How we think about money as a couple

This was on the 23rd of September, 2023. I was on a train going from Munich to Weimar to visit my friend. On this trip, I had my earpods tucked in—I was in a Zoom meeting. With our marriage scheduled sometime in December of the same year, me living in Munich, and my wife in Nigeria, we had paid for an online counselling session which lasted 2 months. 2-hour sessions on Friday and Saturday evenings.

The topic today was on Communication and Money. As you can see from my notes on that day, I didn't write much regarding money as that was the period I arrived at Weimar. And while my friend was gracious enough to allow me continue listening at the train station, I couldn't write.

During the session, the counsellor said, and I quote, "There are different ways money is handled in different homes. You have to sit together and discuss this, then decide what works best for you." Then she proceeded to list some common strategies couples employ.

To be fair, we were already good stewards of money, and we were open to each other regarding finances—she knew how much I earned, and vice versa, and we knew how we both spent money. But this was going to be different. After marriage, we were going to start living together, planning things together, etc. We had to have this conversation.

At the time of writing this, we're now 2 years married. During our time together as a married couple living in Berlin, we have employed 2 major approaches in terms of splitting finances.

All income is household income, irrespective of who earns what.

The "family" is basically the boss. All household expenses and financial goals come from this. And then, there's an allocation for additional personal expenses, which is the same amount for both of us. You'll often hear us say to each other, "I need to have a meeting with family" 🙃

We came to this conclusion because we are one, but life will always happen, and situations can always change. So, it makes sense for the family to grow as the number 1 priority, making both of us equally happy. And then, we have the same amount of money to spend on other things.

For the family, it's always about being fair, not equal. The household budget always has our best interests at heart, from a standpoint of fairness. So, shared expenses like Groceries, Rent, Shopping, and YouTube Premium are covered, as well as personal expenses like PlayStation Plus, Capcut, etc.

The personal allocation is really for extra things. To be honest, it has always been so small, sometimes even none when we're working on very important goals, that it only ever afforded snacks, especially when we noticed we were spending too much of our Groceries money on snacks.

For this rule to work adequately, we both must be responsible for putting in an equal amount of effort for income, and that is all that matters. The monetary returns on the effort doesn't matter.

Examples of efforts that carry equal weight for us are: working a regular 9-5 job, deciding to test-run entrepreneurship, being laid off, and the new 9-5 is finding a new job, inability to work for a certain period due to child care, burnout, etc.

In summary, we both put in effort, and we're both equally happy financially.

Extra effort is rewarded

For example, if after working 9-5, you decide to create time to start a side business, create content, or whatever it is to make some extra income, then that is extra labour, and you should enjoy the rewards. The household income stops at point 1.

We've had different rules come in when something like this happens, but ultimately, you decide how you want to allocate "YOUR" extra income.

This is a picture of the last time we did the allocation of a beautiful extra income that came in 😁

In summary

Our biggest help is that we think of financial priorities similarly, and we love each other. This really sets the tone for the decisions we make. Because, to be honest, these principles we currently go by might change in the future as we're still very early in our marriage. But those two will help us adapt to our new circumstances.

And like that counsellor said over 2 years ago, "There are different ways money is handled in different homes. You have to sit together and discuss this, then decide what works best for you."

And as I mentioned earlier, we were good stewards of money before getting married. Now, we're doing it together, having our money date every first weekend of the month.

Want to see exactly how we plan our finances? Read "How we plan our finances as a couple" to see our system in detail.