Today’s question of the week is inspired by a book that I recently read. It’s called The Secret Currency of Love: The Unabashed Truth About Women, Money, and Relationships. It’s a fascinating anthology from women authors about the different methods they have of handling money in their marriages. The stories there run the gamut from women who keep their bank accounts entirely separate from their husbands and split all bills down the middle to women who let their husbands deal with the entire financial realm of their relationships and don’t even know what their household income is.

So, today’s question of the week is:

How do you deal with money in your relationship with your spouse or significant other?

I currently don’t live with the man that I’m dating so it’s easy for us to keep our money separate. When we go out on dates, he either pays for the date or we split it. We haven’t discussed it in too much detail but I think we’re both comfortable with this arrangement. When we’ve gone on vacations then we’ve split the costs in half, more or less, although we’re not strict about keeping tabs on who owes what. We just kind of naturally take turns paying for the bill on a trip. At holidays, we tend to buy each other small gifts and don’t spend a lot of money on each other. I’m not honestly sure how all of this would change if it came to the point where we were living together so I’d love to hear how other people are doing it. Leave your answers in the comments.

Tags: money, money and relationships, question of the week

Everyone says that couples fight most about sex and money. Although there are many reasons for this, I think that a big one is that these are the two core topics that seem to be off limits for discussion in our society. We need to learn how to talk about each of them more openly and less defensively in order to reduce the amount of negativity that we experience surrounding them.

I recently wrote an article with 100 Tips for Talking about Money. The article covers different tips for discussing money with different people at different times. For example, there are tips for talking about money with a romantic partner before you move in together as well as after and there are tips for talking about money with your parents when you still live with them, after you move out and later when it may be time for them to move in with you.

Money impacts all of our relationships. It is a factor in friendships when it comes to how often to eat out, where to go and whether or not you can talk about money together. It’s a factor in proper parenting and the education and independence of our children. It’s a factor at work where salaries can cause controversy. Because it’s such a prevalent part of our lives, we really need to learn how to talk about!

Tags: discuss money, finance, money, money and relationships, money conversation, people and money, Personal Finance, talk about money, talking about money