Family, Love, & Money: How to balance the equation

posted on Mar 15, 2019 |   201 likes

Family, Love, & Money: How to balance the equation

To create a balance, you need to appropriately allocate resources to each of these components.

You need to make time for your family, you need to show them love, and you also need to be able to provide for them (Money).

Lack of money can cause a ripple effect on how we relate with Family and Love.

As you know, it is almost impossible to constantly have enough money, notwithstanding, the bills continue to come in when due.

Research has shown that money and stress come hand in hand, that means without money, you can easily get stressed and that will have a turn on your family and love life.

So how do you create a balance that doesn’t stress you and doesn’t hurt your finances? That’s what we will uncover here.

Talk About Finances Together

Often the most overlooked, but the easiest and smartest way to deal with this issue.

When making financial decisions, involve your spouse, let them know the financial implications of needs and wants, let them have an understanding of the cash flow.

Dialogue the importance of focusing on what matters. By focusing on what expenses are important to your family, you will naturally find ways to get yourself and your spouse on the same page in terms of budget and spending.

While having this dialogue, make sure to keep your goals front and center. Consider making a collage or bulletin board to represent your family’s financial goals. A daily reminder of the vacation you’re saving for or the house you’d like to buy helps both kids and adults keep big-picture goals from getting lost in the day-to-day shuffle.

You can also introduce the concept of saving together and spending together. This doesn’t only help you stay afloat in your relationship, it also teaches the young ones how to collaborate and build a successful home in future -where money and Love aren’t competing.

You should definitely mind your language too. Using the wrong words while discussing finance could send the wrong message to parties involved – even when they know that technically, you don’t mean it that way.

For example, when you tell your spouse, “we can’t afford it” it could lead them to panic thinking that the family does not have enough money to run the affairs. But when you say “that’s not how we plan to spend our money” it gives a sense of direction in spending.

Use Allowance As A Tool

Research has shown that having allocations for specific needs helps to streamline spending.

Experts have also recommended giving an allowance to your spouse as a way of making them become financially literate. But don’t tie the allowance to chores.

When each member of your family is allocated a certain allowance monthly, it shifts the responsibility from you to them.

They become responsible for how much money they spend and are able to save at the end of the month.

You should also introduce your family to some financial concepts, this would form the basis for their financial behaviors.

All the monies they receive should be fractioned into the following elements;

Spending: The fraction of their allowance that they can spend freely, but when it’s gone, it’s gone.

Saving: A part of their allowance that must be set apart for achieving certain goals not minding how small the goal is.

Investing: Teach them how to grow the value of money, they should set aside a portion of their allowances for an investment that will improve on what they currently have at hand.

Donating: Teach them charity by letting them set aside money to   donate.

These concepts will inform the level of financial literacy that exists in your home, and that affects how money issues arise and are handled.

Seek Professional Help

Handling finance, family and love isn’t exactly as easy as it sounds. Sometimes you will hit the hard rock before you realize how bad things have gotten.

Other times you go far too away that you can’t seem to find your way back before your family and love life is shattered.

All of these are possibilities and you can’t be 100% blamed, the structure of the society suggests that things might not always work as planned.

We understand that, and that is why we have professionals who attend to people that need help managing financial stress and their family’s financial behaviors.

Whether you are just getting started in your finance-family-love journey, or things have gotten sour already, we will strongly recommend talking to an expert.

Some certified financial planners at Page financials provide financial education. Best of all, these sessions are totally free to get you started.

All you need to do is email customer@pagefinancials.com or call 016317243, someone will be on the other end of the phone to help you architect your path to a family-love-money balanced life.