Financial Readiness for a committed relationship
Help with achieving financial compatibility and independence in line with personal values.
I help young people in a committed relationship, who want to achieve a happy relationship not based on material success alone.
My clients, through the coaching, remove or avoid the biggest source of tension in their relationships – money and then focus on what brings true happiness to the relationship.
Compatibility
Keep in mind that while a joint account offers greater transparency and access, it is not in itself a solution to an unbalanced power/money dynamic in a marriage.
The best way to handle such marriage stressors is with communication and honesty in conveying expectations, hopes, goals, and anxieties.
Independence
One source of conflict is how differently people are raised to think about saving, spending, and investing.
“I might spend a thousand dollars on whatever I want because I can afford it,” she said. “But some people think, ‘If I have a thousand dollars, I need to pay my loans, pay my mortgage, and then move to the things that I want.’ There’s no right or wrong answer; it’s just different.”
A survey has been running since 2008, tracking the roles that healthy relationships, responsible financial decisions, and personally meaningful work play as young adults move further into adulthood.
Confidence
Along with examining the hard numbers, creating a plan frequently reveals deeper questions about your goals as a couple and how money can help you attain them. Start by probing what past experiences may be influencing your partner’s approach to the present.
How Coaching Works
Own your past and money personality with awareness, confidence and a strength to the relationship.
Think about your future dreams and life you want as you enter the most important phase of your life.
Design your present and take action with Financial coaching to use your strength to live the life you want.
Financial Readiness
As you decide to give legitimacy to your committed relationship, life will start taking on a new meaning in terms of dreams, goals and challenges. A few common family goals are wedding or celebration, buying or renting a house, frequent vacations, preparing for emergencies and funding medium to long term goals like higher education, paying off debt and retirement.
All this has to be achieved with the financial personality that each partner brings into the relationship.
The Financial coaching process is designed to give you a readiness to enter the world of family finances.
Compatibility
The Financial coaching process starts by identifying your money personality as it will define how you approach financial responsibilities in the relationship and your goals in line with your inner values and your partner’s.
Independence
Personal finance is personal. It sounds cliche but it is true that thumb rules and cookie cutter solutions have limited use beyond just sweet talk.
The process puts the baton in your hands to define 3 most important goals and 1 problem that you would like to address. The process will help you define the goals in a SMART format so that they are realistic, attainable and time bound.
Once the goals are clearly defined through discussions and supported by data (your income, expenses, savings), the coaching process will come up with recommendations and action items. These can be further refined with your inputs and any queries or doubts that you have will be answered.
A similar process will be followed for the 1 most pressing problem that you may have identified. The coaching process will identify the source of your worry, if and what are the alternatives and possible solutions to the problem.
Confidence
At each step of the process, you will feel more in control of how yours and shared dreams in the relationship can take shape through prudent financial discipline and planning. The process will be accompanied by deliverables in terms of checklists, action items and homework sheets to delve into your inner values about earning, spending and saving money. The coaching is a time bound process (see packages below) and is designed to help you come out with a confidence about finances that can relate to your unique relationship.
Once you complete the coaching process, you will have a plan to handle your finances that
- resonates with your inner values
- funds your SMART goals
- focus on your relationship than money
Pricing
The financial coaching process has 3 levels of engagement.
- Basic – This is about solving a particular problem related to finances in your life, for example, getting rid of consumer debt or preparing for a wedding. The duration of this process is 1 month with 3-4 sessions as needed.
- Deluxe – This is where the client journey starts from money personality and work towards setting SMART goals. 3 SMART goals and 1 problem (as in Basic) can be set and an action plan will be provided. The duration for this package is 3 months with 6 sessions.
- Premium – This is everything under Deluxe and then monitoring and review for a fixed period. The duration for this package is 3 months with 6 sessions (Deluxe) and monthly sessions for 3 months thereafter for monitor, review and tuning the action items.
The pricing for each of the levels depends a lot on personal finance situations.
Please schedule a Discovery Call to discuss your options and pricing.
Note: Each package also gives you unlimited guidance through whatsApp, email and text for the coaching duration.
Life is the best teacher, serving is the biggest motivation
My personal finance education has been mostly informal. What I can share with my clients is learnt through my own experience, mistakes and experiments in 20 years of managing family finances.
I do have a system of continuous education through online courses and working with more formal institutions to gain knowledge in order to serve better.
As a member of the Financial Coaches Network, I have access to a proprietary Knowledgebase of advanced personal finance topics designed to help financial coaches better serve their clients.
The Knowledgebase was developed by Joshua Escalante Troesh, CFP; a Tenured Professor of Business and Personal Finance who has written personal finance curriculum adopted by multiple community colleges and approved by the Cal State University system’s Chancellors Office for meeting General Education requirements for all Cal State Universities.