Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labour. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. – Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
If you should ask a group of married couples to share some benefits of being married, you would get multiple good reasons. Companionship, healthy parenting, and physical intimacy top the list. When couples get married, they expect that their marriage will be both a romantic and a spiritual relationship, resulting in marital bliss.
I submit that there’s another huge benefit of being married that doesn’t seem to generate a lot of buzz but should. It’s the financial benefit of being married. In a landmark study in 2005 that continues to be widely cited today, “Marriage and Divorces Impact on Wealth” by Jay Zagorsky, the data point to significant financial gains for married couples as measured against unmarried couples. “Compared to being single, married people almost doubled their wealth, increasing it by over 93%,” said Zagorsky.
Reflecting on my own marriage after 16 years, I realised that it has taught me more than a few important lessons about money.
Financial decision-making should mirror our approach to marriage. Is there a balance in the relationship – of power, responsibility, and opportunity? Does one person make all the financial decisions and pay all the bills, or do you share your financial decisions and responsibilities? Naturally, a partner would gravitate towards the task they do best. Nonetheless, this shouldn’t prevent you from developing a shared financial vision and a process for making decisions that incorporates the views of each spouse.
According to Paul Wannemacher, “It’s so important for a couple to have not only a union of the mind and heart, but the wallet. Financial discord can blow up a marriage, but being financially strong can help bring and keep you together. Establishing agreement and understanding around dealing with money won’t help you find a mate, but it will definitely help you keep one.”
Early in our marriage, we spent time figuring out our spending goals, how we would manage our expenses, how much each would contribute to our family budget, and the parameters we would use for making financial decisions. And yes, bad financial decisions were made, but together we regrouped and dug ourselves out of the hole we created. What that did was bring us even closer together on key issues about how we prioritised major goals. Developing a shared vision for our economic partnership required commitment to the process and a willingness to listen, learn, and compromise.
Financial planner Tania Brown shares, “Your spouse is the greatest economic engine to your financial future. The right spouse will multiply your efforts through good money management. The wrong spouse will send you on a never-ending financial tailspin that typically lands on destitution island.” This statement I fully endorse. For singles looking to get married, ensure you seek God earnestly to choose the right partner for you. Many marriages made of the sturdiest of materials have been known to fall apart because of financial woes.
The Two become one
When a couple experiences financial harmony, tremendous synergy results. For one thing, two people can live cheaper together than they can separately. Their collaborative efforts also produce results that are greater than the sum of their
individual efforts.
The monthly financial obligation for a National Housing Trust (NHT) mortgage of $15 million will become more manageable together. As a married couple, your combined income will allow you to qualify for a larger loan with better terms, assuming your credit scores are reasonable. On the contrary, a single person will only be entitled to $7.5 million. With marriage comes commitment, and mortgage lenders love married couples (preferably two-income couples) because the chances of them sticking together and eventually paying off the mortgage with interest are higher than they are with single homebuyers or non-married folks who purchase a home together.
There are even more tangible financial benefits to being married:
- Joint bank and investment accounts give each partner equal access to the funds, making it easier to coordinate bill payments and other costs.
- Health insurance: Many companies offer spousal health insurance benefits, sometimes free or for a low fee. This can be particularly useful if your working spouse doesn’t have access to employer-provided coverage or one spouse is a stay-at-home parent, temporarily unemployed, or retires first.
- Retirement rollovers: When a pre-tax retirement account is inherited from a spouse, the surviving spouse has the option of rolling it into their personal retirement plan and treating the account as their own. This allows them to delay taxable retirement plan distributions based on their own age and life expectancy.
- Estate taxes: Unlike other beneficiaries, your spouse can inherit unlimited assets from you without triggering estate taxes.
Getting married and staying married for the long term brings with it the opportunity for more financial security. It provides each of you with the opportunity to practice good family financial rules. Don’t spend more than you have, and limit or eliminate the use of credit cards and unnecessary debt. Remember that what you put into the relationship is what you get out of it. Your marriage is an important economic partnership, so put work into the money side of your relationship. With mutual commitment, flexibility, and adaptation, you will realise the dividends that come from the power of “the two become one.”