The first rule of personal finance is to avoid ceding control of your finances to anyone. They are your responsibility; and the minute you let go of the control reins, you will find yourself with a number of extra problems.

Marriage is one of these institutions that can make us give the reins over to our spouse. If one person in the relationship is good with handling money, then all the financial responsibility automatically falls onto them. However, this leaves the other member extremely vulnerable if his spouse falls ill or dies.

The best and wisest thing that a married couple can do is to have three different types of finances. Two for each individual person and one as a unit.

Financial crisis is well known to cause traumatic distress among married people. But if married couples want to avoid monetary problems, they should be realistic in assessing their financial situation.

Personal finances should not be given up and replaced by the unit finance. As two unique individuals you have individual needs; and by maintaining your own personal finance, you take responsibility for those needs.

This gives you considerable control over your financial life. It also limits arguments about who gets what in the event of a break-up. Shared equity can be sold and divided equally amongst the individuals.

Having separate personal finances gives a couple the responsibility to make independent financial decisions while maintaining accountability to the other member of the couple. They both have the responsibility to pay bills, the mortgage, and car payments. If both members of the couple work an equal amount of time, it might be a good idea to split the bills down the middle--each paying half.

Money is always going to be an issue in our lives, as we cannot live on love alone. So be responsible for your personal finances and you will mitigate any financial problems in your marriage.

Article written by Vic Bilson
Vic recommends Dynamic Financial Training that is all about helping others to help themselves and then turn around and help others. At DFT we believe that if we teach a person to get out of debt, they will stay out of debt for the rest of their lives AND so will the next generation of their family.