When evaluating potential marriage partners give bonus points to those who have a history of saving. Do this not because you want to marry into wealth, but because you should want to marry someone who has discipline, intelligence and foresight.
A more immediate consideration here is that money is (I believe) the most common cause of fights in relationships, and agreeing about money before you get into the relationship should help avoid that.
My wife had a poor history of saving when we first met while saving and planning ahead financially are one of my strongest areas of discipline. However I think our differences were as much a function of circumstance and nurture as anything innate. Overall I think she wins hands down on discipline, intelligence and foresight vs me.
Because of this core discipline, intelligence and foresight– over time she’s moved far closer to my spending and saving habits having seen their value (and in turn I’ve loosened up, and would still acknowledge it’d probably be optimal for me to do more of that. Time and willpower are often cheaply purchased.)
Of course we have to go on the limited signals we have but remember saving is just a proxy for what we’re really after.
As an aside, I am a portfolio manager – managing circa $2bn of fixed income assets, so fees feed my family – but I wholeheartedly agree retail investors generally do much better by investing in passive funds and avoiding fees.
Attitudes about money are easy enough to overlook at the start and differences can remain quiescent until some crisis forces them to the surface and then all Hell breaks loose. It’s probably good advice in general to look at the sorts of things that have been known to cause problems further down the line and get them sorted out as soon as possible.
This, of course, assumes that potential partners are plentiful...
If we are going there, even better advice is just the traditional “Marry someone rich” X-/
This prevents some fights about money, but not others. Matching spending habits and interests probably does more to minimize conflict than just having more to fight over.
A more immediate consideration here is that money is (I believe) the most common cause of fights in relationships, and agreeing about money before you get into the relationship should help avoid that.
My mom use to work as a marriage counselor and told me that money issues are indeed the biggest cause of serious marital fights.
Cause or subject?
Cause
Hey.
You suck.
My wife had a poor history of saving when we first met while saving and planning ahead financially are one of my strongest areas of discipline. However I think our differences were as much a function of circumstance and nurture as anything innate. Overall I think she wins hands down on discipline, intelligence and foresight vs me.
Because of this core discipline, intelligence and foresight– over time she’s moved far closer to my spending and saving habits having seen their value (and in turn I’ve loosened up, and would still acknowledge it’d probably be optimal for me to do more of that. Time and willpower are often cheaply purchased.)
Of course we have to go on the limited signals we have but remember saving is just a proxy for what we’re really after.
As an aside, I am a portfolio manager – managing circa $2bn of fixed income assets, so fees feed my family – but I wholeheartedly agree retail investors generally do much better by investing in passive funds and avoiding fees.
Attitudes about money are easy enough to overlook at the start and differences can remain quiescent until some crisis forces them to the surface and then all Hell breaks loose. It’s probably good advice in general to look at the sorts of things that have been known to cause problems further down the line and get them sorted out as soon as possible.
This, of course, assumes that potential partners are plentiful...
If we are going there, even better advice is just the traditional “Marry someone rich” X-/
This prevents some fights about money, but not others. Matching spending habits and interests probably does more to minimize conflict than just having more to fight over.