What is a valentine post doing in a financial blog?
Well , well, I should have said: Will you be my financial valentine?

In this era of boys and girls earning equal amounts, both of them have equal responsibility in managing the money too. Obviously nothing in our education system teaches them this basic skill…and this leads to fights and sometimes divorce.
So this 14th of Feb after all your Valentine talks also decide to talk finances…eeks boring did you say?

Sorry guys, my job!

Most people start off in earnest, but then slacken off. Creating wealth for the long run does involve short term sacrifices. Like the Rs. 6 lakh Cng car instead of Rs. 13 lakh sedan that a friend EARNING LESS drives. Or a vacation to Mahableshwar instead of Switzerland which your sister-in-law went, with a little help from Hdfc bank and ICICI bank credit card.

Oh you are not yet married? well ask him out of the 54,456 take home pay what does he do? does he spend on food? does his brother ask him for a ‘loan’ every 5 months? or do his friends take away a portion for their fun and frolic?

If you are a guy ask her ‘does she invest her money?’ Do you buy a Rs. 12,000 Rs. Jeans and she buys a Rs. 499 jeans in a sale?

Does all your income go towards an EMI where your mother is the nominee?

Will she have financial independence after she marries? Hey sorry but what is your exact CTC and take home pay?

Will we have separate bank accounts?

When will we merge our financial lives (boys n girls there is no great hurry, but do it over a 4-5 month period)

Will you change the nominees of your financial assets to me or do you want it to be your mother?

So both of you need tremendous conviction that the course charted by (oh the super frugal kanjoos Subra) will help you reach that magical ‘retirement at 52′ . The small sacrifices are IMPOSSIBLE to make unless BOTH of you have a full buy-in to the long term plan. So rethink your long term plan and re-work if necessary. Take your financial vows once more. If one of you has splurged on some item do not wait for the next fight to scream about it. Financial secrets are difficult to keep and in this day and age of shared passwords, it will just take one visit to the bank page to know of your Rs. 12000 indiscretion.

Talk about money to be sent to parents, parents medical insurance, who will take leave in case of a medical emergency, kids, cost of bringing up kids (surprise, surprise the cost is now in 8 digits), buying a house…..do not wait for an explosion to happen.

Nice to have many of these things in writing – the Investment philosophy statement, reasons for each asset class, goals -written and tagged to each SIP or asset, WILL, Investment Register with the reasons for making them….In fact if your kids are more than 10 years of age, do involve them too. They do understand all this. I find it easier to explain to them than to a half baked CA who is out of touch with investment realities…

Decide when to seek help of a full fledged financial planner (frankly I do think your case is too simple at your age of 27 years!), if you do get one will you treat him like a sounding board or like a couch, right? –

– in case you find it embarrassing to ask these questions, just tag him on FB. Even better tag your brother in law and ask him to tag your guy!! I am hoping more women are reading this!!