Talk about money

As a basis for your conversation, a joint inventory is useful. Get an overview of income, expenses, assets and debts. For this you need best these documents:

• Overview of all accounts, savings contracts and deposits
.
• Overview of your assets
.
• Overview of your insurance assets
.
• Listing of overdrafts, loans and repayment plans, and other debts
.
• Listing of your monthly income (wages, salary, child support, parental allowance, alimony, other social benefits, etc.)
• Listing of your monthly expenses (rent, utilities, living expenses, insurance premiums, car, cell phone, internet, daycare and school, club fees, other obligations, etc.)
• Listing of monthly savings rates and insurance premiums
.

Clear with each other how you imagine the joint budget and financial planning in the future:

• What attitude do we both have to money?

• How have we managed our finances so far?
• What went well, what went badly? What should change?
• What can each individual do better?
• How do we want to use our money in the future?
• Who takes care of which finances?

It's best to sit down together quietly and discuss what's important to you for your financial future and how you can support each other to achieve your goals:

• What lifestyle is important to us?
• What short-, medium- and long-term financial goals does everyone have personally?
• What short-, medium- and long-term financial goals do we want to achieve together?
• What do we want to save together?
• What financial burdens out of line are we facing?
• What other investments are pending in the near and distant future?

Think about your family protection in case of emergency and your future provisions for a carefree old age:

• How much should our financial reserve be?
• How important is family coverage to us?
• How important is health care to us?
• How do we want to provide for old age?
• How to compensate if one partner does not work completely or temporarily, or only part-time?

Even if fathers today take more care of their children in everyday life, statistically it is still mostly the women who interrupt their professional activity to devote themselves to raising children. As a result, their pension entitlements are lower due to lower payments into the pension scheme. This can result in very unequal coverage in old age. Therefore, negotiate well in your money talks, how you financially compensate family-related career breaks among themselves.

• Who takes over what with which child?
• How to compensate for unpaid work in education and household?
• How do we compensate in old-age provision if a person does not work or only works part-time?
• How do we split costs when one person has significantly more income and financial resources than the other? Cutting costs in half would not be fair. Do we then consider costs relative to income?