In a Relationship? : 25 Financial Questions to Ask (a checklist)

If you’re anything like me and the other women I know, you might be thinking a lot about the state of your relationship. You might even be tempted to have the “what are we doing” talk today.

This time, I challenge you to have a different kind of conversation and ask your honey to show you the money.

There are levels to relationships and at each level, there are different questions that need to be asked and answered to insure that you’re both on the same financial page.

Here’s a checklist of 25 financial questions to ask your boo boo…

Year 0 – 1

1. Who or what was your biggest financial influence?

2. Did your parents talk about the family’s finances when you were growing up and what were some of the lessons you learned?

3. How old were you when your parents stopped taking care of you financially?

4. How good are you at budgeting and saving?

Year(s) 1 – 3

5. How much debt do you have?

6. How does your credit report look?

7. What is your credit score?

8. Where would you like to be in five/ten years?

9. What are your longterm career plans? 

Years 3 – 5

10. What are our joint financial goals?

11. How should we tackle existing debt?

12. What is your financial risk tolerance?

13. How many children do you want to have?

14. Who’s paying what?

Years 5 – 10

15. Joint accounts? Separate accounts? Both?

16. Who will be responsible for preparing the taxes?

17. Who should manage our day-to-day household finances (paying bills,

deposits, budgets, etc.)?

18. What are our income and spending patterns?

19. What are our assets and liabilities?

20. Where should we put our financial and legal documents in case of an emergency?

21. How will we handle daily spending decisions?

22. How will we take care of our aging parents?

23. Should we have a prenup? 

Years 10 +

24. How will we protect our assets?

25. What does retirement look like?

Did I miss any essential financial questions? I’d love to hear your thoughts. What would you add to the list? How many things were you able to check off?

LIVE RICHER,

Tiffany “The Budgetnista” Aliche

(Dispenser of FUN, financial literacy at thebudgetnista.com)