How to Have a Financial Date® To Get on the Same Page With Your Partner
I developed and trademarked the unique process of Financial Dating shortly after my husband and I were married. Over a period of 
three years we had charged over $43,930 on our credit cards. We had different spending styles, no health insurance, no retirement and no clue how much money we spent each month and where it was going and we lacked a clear financial plan or direction.
Then, over the course of several months, as a way to gain control and understanding of our finances we started having weekly Financial Dates®, where we discussed our financial situation, set money goals and created an aggressive plan for eliminating our credit card debt.
How exciting it was to be on the same financial page with my husband and to be able to laser-focus our individual strengths on achieving our combined financial goals. Talk about amazing synergy and excitement in our marriage! Before having our Financial Dates® I never would have believed someone who said working on finances together could be both empowering and fun – but it truly was.
Our lives began to change dramatically. Our commitment to our Financial Dates paid off – literally, we paid off 43% of our credit card debt during our first year of Financial Dating. During our second year and a half we completely paid off all remaining credit card debt. We now pay for purchases in cash, max out our monthly contributions to our Roth retirement accounts, and have a fully funded savings account for six months of unexpected emergencies. Both of us feel more empowered and have grown closer as a result of having our Financial Dates® each month.
There are nine steps to the Financial Dating® Wealth Formula that got us where we are today. I will share four basic aspects with you to give you a general sense of the process: 1) Decide where you’ll have your Dates and create atmosphere, 2) Create connection, 3) Get financially smart and 4) Take financial action.
1. Decide Where You’ll Have Your Dates and Create Atmosphere
You don’t have to hold your dates at the desk in your office in front of the computer. Get creative and have fun! Pick an environment that is enjoyable to you. I have worked with couples that go to a favorite park, restaurant or coffee shop to have their dates. You might want to vary your location from time to time.
If you decide to meet at home think of a place in your home that is comfortable and inviting. You might want to order a carry out meal and enjoy it with a glass of wine while sitting in front of the fireplace during your Financial Date. If you have your Financial Dates at home, think about how you might create a special place in your home just for your dates.
Create a relaxing atmosphere. When my husband and I first started having our Financial Dates, I felt overwhelmed by the amount of ground we had to cover. To help ease the tension I would create a relaxing atmosphere by putting on some soft music, or lighting a candle and burning incense. This had an instant calming affect on both of us. Consider trying this for yourself. Brainstorm with your partner a list of things you could do to create a relaxing atmosphere. You’ll be surprised at how these simple actions can help you feel more relaxed.
My husband and I also held many of our first Financial Dates® hiking on a trail! I would grab the necessary financial papers, stuff them in my coat pocket, and we would discuss our financial numbers as we hiked. Hiking was a great way to release stress and tension that arose during our money conversations!
2. Create Connection
Let’s face it—talking about finances can be stressful, especially when you consider all the times you’ve set out to have a calm discussion about money, and it ends in an argument. It’s important to begin your Date feeling like you’re both on the same side. It’s important that you choose a way to connect with each other that resonates for both of you. Sometimes my husband and I would read a short inspirational story or poem and other times we would share our intentions or say a prayer out loud together.
3. Get Financially Smart
Choose a few informational excerpts from a financial book or on-line article to read out loud together. Pick something that is appropriate for your combined interests and level of understanding about finances. Give yourselves about ten minutes or so to read a few paragraphs. Make sure you allow for a few minutes of discussion time.
4. Take Financial Action
Read your goals out loud. This is a simple but very important part of your date. Identify your top five financial goals that you want to focus on achieving. Review this list of goals at the beginning of each date to keep these goals in the forefront of your mind.
You might also want to break your current goals down into monthly goals. If you do decide to create monthly goals, you’ll review them at this time as well.
Set the agenda. During this step you’ll create and write out an agenda of things you want to accomplish or discuss during your current Date.
Simple Action Steps You Can Take Now:
Discover what’s keeping you stuck in your current financial situation with your spouse. Click here to sign up for my FREE webinar onWed., March 31st, “Personal Transformation Through Money: How to Consciously Achieve Your Money Goals And Create Financial Success in Your Life.”
- Ask your partner if they would be willing to have a Date to talk about your finances.
- Schedule a Financial Date on your calendar!
3 Essential Principles to Building True Wealth Through Changing Your Money Paradigm
We’ve been taught that creating wealth requires years of personal sacrifice: to work long hours and not have time for ourselves, our 
relationships, and the things that matter most. This paradigm, or map of reality, focuses on the end result at the expense of our quality of life. Wealth is separate from our selves, something “out there” for us to strive to grasp and own.
I invite you to experience a paradigm shift, where you engage in the world of money while creating both financial wealth and a quality of richness in your being and relationships.
A New Definition of Wealth
Your efforts to gain wealth can be an authentic and holistic process — an exploration and discovery of your true self. I call this “True Wealth.”
True Wealth can be attained through:
- Setting aside time for yourself and to nurture your spirit
- Creating connecting relationships
- Taking effective financial action
Picture these as three individual circles. Each circle interlocks with the others. In the center, where all three circles join, lies True Wealth. By standing in this center, you will set aside time for self and your spirit, create rich and connecting relationships with others, and take effective financial action in the world.
The Secret to Creating Richness of Being
We can create a richness of being by connecting with spirit. Spirit is the unseen part of us that fuels our sense of aliveness, allowing us to feel the depth and fullness of life. By carving out personal time for ourselves, slowing down and listening deeply through all our senses, we can connect with spirit. By doing this we live our life in a more rewarding way and are more easily able to follow our unique blue print for creating wealth and powerful change.
Building Financial Success Through Connection With Spirit
People have many different names and definitions for what they think of as “spirit”. Whatever we call it, think of spirit as the source that can transform our lives. Wayne Dyer says “Within the dormant acorn seed lies an infinity of forests.” Think of spirit as the “Miracle Grow” for your small acorn seed dreams. By paying attention to and nurturing our selves our connection with spirit will become stronger, and we will come to know our unique blueprint for financial and personal success.
How Spirit Can Affect Your Financial Success
Often the way we handle our money is similar to the way we approach our lives -and the way we approach our lives is an indication of how we treat ourselves and how well we connect with spirit. Some people are controlling and frugal with money, and tend to approach life in a similar way. They have difficulty trusting and tend to over-think and over-plan each aspect of their lives. Not surprisingly, they may try to control how their partner spends money. They likely have a difficult time relaxing and exploring their own creativity. For them, and for all of us, in order to create a different picture, we need to become aware of how we handle our money, our relationships and our lives. By doing this we will begin to notice how, when and if we feel a connection with spirit.
Simple Action Steps You Can Take Now:
Click here to sign up for my FREE webinar on March 30th, “Personal Transformation Through Money: How to Consciously Achieve Your Money Goals And Create Financial Success in Your Life.”
You can also write out your responses to the following questions:
1. How do you handle your money? Do you worry, cling, avoid or take unnecessary risks? How well do you take care of your own financial needs?
2. How do you interact with your partner when it comes to money?
3. How you do you get in touch with spirit, or creativity and inspiration?
4. How are your responses to these 3 questions similar?
Personal Budgeting – How to Make it Work for YOU!
Personal Budgeting – Budgeting Tips So Your Budget Works For YOU!
Spending Plans are more effective than budgets in that they allow us to balance our desire to save more for the future (by investing in a secure retirement plan, an emergency savings fund, a down payment for a home and/or funds for a much needed vacation) with our desire to enjoy our lives now, in a way that supports our values and gives us freedom of choice. A Spending Plan, typically made at the end of the month, involves creating guidelines and making intentional choices about where we’d like our money to go in the upcoming month.
I encourage all my couples’ clients to create a monthly spending plan so that they can plan in advance of each month exactly where they want their hard-earned money to go—and I want you to do the same. But if creating a spending plan is a new process for you, it’s very important that you be patient with yourself and your partner. In the first couple of months you might discover that you and/or your partner are not able to stick to your spending plan. Perhaps you’ve even gotten into argument over it and now you’re ready to just ditch the whole thing. Don’t do this! Read the 4 tips below so that you can make sure you’re taking all the right steps to creating an effective spending plan.
1. Give yourselves permission to NOT be perfect—just be committed and keep coming back! Chances are good that you won’t follow your spending plan perfectly during the first several months–that’s okay! It took me and my husband many months before we were actually able to stick to our spending plan. And our first spending plan took us FOREVER to create and agree on. It felt like a very foreign process to us. Be patient with yourselves and know that once you become familiar with the process, it won’t feel as awkward or take as long to create.
Know that it’s not all going to be “peaches and cream”—there will be some arguments and that’s okay! Getting into an argument over how much one of you spent doesn’t give you permission to give up and claim, “This isn’t working!” It works—but you have to be willing to keep showing up even when you get frustrated. Remember, your spending plan will work for you IF YOU WORK IT!
2. Use a Financial Freedom Tracking Book™ in conjunction with your spending plan. I’ve heard people complain that spending plans don’t work for them because they are “visual” people and they don’t have a clear sense of exactly where they’re “at” with their spending. Here’s what you need to do: Get a small notebook (4 x 6) and determine 3-5 categories that you have a tendency to overspend in. Write in the category and the total amount you’ve budgeted for the month in that category.
For example, if you decide that you will spend $400 on groceries for the month—record the budgeted amount in your notebook. Following each visit to the grocery store, record the date, how much you spent and the new subtotal. Your entry might look something like this:
Grocery Budget $400 $ Spent New Subtotal
1-15-2010 Smiths $40 $360
1-20-2010 Albertsons $75 $285
You will need to save receipts and record your entries at the end of the day. You can keep your Financial Freedom Tracking Book™ on the kitchen table so both of you can easily access it. Keep a small bowl beside your notebook for receipts. Decide which of you will do the tracking. Just remember that both of you need to look at your book before you go shopping to see how much money you have available in your 3-5 spending categories. Some common areas that people tend to overspend in are: clothing, personal expenses, recreation, dining out, groceries and children’s expenses.
3. Review and update your spending plan once a week–or, at the very least, every two weeks. Agree on who will update the spending plan each week so you can have an accurate picture of where you’re “at”. The spending plan should be written down a piece of paper and easy to read.
Keep your spending plan in the same place so both of you can see and refer to it throughout the week. You might consider posting it on your fridge or the kitchen table.
4. Review your spending history. If you are new to the spending plan process you will want to calculate your spending at the end of the month in your various categories to see how well (or poorly) you did. Review your spending with financial software like Quicken or Microsoft Money. Or if you don’t have financial software, just print off your bank statements online and determine how much you’ve spent in each of your spending categories.
In the beginning, my husband and I didn’t review our spending history at the end of each month. We thought a spending plan was enough to keep us in check. But when we finally did review our spending history we discovered that in one month we had actually overspent by $900—yikes! Once we started tracking our spending history each month, we were able to cut back on our overspending.
Simple Action Steps You Can Take Now:
1. Buy a small notebook to use as your Financial Freedom Tracking Book™
2. Talk with your partner and determine which 3-5 categories you want to track in your notebook. Record those categories along with the predetermined spending amount. Make a commitment to save receipts and place in a bowl or container beside your tracking notebook at the end of each day. Decide if one or both of you will update the notebook each evening.
3. Decide which one of you will be responsible for updating your spending plan.
4. Decide who will run the numbers for your previous months’ spending so that you can calculate your spending history. Agree to buy Quicken or Microsoft Money, install it on your computer and give yourselves a few months to become familiar with it.
Budgeting Tips – The Simple Basics You Need to Know to Create a Budget
Many of us internally cringe or feel rebellious when we think about setting parameters on our spending. Images flash in our minds of having to pinch pennies for the rest of our lives and do without things that bring us joy–like nice dinners out, new clothes or fun, exotic vacations. We react this way because we assume that in order to limit our spending we have to force ourselves to adhere to a very strict budget.
Spending Plans are different than budgets in that they allow us to balance our desire to save more for the future (by investing in a secure retirement plan, an emergency savings fund, a down payment for a home and/or funds for a much needed vacation) with our desire to enjoy our lives now, in a way that supports our values and gives us freedom of choice. A Spending Plan, typically made at the end of the month, involves creating guidelines and making intentional choices about where we’d like our money to go in the upcoming month.
1. Create a spending plan based on your spending history. Look at your spending for the previous month or the past couple of months by going through your bank statements, check registers and credit card statements. HINT: If you know you won’t take the time to gather past statements and to review your actual spending history you can make an educated guess at the amounts that you think you realistically spend in each category. Then try to adhere to your new spending plan for a month. Throughout the month add any bills/expenses that you forgot. Make adjustments to your spending categories at the end of the month – if you discover that you’re numbers weren’t realistic.
2. Divide your spending into these four broad categories: 1) fixed expenses, 2) variable expenses, 3) debt payments (don’t include your mortgage in debt payments–instead record it under your fixed expenses. You will, however, want to record your car loan under debt payments) and 4) savings. You might not have any money going towards savings right now, but you’ll still want to retain this category to serve as a reminder of your savings goal.
3. Assign numbers to your spending plan based on your spending history, using your four broad categories. Itemize your individual expenses below each broad category. For example, under the category of fixed expenses you’ll list: mortgage, health insurance, phone bill, car insurance, utilities, etc. Record all your expenses on the left side of a piece of paper and on the right side list your income, your partner’s income and any income from other sources, and then get a total for all your income sources.
4. Make sure you work your numbers until your expenses equal your income so that your income minus your expenses equals zero. If you end up with an extra $200 after you’ve subtracted your expenses from your income, don’t just leave it as an extra $200. Assign the $200 to a spending category like savings. In order for your spending plan to really work you’ll need to refer to it once a week or at the very least, twice a month. Mark out any expenses that have been paid and calculate how much money you have remaining to make sure you have enough money to make it through to the end of the month. Your spending plan should have coffee stains on it and be well worn by the end of each month!
Simple Action Steps You Can Take Now:
1. Print off this article and put in on your refrigerator or tape it to the kitchen wall.
2. Ask your spouse in a very loving and kind way if he/she would be willing to set up a time to talk about creating a spending plan. Just know that they might feel a little defensive at first. Tell them that you’re not out to control their spending but that you’d like to sit down and talk about how the two of you could achieve your financial goals together.
3. Determine a specific time and date to create a spending plan. Write this on your calendar. Remind your partner the day before so that it’s top of mind for both of you.
4. If your partner doesn’t want to do this – don’t let that deter you! Create a spending plan on your own and then show it to your partner and see what kind of tweaks and changes that they want to make – remember both of you have got to agree to the spending plan – otherwise your partner won’t have the emotional “buy-in” to stick to the spending plan!
5. Collect your last month of credit card and bank statements and have these ready in advance of your spending plan conversation. After you’ve completed these steps you’re ready to create your new spending plan with your partner!
Marriage and Money Problems: What to Do When You Have Money Conflicts
“I can’t begin to tell you how frustrating it’s been having a partner who says, ‘yes, yes, yes’ and then doesn’t come through! My husband just won’t do his financial homework. I’ve loved and encouraged him when he chooses positive financial behaviors but somehow it’s still too scary or hard for him to own his part. It doesn’t matter how much I encourage, cheerlead, or try to convince him otherwise. He says he’ll work on his finances but then he doesn’t follow through. WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS?”
A client sent this email to me. I completely understood her frustration and overwhelm. Unfortunately her situation isn’t unique. This is a common complaint that I hear from couples.
Get curious about your reactivity
“NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”—this is usually our first reaction when we experience marriage conflict and money problems and our partner does something that we don’t like. And when it’s in the financial arena it can drive us absolutely bonkers because it’s so directly tied to our survival fears. Our reactive reptilian brain kicks in producing fearful thoughts like, “I’m all alone with this—he doesn’t care,” “He’s going to put me in the poor house” and “If it wasn’t for me we’d be totally broke.”
So we defer to our control tactics. We resort to our learned behaviors that supported us in getting what we wanted in the past. We cheerlead, “Come on honey–I know you can do it. I sincerely believe in you. You’ve got what it takes.” Or we get angry, “I can’t stand it anymore. You are so inept.” Or we rationalize, “He’s just like this because his parents were like this.”
In the area of finances the greatest challenge is to resist the urge to point our fingers at our partners and take the opportunity to do our own personal work.
Stress equals opportunity
In the book, Loving What Is, Byron Katie says: “Every stressful moment you experience is a gift that points you to your own freedom.” If you feel reactive it’s a sure sign that you’re being given the opportunity to look inward, investigate, grow and learn something new about yourself. This is actually the secret to transforming yourself and your situation. It actually isn’t about getting your partner or situation to change. As long as we believe that it is about our partner we will continue to stay stuck. And yet ironically, when we focus on our inner healing, our relationships and challenging life situations “miraculously” transform.
Most of our reactivity comes from our inner resistance to having a relationship with what is. Something happens and in a split second our minds spin out of control and add stories that we instantly and mistakenly take on as being “the truth.” Most of us have gotten so good at telling stories that we’re no longer able to separate fact from fiction.
My mentor, Jim Bergquist, shared a situation about a boss that he had worked for in the past. Several times a week his boss would go into an emotional tirade after reading the daily paper. His boss would stomp into the office and yell his frustrations at one of the employees–usually Jim. Jim would think: “This guy is a lunatic!” “What is wrong with him?” “How come he doesn’t like me?” After many painful episodes with his boss, Jim made the decision to stay completely present the next time his boss yelled at him. Jim also made the commitment to drop his internal story and judgments about his boss. After a few days the opportunity presented itself. This time, as his boss was yelling, Jim stayed completely present to the experience. He noticed that his boss had a gold crown on one of his back teeth. He saw a vein with a bluish tint popping out on the right side of his forehead. He observed the spit as it came flying out of his boss’s mouth. Then all of a sudden his boss stopped in mid-sentence, looked at Jim, turned around and walked into his office—he never yelled at Jim or anyone else again.
Having a relationship with What Is
When Jim was able to be completely present with what is, without resistance to his situation and without adding any additional stories, assessments or judgments, Jim experienced an internal transformation. This in turn supported his boss in being present, which gave his boss sudden access and insight into how ridiculous he was being.
My client who emailed me was able to notice her internal story about the way she felt her husband “should be showing up with finances.” She also knew that what she wanted most was for her husband to speak his truth. The two of them engaged in a conversation where they shared openly and honestly with each other. Her husband shared the ways in which he genuinely wanted to be involved with the family finances and the ways in which he did not. And together they created a new way to work on the family finances that resonated for both of them.
Whenever we experience reactivity to the people or situations in our lives, we are being given the golden opportunity to look inward–instead of outward. It is through our own personal exploration and transformation that our life situations and relationships magically transform as well.
