As we navigate through this year’s wedding season, attending ceremonies of our close friends and relatives, one question always plays through our mind:
‘What shall we gift them? Nowadays, people already have everything.’
Or do they?
Getting married is a huge shift in one’s life, both from a personal and financial perspective. Often, we do not anticipate the full impact that it could have. The shift from an individualistic approach to a collaborative approach is something that needs to happen gradually. Here, couples start discussing each other’s aspirations and work out how they can fulfil them together. Two heads are always better than one!
While this sounds simple enough, often finances tend to get complicated after marriage. In many cases, societal pressure leads to people buying a house immediately. This provides a short-lived sense of financial security. Such a capital-intensive decision leads to worries about financing large EMIs and carrying the pressure of repayment for decades to come.
Buying a house too early will put undue stress on both partners. It will also force their hand in the many financial decisions to come. Starting with what kind of car they can afford, lifestyle they can lead, or vacation they can finance. Soon, everything will revolve around the house. A few years down the line, they might begin thinking about starting a family. Unknowingly, this also creates a lot of financial commitments for the years to come. Effectively, all the time and money is spent on taking care of the “here and now: and no thought is given to planning for the future.
Now, what if someone could help them proactively make better decisions? Essentially, this is what a financial plan does for a family. It helps take stock of where they stand financially and gives a clear roadmap on how to take sensible financial decisions to meet aspirations.
This could mean building liquid wealth in the right asset classes, delaying certain goals because they create financial imbalance, or even avoiding borrowing too much at a young age. This strategy could boost the progress towards financial wellbeing and wealth creation.