There is, often, the question whether incomes should be pooled for joint expenditure or whether the partners should separately keep their income and spend towards family bills under allotted expenditure heading e.g. the wife could take charge of feeding while her husband takes charge of other bills such as house rent, clothing, school fees, electricity, water rates, etcetera. This later arrangement presumes that the husband and the wife operate separate accounts.
Some wives opt to contribute fixed amounts monthly and expect their husbands to run the home, paying every bill. There may be the extreme case where the wife may invoke the biblical injunction that a husband should cater for the family or, in default, be regarded as infidel. Relaying on such bible misquotation, the wife keeps her income and spends it on frivolities while the husband literally suffers in silence. On the other side of the scale is where the husband is unemployed while the wife pays all the bills. It is common knowledge that such husband could suffer extreme humiliation in that situation. It is often better for the husband to be the breadwinner while the wife takes care of the home.
Family finances should be discussed before marriage at counseling session and by the intending partners so that the merits and demerits of all the options are considered and the partners opt for the one they like best. Family finance should not create a problem where a couple understands that they must keep their marriage vows, namely that all the husband's earthly possession belong to the wife while the entire wife's possession belong to the husband. The sub-theme, “Handling Your Surplus”, presumes an ideal situation where the couple pools their resources and pays their bills from the central pool.
It also presumes a state of love, reasonableness, integrity and agreement on family priorities. It totally exclude the hide-and-seek game often played by some couples who entertain the “what if” fears. What if marriage ends in divorce or separation? What if either of partners under-declares his/her income? What if either of the partners is cheating on the other on who part of his/her income is dissipated? There could be a long list of “what ifs” in a situation of distrust. My article completely eliminates distrust in marriage. I am treating marriage on love and trust in all ramifications.
I am considering a family that has opted to stay together under any marriage stress. In my ideal case the partners faithfully look beyond the immediacy.
Before the children start arriving, they not only plan for their arrival, they also plan for their education. They plan for the family feeding and healthcare needs on long-term basis. They anticipate all imaginable situations and plan for them. They decide from day one not to live from hand to mouth, but to put aside a little, however small, for the rainy day. They borrow from the proverbial ant's family.
One may wish to know the form this putting aside should take, especially if the pooled resources are small. I must state here that no amount is too small to consider savings. All that is needed is discipline in consumption pattern. The couple should consider opening a joint account with their wedding cash presents and decide tat, rain or shine; they must save a stipulated amount every month. The saving habit, once cultivated, becomes a vital part of a couple's lifestyle. Experience has shown that the little amounts saved regularly could amount to much in short while. A few investment possibilities readily come to mind (shares advisedly).
When children start arriving, every child should be covered with an educational endowment insurance policy so that at maturity of the policy the children's education would not pose a financial problem. The couple should guard against an exotic consumption pattern if they cannot afford it. A new couple should so pattern their expenditure that their prosperity curve remains positively sloped. Admittedly, like Job would say, adversity is part of life, but a family that lives a discipline life is never totally destabilized by common adversities.
One expect an ideal couple should, within their first twenty years together, have bought shares from at least twenty companies quoted in their country; however small the denominations.
The couple should be able to feed well, cloth well and to pay the children's fees without tears. Because divorce and separation are totally excluded from their vocabulary, their love grows steadily and they have no cause to suspect each other since they always plan together and stay together. They are mutually supportive of one another and soon reach a point in their lives when either of them cannot stay apart, even for a day.
The economic benefits from our ideal case are many. They never lack the basic necessities of life. There is no question of a couple's total income being too small to cultivate the saving habit. The truth is that many couples start falsely. They refuse to face the stark reality of life. They embark on blind spending and do not operate monthly budgets, in spite of their education. Couple should remove what they cannot afford from their family budgets. Do not seek to impress anybody to your own detriment. What matters is your family's happiness and not how outsiders see you or what they think about you. Couples that are sincere to themselves on financial matters are the ones that prosper in the end. I haven not said anything that is not possible
I have seen couples that started life with very little income and rise to become formidable families; everything considered. I have also seen couples that began life on a big note crash within a short period because of high taste and expenditure pattern.
