5 Financial Steps to Take When You’re Engaged

Apart from the thrill of being engaged and remembered by loved ones, both family and friends, there comes a moment of truth: we’ve got a wedding to pay for.

Of course, this doesn’t apply to couples who have been saving for their wedding for years or for those who have rich parents, but that’s only a very few.

So, for the rest of us, here are 5 financial steps to take when you’re engaged:

#1: Make a budget

The first step is to determine how much you can spend for your wedding by making a budget indicating how much money you can save. Think about the normal expenses that you can cut down on. Better still, if you parents can contribute, make sure that you take that into consideration as well.

#2: Open a joint savings account

Once you open the joint savings account, ensure that you start putting in as much money as you can towards the wedding. Let the money required for your daily expenses in a checkings account.

#3: Open an account that is difficult to access compared to a joint account

Some couples don’t mind accessing the money they’ve saved just before the wedding while other might need to pay some wedding bills earlier. In the case of the former, it isn’t a bad idea to put the money away into a CD whose maturity date is just before your wedding. In this way, it will be all that more difficult to access to spend that money elsewhere, since there are penalties attached.

#4: Think of more ways to save

As you move in together, this will become an important part of Life – living together, commuting to work together and all those contracts that you might have on your own, when being single.

#5: Don’t put your finances together immediately

Combining finances for a wedding is fine but putting all your money together is hardly the way to go. At least, not until you have a marriage certificate. In any case, there are some couples who are better off keeping separate accounts.