It’s a wedding season. A lot of preparations are happening around if there is a wedding in the family. From shopping, beauty treatments, cooking classes, grooming classes to honeymoon, all may be there on the to-do list. If you are one of the grooms or the brides-to-be, did you plan for your post-marriage life, in terms of money? If not, you may start it today, taking your spouse-to-be in confidence. This would probably be the most important factor for your happy life.
- Note down both the life partners’ income components separately – monthly, annual, tax deduction, retirement funds contributions etc.
- Estimate your expenses. They take off immediately after the wedding.
- Check your liabilities, if you have any. Credit card bills, personal loans etc must be paid back with a proper plan. Your liabilities must be within 30% of your present expenses.
- Leaving the wedding and honeymoon expenses apart (as you must have taken them into account), check for your 6 months post-marriage expenses. We call them emergency funds and they are the most essential for you. Your emergency fund may come from personal savings, wedding gifts or you may start accumulating it in a liquid fund by SIP. An emergency fund must be in form of cash or a near-cash instrument.
- If you are the earning member or one of the earning members of the family, you must take up term insurance cover to save your family financially, if something goes wrong unusually with your life. You may choose separate covers for each of your family members and you may opt to tick the MWPA option for wife (and/or children). This will ensure they get the insurance proceeds in case of any unusual happenings.
- You must get a family floater health insurance policy. This is required even if both of you are perfectly healthy. Look for one that covers pregnancy. You must go for a restoration benefit rider. You may include parents in the policy, this will also give you additional tax deduction benefits in addition to mental peace and freedom from fear.
- Align investments with future goals. Begin with your retirement goal. The retirement corpus must cover your family expenses till the end of the life of the last survivor, adjusted against inflation.
- Child planning should be a financial goal. It should be drawn with a timeline and an estimated cost. There should be multiple plans for different children.
- Do you have any home purchase plan? This should be made with sufficient planning of resources, timeline, estimated cost and inflation in the area.
- Do you have a car purchase plan? Down payment and car loans must be well planned.
- The honeymoon may inspire you to go on vacations regularly! You should then dedicate a separate holiday fund for it. You may accumulate it through SIP.
- Check all your assets and investments for a proper nomination. If you have a property in your name, you must have a Will.
Last but not the least, all the above exercises must be jointly done with the spouse and he or she must be aware of the family finances and document keeping process. This can prove beneficial at some point in the joint life. Wish you all the best. May happiness remain with you always.
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– Aditi Nundy
