MARRIAGE - LONG-TERM ISSUES

Marriage can save you money!

Although the government does little to offer any financial incentive to be married, there are ways in which you can make the most of your married status to make sure that you make the most of your joint income and shared expenditure. Here are just a few.

1 Make the most of your employment
The first place to look for marital savings is from your employers. Take time to compare closely the benefits you are entitled to for duplication. For example, if your spouse can cover your health insurance, perhaps you can opt for some of other options such as additional holiday, supplemental life insurance, or medical coverage.

2 Maximise your relationship with your Bank
Banks today offer lots of different bank account options that you can chose (a single combined account; two separate accounts; his, hers, and ours…). Make sure they are linked in the bank's mind so that you qualify for lower fees or higher rates -- which usually require a minimum deposit across accounts. Perhaps you could manage with a single account that allows you to write cheques (find one that doesn’t charge) and put the extra level of money into a high interest-paying account where you can transfer money at a fixed notice.
Take a look at some of the online banks, which often have lower minimums and may be more convenient for bill paying.

3 Review your Insurances
There are many, many types of insurance, including life insurance, disability insurance, long-term care insurance, health insurance, home insurance, contents insurance, and mortgage insurance. Each comes with variations in premiums, no-claims discounts, protection plans and deductibles. If you haven't updated your policies since getting married or in a long time, take a look at them to see if they fit your current financial state. Some possible changes: maybe you can afford a higher deductible now and can lower your premiums, or maybe with two incomes you have less need for disability insurance.
Take a good look at your life insurance, especially if you now have children. Do you have coverage from your employment? Take time to think through the costs of providing full time care for children in the event that one of you should die, or be incapacitated – the tragedy and trauma will be tough enough, without financial burdens that can’t be covered.
Car insurers will often discount your insurance when you get married (especially for young men.) Combining car policies together (as well as any other insurance policies) should get you a discount since you will become a bigger (and better) customer to them.

4 Cut Your Costs
There is an old adage that two can live as cheaply as one. This is not strictly true but there is a grain of truth in it. You can share the phone line rental bill, the subscription to the paper, and your house, but you still need your own food and clothes!!. What you can do is take advantage of being a bigger consumer. Buy the litre rather than the pint of milk, the multi-pack of loo rolls, or the caterer’s pack of beans!
An environmentally friendly way to cut costs: If you live in/near a town, getting married may mean being able to get rid of one of your cars. Evaluate how often both of you are using a car separately. If it is infrequent, you might be better off just hiring a car for those occasions.

5 Make some plans
Personal finance and investing are something that you should plan together. Identify the big goals (holidays, cars, ponies, footservants...) and talk about your expectations of life together, and the ways in which these things would influence your happiness. Why not prepare a simple budget using one of the readily available home finance packages, or even a simple spreadsheet. Set your selves some simple targets and watch your savings towards your goals grow!
Find ways to use your complementary Who thinks finding the bargains at the super-market is fun? Who is more likely to use the coupons that you so neatly cut out of the Sunday paper? Who's better at remembering to pay the bills on time?

Make a will

However much we may shy away from the idea, one day we shall die! Indeed 2/3 of all marriages only end with the death of one partner. Making a will need not be seen as a depressing or miserable thought, indeed ensuring that in the event of our death our loved ones are cared for in the best possible way is both loving and prudent. This is especially true at times of change in life, including the arrival of new members of your family!

Wills are often seen as the aspect of our lives which can be put off until later; the thing we do not really want to think about. Fewer than a third of us have taken the trouble to make a will leaving it for our families after our death to guess at what we had intended or, even worse, to feel aggrieved at the outcome.

There are a variety of forms of will that you can purchase and download from Desk Top Lawyer which can be used for most of the circumstances you are likely to face.

Talking about death, and facing into some of the life choices the surviving partner and/or dependants must face, can actually be a good way of strengthening our relationship. It is often said "You don't know what you've got till it's gone"; contemplating that reality, and recognising the value there is in your relationship can deeply strengthen the love you feel for those around you - don't leave it too late!

Living with a longer term perspective

After the first flush of early marriage, it’s easy to spend a large part of our married life caring for the children, and working hard to advance our careers and pay the bills. Then suddenly the children are leaving home and we are left together as near strangers. We’ve neglected our relationship, gone on growing, but mot together. Conversation used to focus on the children and the challenges they brought and now you don’t know what to talk about.

Perhaps the best thing you can really give your children is to let them see your love for each other, let them see how you express affection for each other, and how you sometimes struggle a bit, having to say sorry perhaps and make up.

If you have children, don’t neglect your relationship. Teach the children to give you space and time together. It’s out of your own love for each other that you will find the resources to love and support them.

For better for worse

Did you promise to love each other for better for worse, when you got married? How bad did you think worse would be?

We must be mad to make these hopeful and open-ended commitment to each other, when none of us know what lies ahead. Would you have loved Jean when four years after you were married she was diagnosed with MS? Like Danny would you have given up your every waking hour to do the house work, feed her, lift her from her wheelchair into the van, duck promotion so you could keep your hours flexible and be home when she needed? How long could you have kept that up, one year, two years, 10 years?

Sometimes the worse is when we let each other down, are unfaithful, get into debt, break the law. There are so many ways we can let each other down. There are so many ways life can deal us a tragic blow. Perhaps you have first hand experience of it. Are you going to stick with your marriage come what may, or is there a point where you will give up and say it's failed? Or have you got the courage to hope that you can come through things together?

That marriage vow for better for worse, is an open-ended commitment, to a future neither of you can necessarily control. We can't say it will never happen to us. Neither can we really criticise others that don't last the race.

What we can do is to learn to forgive, to adapt, to build a strong foundation when the times are good, to ensure our marriage gets the attention it deserves, to discover friends who will stand by us when times are tough, and if we believe there is a God, to ask his help to be the best we can be for each other.

Are you building a marriage that will stand the test of time? What can you do today to strengthen your commitment to each other?

Seasons of marriage

Spring time, buds bursting, daffodils and lambs, birds nesting. Summer, the leaves are a deeper green, long lazy, warm days with bees humming. Autumn, gales tear the leaves from the trees. Winter, bitter cold mornings, the earth hard and coated with frost.

Well-known signs of the seasons. The turning of the seasons brings a rhythm to life, a cycle of dying back and renewal.

Are there seasons in marriage? The early years, summer days of a growing family, autumn as they leave home or retirement comes, winter with slowing pace, life taken more gracefully.

Disillusionment, grey and discouraged, pain of cold loneliness or misunderstandings, a drought of affection, hope from a hug, a sign of renewed life, a surprise present slipped onto the pillow to be discovered later, warmth of a joy rediscovered, a hurt healed, a feeling understood, a memory shared.

Seasons in life - what season are you in? What next?

Do you remember your courting days, when you were so in love, you just wanted to spend every available moment together. Nothing was too much to do for each other. You felt so happy to be together. Your heart beat faster when you were together. The future stretched out ahead full of possibilities. Perhaps that's still where you are, but many of us find the initial excitement wanes. Little things begin to irritate and annoy and we drift apart.

Is that the end of the matter? The romance has gone, perhaps recaptured briefly by a weekend away or a surprise gift, or even a piece of music bringing back memories.

No surely that's not the end of it, or how do so many marriages last happily for decades? Isn't it when you discover that love is an action word before it's a feeling? Every little act of kindness, thoughtfulness, care is an act of love that builds something more lasting. It builds joy. Sometimes when I look at my husband and I think of all the things he does for me, of how he forgives me and encourages me; of how tender he can be, considerate, devoted, then I smile and my heart seems to swell. It feels warm and full of a desire to hug him. That's a little glimpse of the joy I find when I stop and remember just how special he is.

Think of the good things in your marriage and take a sip of the joy that can be …