Tips for Managing Your Money as a Couple

Managing money with your partner is an exciting relationship milestone: It means you have a shared vision of your future and you want to figure out how to get there together. It can also be a little bit daunting. After all, money—how much you make, how you spend it, and how you direct it towards your goals—is both important and very personal. 

As you get ready to save and invest with your partner, we have some tips to help you get started. This list isn’t exhaustive (there’s a lot to say on this subject!), but it’s a good place to begin.

Step 1: Take stock of your current financial situation

The first step in managing your money with a partner is for both of you to assess your current financial situations. You might find it helpful to get on the same page: You can share how much you both make, talk about your regular expenses, and go over any debts you’re paying down. You can also flag any major upcoming purchases, anticipated windfalls, or items you want to handle individually (rather than jointly). Taken together, these pieces of information will help you form a fuller understanding of how much money is coming in, going out, being saved towards various goals, or getting invested each month. 

Now is also a good time to make sure both you and your partner have visibility into your shared finances. Can you both see transactions in your joint accounts? Can you both check your account balances if you need to? It’s hard to manage your finances together if you can’t easily get a clear picture of where you are today. Shared visibility can also give you some peace of mind. For example, if you can both see your emergency fund, you can both feel more confident that it’s there if you need it.

Step 2: Talk about your shared financial goals

This is the fun part! Now that you’ve determined where you’re starting from, it’s time to decide where you want to go. Do you and your partner dream of buying a home together? Are you both determined to retire early and live off of your investments? Do you want to help your child (or children) pay for college one day? 

Decide what’s important to you as a couple, and talk through a rough timeline for reaching those goals. This timeline will help you set a realistic plan that reflects both your current financial reality and your biggest priorities. For example, let’s imagine you and your partner want to buy a condo in the city where you live within the next three years. Once you’ve determined that’s your highest priority goal, you can estimate the down payment you will need and calculate roughly how much money to save each month over the next three years. 

Step 3: Divide up the tasks and automate them whenever possible

Odds are, you and your partner divide up household chores: You probably don’t do the laundry and the dishes and all of the yard work. Similarly, you and your partner will likely want to split up responsibility for regularly occurring financial tasks, too. These tasks might feel small and uninspiring on their own, but together, they’ll move you and your partner closer to the goals you agreed on. And in many cases, you may be able to automate them (more on that below).

First, let’s talk about the kind of tasks that you’ll need to assign. Some common ones include moving money between accounts, investing on a regular schedule, and paying bills. We suggest starting a list of all of the financial tasks you and your partner handle in a given month. Once you feel pretty confident you’ve captured all of your regularly occurring financial tasks, split them with your partner in a way that feels fair to both of you.

Once you’ve got your list of tasks, consider using automation to speed things up. Recurring deposits, automated investing, and—if you’re feeling really fancy—an automated savings plan (like what Wealthfront offers) can save you a lot of time and make it easier to hit your goals.

Step 4: Discuss how and when you’ll check in

Finally, managing your finances with a partner isn’t a single conversation: It’s a dialogue that evolves over time as your goals and circumstances change. Talk with your partner about how often you want to look over your finances together, and decide what frequency makes sense for your situation (monthly, quarterly, etc). These check-ins don’t have to be somber meetings with slides and spreadsheets—you can turn them into date nights and use them as an opportunity to celebrate your wins.

Build wealth together at Wealthfront

At Wealthfront, make it easy to save and invest with your partner, whether you grow your short-term money in our high-yield Cash Account, save for a known future expense with an Automated Bond Ladder, or build long-term wealth with an Automated Investing Account.

• If you and your partner have a Joint Cash Account: We’ve made some recent improvements so it’s even easier to save with your partner in a Wealthfront Cash Account, and we’ll be adding checking features soon. Currently, with a Wealthfront Joint Cash Account, you and your partner each get your own logins. You can both change and update account settings, see account activity including your balance and transactions, and deposit and withdraw funds. We also make it easy for both of you to transfer money to and from categories, external accounts, and other accounts at Wealthfront (both individual and joint). You can both access free same-day withdrawals and set up recurring deposits. Finally, you can both set up an automated savings plan.
• If you and your partner have a Joint Automated Bond Ladder: Just like the Joint Cash Account, you and your partner each get your own logins for your joint Automated Bond Ladder. You can both see account balances and activity, get notified of any changes, and make deposits and withdraw from the account.
• If you and your partner have a Joint Automated Investing Account: Your account is managed based on the primary account holder’s profile, but you and your partner each get your own logins and you’ll both be able to see your account balances and transactions. You also both have the ability to deposit and withdraw funds. You both can set up recurring deposits, automate your investments, and, if you’ve taken advantage of the ability to borrow cash quickly at Wealthfront, repay a Portfolio Line of Credit together.

When you’re managing money with your partner, it helps to use accounts that empower you both to save and invest for your shared future. That’s why we’ve upgraded the joint experience for our Cash Account, Automated Bond Ladder, and Automated Investing Account—but we’re not done yet. Stay tuned for even more improvements in the joint experience for both our Cash Account (including checking features for joint accounts soon) and investing accounts. We’re excited to help you and your partner reach your financial goals together.