ideas on the sole basis that I don’t have any experience with them.)

As with any new venture, remember that mastering your personal finances is a process and not something you need to become overwhelmed with.  Take it one step at a time and every step you take will get you closer to achieving your financial goals.

Those that master their personal finances carry less stress and enjoy life more than those who are always broke or just getting by.  In the end, the financially educated have happier and healthier marriages as well – and that is my wish for you!

(photo source)

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Anthony Kirlew is the Chief Marketing Officer for Life is a Bank, a financial education firm that specializes in helping people “become their own banker” through the power of the Infinite Banking Concept. Anthony has worked in the financial services arena for several years specializing in real estate, mortgage banking, insurance services, and as a personal finance blogger.  A lifelong entrepreneur, Anthony has also been a professional online marketer since 1999.

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Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Want a Better Marriage? Learn About Money!

Tags: Communication, Finances, Guest Post, Marriage Preparation

Related posts:

1. Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps: A Real Path to Family Financial Freedom
2. Marriage And Money: How To Improve Communication And Minimize Money Fights
3. Budget Software Reviews: Choose Your Tool for Successful Money Management

We are opting for more time indoors than usual this holiday weekend while we anxiously await the arrival of our third child sometime in the next week or two.  Thank God for air conditioning!

When I think of our family’s own freedom, the thought of finances always comes to mind.  As you may be aware, we paid off a LOT of debt and now enjoy much more financial freedom, and that carries through to all aspects of our marriage and family life.

I recently shot another video where I discuss the number one cause of divorce in America and why I think You Need A Budget is such a great tool for addressing this important problem.  And here’s another reason to celebrate: I just purchased a new video camera so this is the last really low-quality video post you’ll see from me!

Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments, and if you’d like to see all of my Engaged Marriage videos (some of which don’t find their way to the blog) please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you can’t see the video, just click here: You Need A Budget Review: Married Money Management

Thanks for your continued support!

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Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Finding Financial Freedom with You Need A Budget

Tags: Finances, Household Management, Product Review, Video

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In honor of the occasion, I have some great giveaways to share…so please read on and enter to win!

Welcome to Our Friends from Get Rich Slowly

If you are a new visitor from Get Rich Slowly, I’d first like to welcome you to Engaged Marriage!  I encourage you to take a few minutes to look around, and I think you’ll find an awesome community of proactive people who love their marriage and family life.

If you like what you see, I’d also encourage you to sign up to receive free updates via RSS or Email whenever new posts are published here at Engaged Marriage.  If you’re really serious about getting killer content and exclusive advice aimed at helping you have an awesome marriage, please sign up for our free Marriage Time newsletter.

If you love finances as much as I do, I hope you’ll enjoy these posts:

• Should Married Couples Have Joint or Separate Bank Accounts?
• Our Debt-Free Marriage: How We Paid Off $54,500 in the Name of Freedom
• Prenuptial Agreements: Good, Bad or Just Plain Ugly?
• Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps: A Real Path to Family Financial Freedom
• The Grass is Always Greener…and I Don’t Give a Damn!

Giveaway Number One – Your Money: The Missing Manual

J.D. Roth is the creator and lead writer over at Get Rich Slowly, and he recently released his first book.  Your Money: The Missing Manual has really been a hit, and it’s no surprise to me as J.D. is a dependable source of sensible advice for getting the most from your money.

In honor of J.D. accepting my post to share with his community, I wanted to share his fantastic book with the community here at Engaged Marriage.  More specifically, I want to give the nearly 400 members of our awesome Facebook page a special chance to win a cool exclusive giveaway.  If you want to join in, just head over and “Like” our page to join in all the fun we have there.

Let’s give away a killer book!

To enter to win Your Money: The Missing Manual, just do the following:

• Head over to the Engaged Marriage Facebook page and leave a comment under the (very obvious) giveaway post there on the wall.
• After you post on the Facebook page, you’ll get a bonus entry by tweeting the following message: Enter to win a FREE copy of “Your Money: The Missing Manual” from @EngagedMarriage http://wp.me/pEBYt-s3 #giveaway

I will randomly select one winner from all of the entries, and they’ll receive a free copy of Your Money: The Missing Manual!  The contest ends at noon CST on Friday, May 21st so act quick!

Giveaway Number Two – The Total Money Makeover

If you’ve read Engaged Marriage for very long, you know that another favorite financial book of mine is The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.  After all, it was Dave Ramsey who laid the groundwork and provided a lot of the motivation that we used to pay off all of our debt (other than our mortgage).

I want to give away a copy of this life-changing book, and I want to make it a special giveaway for our awesome Marriage Time newsletter subscribers.  Again, if you want to enter the giveaway, I encourage you to sign up for the newsletter.  I guarantee you won’t regret it, but if you do unsubscribing is always as easy as a click of the mouse.

To enter to win The Total Money Makeover, just do the following:

• Reply to the welcome message email (which contains Marriage Mojo lesson one) you get when you confirm your subscription to the Marriage Time newsletter.  If you are already a newsletter subscriber, just reply to any previous email message and put “TMMO” in the subject line and you’ll be entered.
• After you reply by email, you’ll get a bonus entry by tweeting the following message: Enter to win a FREE copy of “The Total Money Makeover” from @EngagedMarriage http://wp.me/pEBYt-s3 #giveaway

Again, I will randomly select one winner from all of the entries, and they’ll receive a free copy of The Total Money Makeover!  The contest ends at noon CST on Friday, May 21st so act quick!

Giveaway Number Three – You Need A Budget

In case you missed it, I wanted to remind everyone that we have yet another fantastic financial giveaway going on this week.  Please read my review of You Need A Budget and enter to win your own free copy of the awesome YNAB budgeting software on that post!

Thank you to J.D. Roth and all of the great members of the Engaged Marriage community for your continued support.  Good luck winning one of this week’s special “Get Rich Slowly” giveaways!

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Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Get Rich Slowly Giveaways!

Tags: Book Review, Finances, Free Stuff, Guest Post, Welcome

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If you are a regular reader here at Engaged Marriage, you may recall several recent posts about our search for budgeting software that met our needs as a busy family.  After many years of faithful budgeting that allowed us to pay off $54,500 in debt, we recently started to slip up in our spending and planning.

In a quest to find the right software to get us back on track, I reviewed 5 of the top budgeting tools on the market and wrote my opinions of them.  Each had their strengths, and many offered a way to track spending and plan for the future with far less time and energy than I had been spending with my homemade spreadsheets and manual receipt tracking.

The Best of the Best

After I did that initial review, I basically narrowed things down to just two choices that seemed like the best fit: Mint and You Need a Budget.  Well, after trying them both out and putting them to the test, I’m confident that we’ve found the right budgeting tool for our marriage.

While I enjoyed Mint’s online access and the overall picture it provided (including retirement accounts and other investments), I felt that it came up short in the primary area that we’re concerned with, which is budgeting.  Mint doesn’t “look ahead” and it makes the process of planning for the future quite cumbersome.  It’s not bad for a free service, but it simply didn’t stack up to YNAB.

You Need A Budget does all of the things you’d expect a premium budgeting software to do:

• It allows you to import your banking transactions as you wish (with no need to give up account passwords like you do with Mint), so you never have to worry about saving receipts for every nickel you spend day-to-day.

• It makes it easy to categorize your purchases for simple budgeting on the “envelope system” (without the need to carry around envelopes…unless you want to).

• It lets you know when you are overspending on a certain category and lets you balance your budget on the go.

• It allows you to plan ahead to save for large purchases and  irregular expenses.

• And it gives you the insight you need to make wise decisions about your family finances.

Sounds great, right?  Well, what makes You Need A Budget superior is all that is goes well beyond the basics of normal spreadsheet budgeting!

The Four Rules for Financial Success…

OK, this is where the nerd in me really gets excited.

If you don’t already know that having a budget is the first step to financial success, well now you do.  Seriously, you really do need a budget.  So whether you use a great software like YNAB or you just write everything down on a piece of paper and track your spending manually, please know that you must have a budget if you want to achieve any level of financial freedom.

The budget is a great tool for identifying how you are spending your money.  However, the real power in budgeting is the ability to plan ahead and change your behavior to achieve financial goals.

I want you to read the following four principles for sound money management and think about how important they are for success in personal finance…and marriage.

1. Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck

2. Give Every Dollar a Job

3. Save for a Rainy Day

4. Roll with the Punches

Pretty killer financial principles, right?  Well, the best part is that they…

….Are Built Right In!

Do you want to know why I’m so excited about You Need A Budget?  It’s because these Four Rules are built right into the software!

I encourage you to head over and read more on the You Need A Budget website, but here’s a quick overview of  why these “rules” matter and how powerful they really are:

1. As you start using YNAB, the software will literally guide you to help you get ahead by a month (so you use May’s paychecks to pay June‘s expenses, for example).  This will give you breathing room and allow you to stop wasting time by timing paychecks with bills.  Plus, if you’re on a variable income, your budgeting “problem” will be eliminated.

2. It helps you put every dollar to work with a specific purpose and plan.  Your financial awareness will increase tremendously, and you’ll find contentment as your spending aligns itself with your core values. Communication between spouses about money can be restored in the process.

3. The software lets you anticipate and save for larger, irregular expenses so you’ll be ready.  This helps you eliminate the crazy ups and downs in your spending, and it lets you see a true picture of your discretionary income.  You can enjoy opening the mail again when the money is there waiting to pay the bills as they arrive.

4. We all mess up, and we all overspend from time-to-time.  The key is to stick with your plan over the long-term and maintain consistency.  YNAB helps keep you moving when you fail so you don’t quit, and it lets you start each month with a clean slate, which is a huge psychological boost.

Again, when you visit the YNAB site, you’ll find great videos that go over each of these points in detail.  I think you get the idea though, and I hope you can see why this makes me so excited.  OK, so no one probably understands that, but trust me when I say that I think this built-in methodology is sweet!

Purchase, Installation and Use

The You Need A Budget website is the place to go to read, listen to or watch tutorials that will show you everything you want to know about the software.  However, I want to hit the high points here for your convenience.

• Purchase – YNAB is sold for a one-time fee.  Many of the other premium software packages require monthly fees, but if you are sticking with it for the long-term (as you should), then a one-time fee is certainly the way to go.  Plus, I’m convinced that one month of living “on a plan” will more than pay for the price of the software.

Also, you can try YNAB free for 7 days with no obligation (they don’t even take any payment information up-front), which is a great way to see if it fits your needs.  Plus, they offer a 30-Day money-back guarantee if you do buy it and decide it’s not for you.

• Installation - I found the installation to be a snap.  And the software did some cool things like automatically set up defaults so when I go to my bank’s website to download transactions, they pop right into YNAB in the right format.

• Use – You Need A Budget is desktop-based software, which originally concerned me because I didn’t know how I’d access it from both my home and work computers.  However, they’ve thought of that, too!

When you buy a YNAB license, it allows you to install the software on as many computers as you’d like, and you can just enter your product key number into each to activate it.  So, I have YNAB on both of my computers, and I just keep our budget file on a flash drive so I can open, change and save it wherever I’m at.  You could also email the file to yourself or use an online storage service like Dropbox, and it makes it a snap to access your information whenever you need to.

So Awesome Even My Wife Likes It!

By now, you surely know that I’m a bit of a geek.  After all, I created our original budget spreadsheets and went through years of pain to track our spending manually while trying to plan ahead for our family finances.  And I didn’t mind it until I got so darn busy that I couldn’t keep up using those methods.

Well, you may not know that my wife is what Dave Ramsey would call a “free spirit” at heart.  She wants our family to be comfortable and she’s not an irresponsible person.  However, to say that she enjoys budgeting or has any desire at all to track spending on a spreadsheet would be a major stretch!

After I got YNAB installed and had a chance to play around with it for a while, I decided I just had to share it with Bethany even though I figured she’d think I was asking her to watch paint dry.  Well, I have to say that she actually complimented the look, feel and functionality of the software.  And she said it was something that even she could stand to use! (yes, that is a ringing endorsement of a financial product coming from her )

If you aren’t the “budgeting type,” I would encourage you to give YNAB a try.  I really think anyone can intuitively “get” the budgeting process and, more importantly, achieve success in their financial planning using this awesome software.

The YNAB website and the software itself are packed with excellent resources to teach you about not only the software but financial planning as a whole.  They even have free forums, a blog, live online classes and a free “YNAB University” where you can gain a wealth of great information all at your own pace.

The Bottom Line

I could seriously write about this software and the topic of achieving financial freedom all day.  However, the YNAB website has all of the details you’d ever want to know about their product, and I have plenty of time to write posts about money.  Here’s the bottom line in my opinion:

• You (really do) Need A Budget.

• You also need a solid financial plan and goals for the future.

• If you want to use software to aid you in the process, YNAB is the best product I have found to get the job done effectively.

• YNAB has the endorsement of both myself (a nerd) and my wife (very much not a nerd).

• Whether you use YNAB or not, please start addressing your finances today.  Your marriage will benefit more than you can imagine.

UPDATE: YNAB has now released an iPhone App to make it easy to keep your budget up-to-date when you are on the go!  The app works with your full version of YNAB, so you’ll need both the iPhone App and YNAB to make it work.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments to this post.  Please post a financial goal that you are currently working on with your spouse or fiance.

Here’s wishing you success with your money and your marriage!

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Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: You Need A Budget: Money Management for a Happy Marriage

Tags: Debt Free, Finances, Household Management, Product Review

Related posts:

1. Marriage And Money: How To Improve Communication And Minimize Money Fights
2. Budget Software Reviews: Choose Your Tool for Successful Money Management
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I was (again) reading Your Life. Live it. Love it. recently, and a particular chapter really resonated with me.  A passage called “The Grass is Always Greener Right Under Your Feet” serves as an awesome reminder of just how powerful our own perspective can be when it comes to our happiness.

My life is full of examples of “what ifs” and “if onlys” and I’d like to share a few with you to see if you can relate.  I’ll take a peer over into my world from the perspective of someone with beautiful, free, single, wealthy, independent and uninhibited grass.

And then I’ll tell you why I don’t give a damn about their green grass!

Marriage is Hard

I got married when I was young and straight out of college.  If I wouldn’t have tied myself down, I could have spent the last nine years living an independent and free lifestyle.  I could have experienced relationships with many different women, spent a lot of fun times with my buddies and probably improved my golf game considerably.

I could have traveled extensively and experienced all that the world has to offer.  Incredible opportunities for wealth and entrepreneurial success would have been mine for the taking, and I could have taken part in all of the amazing adventures that I have only read about in books.

Kids are Expensive

I have two small children and one on the way.  The sacrifices that my children require in time and loss of independence are really incalculable.  The constant pressure and burden of providing for their every need is really stressful, and it makes it very difficult to care for myself and experience any truly free time.

My kids also cost a lot of money.  Their childcare costs alone would allow me to live in a house that costs more than twice my current home.  If I didn’t have the ongoing expenses associated with their food, clothing, entertainment and activities, I would have amassed a very nice nest egg by now.  And I’d be driving a sweet ride that didn’t require car seats.

Responsible Adulthood is Confining

I have a lot of stress in my life that is caused by all of the things I choose to do as a “responsible adult.”  Aside from spending a lot of time with my wife and children, I have a full-time professional career, a growing blog (about marriage of all things), church activities, community service and commitments of time to my extended family and friends.

If I instead lived at home with my parents and spent my time doing only the things that I enjoy, I would have an incredibly flexible and stress-free lifestyle.  I could drink beer and play video games late into the night, and I’d be able to take a trip to Vegas or go on a ski trip in the Rockies at the drop of a hat.

I would have the life that poor schmucks with a 9-to-5, a mortgage and tee-ball coaching duties can only dream about.

If only…I’d have a great life!

I Don’t Give a Damn About That Grass

I love my life.

When you peer over a proverbial fence and look at my yard with a judging eye, you’re likely to see some rough patches, some areas that have been neglected for lack of time and several crazy kids running around making a lot of noise.  My property isn’t as large as some, and it has some fences around it that may make others feel a bit trapped.

But it’s my grass, and it represents all that makes life so precious in my world.

• That free and independent lifestyle would not have fulfilled me and given me unconditional love for the last nine years.

• That big house would feel really empty without happy children and a beautiful wife inside.

• Those trips around the world would be worthless within a life that has no meaning.

The grass will always look greener on the other side…and I don’t give a damn.

Instead, I thank God for every beautiful blade of grass that I find on our side of the fence.

Can you relate?

What part of your “lawn” do you love even though others may view it as weeds?

Please share your thoughts in the comments!

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Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: The Grass is Always Greener…and I Don’t Give a Damn!

Tags: Children, Family Planning, Finances, Individual Fulfillment, My Story, Spirituality

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