{"id":5391,"date":"2014-08-22T02:00:03","date_gmt":"2014-08-22T09:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/add-vodka.com\/?p=5391"},"modified":"2015-04-26T19:45:05","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T02:45:05","slug":"different-money-goals-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/add-vodka.com\/different-money-goals-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"How We Handle Conflicting Financial Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"

J and I got married last month<\/a>, and just before the wedding we started to take measures toward combining our finances<\/a>. Despite having lived together for the past six years,\u00a0it wasn’t until recently that we decided to start pooling our money. One of the biggest reasons I didn’t want to combine finances prior to marriage, was that we had and still have some\u00a0differing financial goals.<\/p>\n

Not all of our goals differ; in the long-term, we are generally on the same page.\u00a0We both want to sell or rent out our home\u00a0to move to a smaller community locally, where we plan to buy a chunk of land so we can enter the vacation rental business. We both have a goal to retire early, to have children, and to be able to go on at least one trip per year together. These are common goals\u00a0which will guide the paths of our life together.<\/p>\n

\"money<\/a><\/p>\n

However, we are different people. We have different brains, personalities, and dreams. I’ve never believed that once you are married, you have to give up your individual dreams if your spouse is not on the same page, and we refuse to live like that.<\/p>\n

J’s priority is to be able to buy a decent truck when his is no longer functional, and I am working hard toward saving $12,000 for travel <\/a>within the next 7 months. J is not interested in travelling extensively,\u00a0but\u00a0I still plan to see as much of the world as possible.<\/p>\n

Differing dreams and goals which have a huge impact on finances\u00a0may seem like a big\u00a0deal in a marriage, but for us it has been completely manageable. In fact, even though we’ve only been married for a month, we’ve been together for seven years, and we have learned to make it work. Both of us are happier for it.<\/p>\n

We Designate Certain Amounts to Each Goal<\/h3>\n

We have one advantage over many recently married couples, and that’s that we are what many would consider “high earners” for our ages. I just transferred to a role that gave me a\u00a0decent raise (because i’m temporary)\u00a0and J chose a trade as a career path. He has 10 years of experience on his shoulders and\u00a0works for a commercial construction company, which pays quite well.<\/p>\n

As a result,\u00a0we have a chunk of change to put aside each month (especially now that we aren’t paying for the wedding<\/a>!) and we don’t take saving money lightly.<\/p>\n

After the bills are paid, we have a large disposable income, so we’re able to designate a large portion of income to our savings for each goal. When we earned less, we still made goals and saved for them, but we made smaller, more realistic goals that matched our situation\u00a0at the time.<\/p>\n

In the interest of privacy, I won’t disclose exact numbers, but let’s just say our monthly savings is broken down like this:<\/p>\n