Marriage: Starting Your Financial Life Together

Once the ceremony is over it's time to get to the practicality of day-to-day life together.

Who does what?
It's time to divide up the chores. There's laundry, yard maintenance, cleaning, and, of course, a lot of different financial responsibilities. Who's going to balance the checkbook? Who will pay the bills? Who's going to keep track of investments?

You don't necessarily have to divide these tasks and take exclusive ownership if them. Just make sure you have some system in place so that these important tasks get done. You can divide them by strengths and weaknesses. Or pick randomly from a hat. This isn't about who's the better person in financial matters. It's about taking care of your joint responsibilities together.

Change your beneficiaries
Go through each of your accounts that are held in beneficiary form - retirement plans, IRAs, insurance, etc. - and review the beneficiaries listed on each. Be sure to change the beneficiaries to your new spouse if you want him or her to receive these funds should you die.

Review your insurance
Your life situation has changed and your insurance coverage probably hasn't. Your spouse may have some insurance policies as well. Compare them to make sure they don't overlap - that usually means wasted money. Combine coverage where you can and you could save quite a bit of money.

Name changes
If you are changing your name as a result of your marriage, either a completely new last name or a hyphenated last name, you'll need to change your name on many different documents. Notify the Social Security Administration immediately. This is extremely important because you want your retirement account properly credited. Also, the next time you change jobs, you will need to show your new employer your Social Security card with your new name. Change your name on your driver's license as well. Because it is often used for identification, it is one of the first things you'll want to change.

Develop a budget
Hopefully you each have a budget that you've been working with as individuals. It's now time to update and combine those budgets to reflect your new shared living situation. Click here for more information on how to build a budget.