Making Cents: Pounds, shillings and sense for all you lovehearts
Financial planner Eoin McGee, presenter of RTÉ’s 'How To Be Good With Money' says having that money talk could increase a couple's chances of living happily ever after..
Ah, Valentine’s, a time for rose-tinted glasses and extravagant gestures. With proposals and weddings to plan, having an in-depth chat about money may feel like the very opposite of romance. But it could increase the chances of living happily ever after.
Financial planner Eoin McGee, presenter of RTÉ’s , believes honest conversations about finances are crucial to long term contentment.
“People really need to have this conversation,” he says. “It’s not first date stuff, you don’t ask on Tinder — ‘Right, how are you with money?’.
“[But] it is incredibly important. I am on record as saying you don’t have to talk about your previous relationships if you don’t want to but you do need to talk about your previous relationships with money.”
Being honest at the start can prevent major stresses down the line when previous financial decisions like neglected credit card debt put a spanner in future plans.
“I have seen so many heartbreaks where a couple applies for a mortgage, it gets knocked back and they find out,” Mr McGee says. “It is such an emotional time and that’s often when people find out. “The most important thing to ask is, have you any problems with debt in the past?”
But Irish people are famously bad at talking about money, so how can the subject be broached? “A little trick I would always give people is that we are either exactly the same or exactly the opposite as our parents when it comes to money,” Mr McGee says. “We learn from our parents.
“So a little trick, if you are kinda cautious about it is, ask your partner, ‘what were your mam and dad like with money?’ “What you will find is that they will say brilliant or crap and you will start to judge from what they are saying if they are the opposite or the same as they are describing. You can really get a feel for the type of person they are.”
Of course, what many couples discover is that they have wildly different attitudes toward money.
“Generally in private practice, if we have a couple with differing opinions we find that one person really worries about the long-term future, even to the detriment of today,” Mr McGee says. “The other person says ‘sure I could be dead tomorrow’ and doesn’t care. You need to establish what your own mindset is when it comes to money and then establish what your partner’s is. Then talk.
“It can’t go all one person’s way, you can’t expect someone to change to your way of thinking. You need to talk really openly and honestly. There will be lines, one person will say ‘that’s a line, I don’t want you to cross it, because I won’t sleep at night. Can we agree that these are our boundaries and stick to them’.”
Reassuringly, he says spenders and savers can form long and happy relationships with each other.
“Totally and utterly it can [work out],” he says. “But the way to solve it is a good financial plan. With a good financial plan, and I’m talking about sitting down with a financial planner, is the long-term is looked after, the money is taken out of the account at the start of the month.” Knowing the important items are taken care of means the couple can be more relaxed in the rest of their spending.
When it comes to the question of joint accounts or not, Mr McGee says one size does not fit all.
“Some couples would absolutely murder each other with a joint bank account and some couples could not survive without it,” he says. “For some couples, it is just too invasive, they feel they will have lost their independence, there is no chance. For other couples, it gives them independence because they might use the joint account for things they do together but then they still have their own money.”
At the end of the day, the financial plan that will work is the one you agree on together.
“It is about being incredibly respectful of the other’s person’s opinion and realising that you can’t have it all your own way. It has to be a joint thing.”
, Thursday, 8.30pm on RTÉ One.
Romantics can share the love and help raise money for two great causes on Valentine's Day, thanks to Cork's Adam King.
The six-year-old stole the hearts of the nation when he appeared on last year with his hand-drawn virtual hug. Now people can share their own hug with his ‘Hug For You’ card, currently on sale at SuperValu and selected Centra store.
The limited-edition cards are retailing at €3.99 and all proceeds will go to CHI Temple Street and Cork University Hospital Charity. “Adam has been a patient of these hospitals since the day he was born, so we have experienced first-hand the amazing work they are doing," Adam's father David said. "We hope the card will bring some much-needed joy to people’s lives in these challenging times of disconnect."
- For more information see www.SuperValu.ie or www.Centra.ie. Cards have been created with the assistance of Irish card producer Garlanna Cards.
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