I never realized how important it was to be on the same page financially as your significant other until I got to the age where many of my friends were getting married.  My boyfriend's smart financial habits have been a huge motivator in getting my own finances in order, but I'm sure many couples do not talk about money issues as often as we do.  It's not as important at the beginning of a relationship, but as you get more serious it is not a bad idea to have a discussion about finances.

Once a couple gets engaged (or even before they do), it's important that they discuss how they will go about their finances once they are married.  Will you both be working?  What will your combined income be?  How will your budget have to change?  Do either of you have debt?  How will you use credit cards?  Will you combine all of your bank accounts, or maintain individual accounts?  Should you consult each other before making larger purchases? 

I don't know the statistics, but I've read that money is one of the biggest issues that married couples fight about.  Although it would be difficult to avoid any disagreements involving finances, I'm sure you could avoid a lot of them if you came up with a budget and a few rules beforehand.  But like I said, I'm no expert.... what do you think?  How do you and your significant other deal with your finances?
 

I mentioned elsewhere on this website that I would start a blog that would hopefully spark some conversation about money topics.  Most people have questions about how to go about their finances and while I probably don't have the answers to most of those questions, other readers might!  So feel free to use this blog as a forum and let's get the conversation rolling...

This morning on Good Morning America, Mellody Hobson, their financial guru, was answering questions about student loans and paying for school.  One student asked her if it was smart to try and pay off student loan balances faster than required.  She told him that since federal student loans have such a low interest rate, (usually between 5 and 6 percent) it's not a bad thing to pay off your loans over time and definately pay high interest credit card balances off first! While I definately agree that you should pay off credit card debt first, I'm not sure how I feel about paying just the minimum payments on student loans if you can afford to pay them off faster.  I want to be debt free as fast as possible!  What do you think?  How do you plan on dealing with student loan debt?