Having your own stash of cash can strengthen your marriage.
Most people would agree that communication and transparency are key tenets of any healthy marriage, but are there any secrets worth keeping from your spouse?
What if the secret revolves around finances, a common cause of divorce?
Today, we’re discussing why a married woman should have a slush fund — a stash of cash your spouse doesn’t have access to and may not even know about.
It starts with gaining independence.
Feeling autonomy over even a portion of your assets helps you take an active role in your finances, especially if you tend to leave that kind of thing to your husband. Having your own stash of money or personal card also makes it easy for you to spend a certain amount of money without asking the other for permission, so long as it doesn’t impact your household’s overall financial health.
Taking a your-mine-and-ours approach to finances — that’s right, you don’t need to be the only one with separate finances in the relationship — and having slush funds on either side of your marriage, might just strike the perfect balance for your relationship.
Younger couples are increasingly adopting a combination of shared and individual finances, which can take on many configurations, one of which is having a joint bank account accompanied by individual credit cards for discretionary spending.
People pursuing a financial middle ground are arguably onto something. They can reap both the benefits of joint and separate finances, which can look like paying for furniture on a shared card and purchasing clothes or surprise anniversary presents for each other on individual cards.
Though the term “slush fund” implies secrecy, you don’t have to necessarily conceal your stash from your husband. Making him aware of it can be just as effective, so long as you’re the only one who can access the cash.
I imagine there are happy couples with a secret slush fund on one or either side of their marriage, but I’d argue being transparent about your slush fund is the ideal move.
Feel like you can’t tell your partner about your slush fund? That may be indicative of a larger issue. Another possibility to consider is that your husband may find out about the slush fund on his own. Telling him about it upfront will not only give you peace of mind, it’ll also help you avoid potentially creating unavoidable issues in your marriage that would ironically stem from a tool that’s intended to do the opposite. Talk about being counterproductive.
As far as figuring out how much to allocate to your slush fund, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Assess your financial situation, discuss it with your spouse, and perhaps start by allocating a conservative amount of money and adjusting it from there if need be.
Find your perfect slush fund setup
However you decide to claim a chunk of your money to yourself, gaining financial autonomy of any kind is a step in the right direction.
Book a call today to talk to myself or another expert on our team about financial planning for female founders.