Some people feel that if they have the cash to spare they are wise to pay cash for what they buy rather than to use credit. It will cost them less. It will leave them free of worry about paying bills. They will have less trouble living within their income.

Others say that cash has a way of slipping through their fingers. They welcome the discipline of making payments and find the family lives better when their income is closely budgeted by regularly recurring bills.

Still others, who have substantial cash reserves, prefer to protect them. They find it is easier to repay a loan from a third person than one they make to themselves from their own savings account. Some have good investments they do not like to disturb.

Most financial advisers feel that credit, used wisely, can be quite helpful to the average family in several ways:

1. The use of credit can help provide the kind of environment and the kind of life that will make the marriage more stable and more rewarding. Discontent and frustration can disrupt and destroy a marriage.

2. Things bought through credit can, in the long run, make possible a reduction in living expenses. A good refrigerator cuts down on wasted food and allows more economical buying. A household with all modern appliances almost runs itself so there’s no need to hire a cleaning woman or to send things out to a laundry. A computer, cable and television may mean less money spent on movies and other outside entertainment.

3. Credit is a budgeting tool. It helps families adjust the peaks and valleys of need to the regularities of income, by permitting the cost of major purchases to be budgeted out of several months’ income.

4. Credit also provides a cushion against the unexpected – the minor family crisis which can upset the most carefully planned household budget. Perhaps an accident or a layoff temporarily cuts off the family income, or a car breaks down or a furnace blows up and immediate cash is needed, or perhaps one or both marriage partners have overspent – it happens sometimes – and they need help in consolidating their bills so they can tighten their belts and get back on budget again. In all of these situations, credit can be quite valuable to a family.

5. Some families also like the discipline of making regular payments. They find it difficult to save and the money in their pockets seems to melt away. These families find they can increase family assets best through the discipline of credit.

Credit In Your Future? | Types of Credit | How Credit Can You Afford?

The use of credit often seems very easy – in some cases, too easy – for the young family which needs many things and cannot afford them all at once.

Easy credit! Quick credit! Nothing down, only a few dollars a week! Walk in, walk out with cash! All these slogans can become very enticing. They make it difficult for some families to make a sensible decision about the kind and amount of credit they can afford to use.

You can afford credit only if you are buying things which a person with your income can reasonably afford. If you are a family of five, earning $850 a week, for example, you cannot reasonably afford a $46,000 car, no matter how easy the credit is.

You can afford to use credit only for those things which make a real contribution to your family life and to your own family values.

You can afford credit only if you are spending less each month than you make. You must have a surplus of income over living expenses out of which to make monthly payments.

Here is a convenient way of figuring out how much credit you can afford. Suppose your job pays you $4500 per month.

As you know all too well, you never see that full amount. Before you get your paycheck, certain deductions are made: your income tax, social security payments, perhaps your union dues, and other authorized deductions.

What you actually get – your take-home pay – might then be $3720.

There are certain necessities which must be provided for before you think of getting anything new, either through cash or credit. These include rent, food, clothing and transportation. By the time you have allowed for them, you have perhaps $1400 left.

Then you may have some $250 due on charge accounts, revolving credit accounts or other 30-day credit payments. And you may already be making payments for cash you borrowed or for things you bought on credit in the past – monthly payments of $350 on your car, for instance. You must allow for these payments too, before you plan any additional spending. Suppose those payments leave you with $800.

In addition to the necessities and previous credit bills you must allow for, there are other things you ought to allow for, things which should have priority over any new purchases. These include savings, insurance, medical care, contributions to church and charity, and something extra for recreation. By the time these things are taken care of, your month’s supply of money may be reduced to $50.

Now, if there is still something you want and feel you are justified in buying you can afford to buy it on credit only if you do not obligate yourself for new monthly payments that are more than $50.

Why Use Credit?

There are several forms of credit you will want to know about and understand.

One is charge-account credit, the kind of credit you use to buy things at your local department or other retail stores and pay for at the end of the month when you are billed. Most businesses find this a convenience.

If your charge account is the 30-day type you pay up in full each month, there is no charge for this service – credit cards have worked like this in the past but things may be changing. However, since the extra record-keeping and billing cost the store a considerable amount, these costs are added to the price of the goods. Actually, then, every customer pays for this type of credit – even the ones who pay cash. This is one reason cash offers some negotiating room.

Another type of charge account is called revolving credit. Under this plan, a customer is allowed to make credit purchases up to an agreed limit. He agrees to make regular payments on that account of a specific amount each month, and he can make additional charge purchases at any time as long as his total credit does not exceed the agreed limit. Credit cards fall into this type of credit.

Under this revolving plan, the customer pays a service fee – usually 1% to 1-1/2 % per month on the amount owed.

Another form is installment sales credit. You may use this form of credit if you buy a car and pay for it “on time.” Many families also use installment sales credit to buy furniture and home appliances.

Here are a couple of points to keep in mind if you are planning to buy something – say, a car – through installment sales credit.

• 1. You will usually be asked to make a down payment. If you already have a car which you are trading in on another one, it may take the place of the required cash down payment.
• 2. When you buy your car on credit, you will be asked to sign a contract which is your promise to pay a certain amount each month for a certain number of months. Read this contract carefully and understand it before you sign it.
• 3. The total amount you agree to repay will include the price of the car, the service charge you must pay for the use of the credit, and probably the cost of the insurance necessary to protect the lender’s equity in the car.
• 4. If you have a conditional sales contract, you do not legally own the car until the final payment of your installment contract has been made. Still, you must make your payments even if you’re not satisfied with your purchase. You can’t just “let the car go back” and thereby cancel your obligation. If you do not make your payments and if the finance company does not feel that you are making a serious effort to make them, they may take the car back – repossess it. Then the finance company will re-sell it and apply the proceeds to the loan. If the sale of the car doesn’t bring enough to pay off the loan, you still owe the difference! You must pay back the money you borrowed, even if you didn’t spend it wisely.

Some families use credit to get a cash loan. Almost all families at some time or other find themselves facing an unexpected need for cash. Perhaps there has been a serious illness or the house needs repairs or the breadwinner has been temporarily laid off from his job.

Perhaps you have a “rainy day” fund to help you meet just such needs. But you may not want to dip into that fund right now. Think how desperate you would feel if you spent every cent of it and had nothing between you and an even more urgent need! You could, in some cases, borrow on your life insurance policy. But that’s pretty risky, too. That insurance represents future protection for your family, and you don’t want to whittle down their protection. Sometimes you can turn to relatives or friends for a cash loan. But some people are embarrassed to borrow from people they know.

In many cases, the safest and simplest way to get cash is to borrow it on a businesslike basis from a reliable credit source. Since consumer finance or small loan companies were created by special state laws to provide such cash loan services, they are the source to which many families turn for cash loans along with tapping their credit cards with cash advances or using the equity built up in their home by refinancing or a HELOC – Home Equity Line of Credit.

For such a loan, you agree to pay back the money you borrow in a series of monthly payments. Those payments include a charge for the credit service. Maximum charges are usually established by state law. Be sure you understand how much you are expected to pay in charges. The lender should give you a written statement of the terms of the transaction. If he doesn’t, ask for one, and look for a plaque on his wall showing membership in state and national associations. These associations demand strict adherence to a code of ethics and to high standards of business conduct.

How Much Credit can YOU afford?

When you begin working out your budget, you begin to really figure out answers to the following questions:

• What do we need?
• What do we want?

How many of the things we want and need can we afford now? If we can’t afford them all now, which ones should we get first? If you found there was quite a gap between what you want and what you can afford right away, you are not very different from most other couples especially when you are just starting out.

Families work this problem out in various ways. Some put aside a certain amount out of each paycheck and slowly save up the sum needed to pay cash for things, one at a time – pieces of furniture for the first home, for example, or a car. Others feel that the marriage is off to a better start if they have a car and furniture right from the beginning. That’s one reason we hear on TV commercials from furniture companies – 12 months – Same-As-Cash!

It is possible to do this – to buy what you need and pay for it as you use it. But you must first understand some of the advantages – and limitations – of consumer credit.

There are a number of misunderstandings about the use of credit which should be cleared up.

What Credit is NOT

1. Credit is not a way of beating your budget. The payments you must make each month on your installment contract (loan) or on your credit card or on your cash loan (equity line of credit) are part of your budget.

2. Credit is not a way of buying what you cannot afford. It does not give you income that you do not already have. It may give you a more convenient way of timing the payments you make. But it does not produce extra money for you out of thin air.

3. You do not have an unlimited amount of credit. Your opportunities to use credit in your community depend on your credit rating… and that, in turn, depends on your reputation for paying your bills on time.

4. Credit is not free. It is a service and you must expect to pay for it. Using credit will cost you more than using cash. Be sure you understand what those extra costs are, and be sure you feel that having things now instead of later is worth what it will cost you.

Now that you have clearly in mind the fact that credit is not a free and fast ride along the path to extravagant living, let’s look at credit – the types of credit and find out if, when, and how you can best use it in your financial plan.

Here are a few guidelines which you will find helpful when you start putting your own method of money management into practice:

1. Spreading out expenses - Some of your biggest fixed expenses, such as taxes, mortgage payments, and insurance premiums may come due in one lump sum. Since you know that they are coming, set a little aside for them out of each paycheck. Handled that way they will be much less of a financial blow.

2. Balancing your checkbook - A major pitfall in keeping track of money in many families is the failure of husband and wife (or both) to make proper entries in the checkbook stubs. Don’t trust your memory. Fill out a stub every time you write a check and keep an accurate account of your balance.

3. Keeping records – Both husband and wife should know where vital financial and family information can be found. These include Social Security card, birth certificates, insurance policies, wills, certificates covering all investments, ownership certificate on car, bank books, safe-deposit key, and all information needed for your next income tax return.

4. Inheriting a standard of living – Don’t feel you have to start your marriage by living at the standard your parents have taken a lifetime to achieve. There’s no disgrace in driving a car less sumptuous than theirs, in living in a home more modest than theirs. It’s your living standard; just be sure you pick one you can afford.

5. Handling your personal allowance – You can spare the entire family the feeling of being boxed in by the restrictions of money management if each member (including children) is given a personal allowance for which he does not have to account to anybody. It gives youngsters valuable training in managing their own funds, and it gives everybody the liberated feeling that once in a while he can spend money spontaneously just because he feels like it. An occasional splurge makes financial discipline easier to live with.

6. Check your spending with “averages.” - Although we have stressed that each family should develop its own formula for spending and saving, it will be helpful to look at established “averages” for families of your size and income. For example, a family of four living in a city, with an annual income of $50,000, could allow 12% for taxes; 30% for food; 21% for housing; 10% for clothing; 3% for furnishing; 6% for auto expenses; 5% for medical; 10% for savings and insurance; 3% for miscellaneous.

That’s one possible way to allocate an income. If yours is allocated differently, this doesn’t mean you are “wrong” – your family may simply have a different set of values – but be sure you know why your spending differs from the “averages”.

So much for the general principles which should guide your day-to-day money management. Now let’s get down to cases. Exactly what do you do when you manage money? You do just this: you keep track of what comes in and what goes out, and you make sure of three things about the outgo:

• That it isn’t more than your income.
• That it is providing for your future as well as for the present.
• That it is buying the things your family needs and wants MOST.

First, let’s look at what comes in. For most people, that is primarily a regular wage or salary. You can estimate that pretty accurately for the year. One reminder: In estimating your year’s earnings for budgeting purposes, figure the take-home pay only. Anything regularly deducted from your paycheck (for income taxes, social security, medical insurance, union dues, etc.) is “money already allocated.”

In addition to the regular earnings, there are, in many families, other sources of income which should be kept in mind when you are counting on the total amount of money you will have available during the year. These include interest in a savings account, money market accounts, dividends from an investment, year-end bonus (if you’re sure you can count on it), average overtime income (based on previous years), and even odd-jobs earnings by others in the family. Total all of these, counting only sure things, not money that might come in or that you hope will come in. You now have the raw material for money management – that is, income.

How Will You Manage The Money?

As you allocate your money to meet expenses, recognize that some of these expenses are fixed and some are flexible. The fixed expenses must have first call on your income. These fixed expenses include taxes (some of which may already have been paid by money withheld from your paycheck), insurance premiums, mortgage payment, and regular payments which are due on credit cards, car payments, installment purchases or personal debts.

Once you have provided for your “must-pay” expenses you are ready to tackle the nuts-and-bolts of money management – that is, meeting your day-to-day expenses. These include:

Food – everything spent on what you consume at home – including what you drink; also includes lunches packed for work and school.

Shelter – if you’re buying a home, mortgage payments are not included, since they are fixed expenses; rent is included, as are utilities, cable, cell phone, repairs, home insurance, cleaning supplies.

Furnishing and equipment – furniture and appliances, unless you are buying them through installment credit, in which case they become fixed expenses; also includes dishes, drapes, rugs, accessories, repairs to appliances.

Clothing – all wearing apparel, plus upkeep, such as dry cleaning, laundry, etc.

Transportation – payments on a car come under fixed expenses; include here gas, oil, and repairs, plus bus fare, parking, etc.

Medical care – unless paid for by insurance, include payments to doctors, dentists, nurses, hospitals, plus costs of medicine.

Recreation – meals in restaurants, travel and lodging for vacations, movies, concerts, books, membership fees in social or athletic clubs, hobby equipment.

Personal Allowance – cosmetics, beauty and hair care, odds and ends, and money for school lunches and bus tokens when this is included in an allowance.

Gifts and Contributions – including church contributions, contributions to charity unless deducted from paycheck.

Education – if child is in private school; also include adult education fees, music and dancing lessons, tutoring.

Another important expense you should meet regularly is an allocation for savings. The amount you save will be flexible from year to year, but once you have agreed that you will save a certain amount out of each paycheck, consider this a firm commitment – consider it a monthly bill! Your savings might be in the form of building a “rainy day” fund, or you might be saving for something specific, such as a vacation, or next year’s Christmas spending.

Many families have a struggle with savings as a part of budgeting because they’re perfectly willing to start this admirable habit – but tomorrow. After the expenses of the party they’re giving on Saturday night, after the little vacation trip they’ve planned, after they buy a new coat – then they’ll really get cracking on that habit of regular savings. That’s a trap into which a good money-manager will not fall. Savings is not an afterthought. It happens now… and again next week… and again the week after.

The above listing of day-to-day expenses merely suggests broad classifications which may be useful to you. Feel free to draw up another set of classifications which might be more realistic in your case. Use any type of record-keeping that suits you. Keep books, fill out forms, move funds in and out of different bank accounts, move cash in and out of separately-labeled envelopes – or make up your own method. But this is important: spend no more for daily living than what is left-over from income after all fixed expenses have been provided for… and some savings have been set aside.

This may come as quite a jolt to you, because at a glance that list of day-to-day expenses seems to call for quite a bit of money. But remember that this is the flexible part of your budget. You do have some choice over your fixed expenses, it is true. You decide for yourself what things will be bought on installment, and by doing so, you establish the size of your indebtedness.

You decide how much insurance you will carry. But once these decisions have been made, your commitments to pay are fixed. As for your daily expenses, these are short-range decisions. If you must, you can cut down in many ways – give up your plan for a new set of dishes, give up David’ music lessons, buy less expensive cuts of meat, remodel a room you remodeled 2 years ago or cut down on the cable extras.

Giving things up is always hard on the morale. Much better to decide at the beginning of each year, after reviewing the economic facts of your life, that you will spend no more than so much for food, so much for shelter, etc. Then make plans that fit into these limits; don’t overshoot and you won’t have to cut back.

First Principle

The first principle of money management is to regulate your spending so it helps rather than hinders you in realizing the values of your marriage. If there are things you should buy now, to achieve immediate satisfactions that you have agreed to pursue, those expenditures represent a sound use of your financial resources. Buying a home and furnishing it within the first five years of your marriage might be such an expenditure.

On the other hand, the goals of your marriage might include a plan to move to another town and establish a business of your own three years from now. In that case, you would be making the most of your financial resources if you invested as little as possible in your present housing and saved as much as you could to give your future plan sound financial support.

Second Principle

Your income should be the basis for all financial planning. Money management is not day-dreaming. It must have a foundation of fact. Take a look at the money you can count on coming in during the year, and make your plans on that basis.

We may benefit from having some aspirations that exceed our grasp, but if our entire way of life, present and future, is based on a financial scale that bears no relationship to reality, present or future, we are not carrying out a plan; we’re just dreaming.

If your income substantially exceeds your present needs, you will want to provide for the future through savings, insurance, and investments. Insurance and investment counselors can give you guidance about this.

Or, you might consider hiring an assistant to ease your workload or having your wife give up her job so you can have more time to enjoy family living together and to realize some of the non-material values to which you attach importance. If, on the other hand, your income always lags sadly behind your plans for spending money (and this is more often the case), you must either reduce some of your expenses or add to your income.

Third Principle

Change your financial plans as your family situation changes. Stick to the financial plan you make until your circumstances change – then revise it. If there is substantial increase in your income as time goes on, revise your plan and let your family benefit accordingly. Don’t peg them permanently to a hard-times budget, if things are looking up and you can afford to do better by them.

If, on the other hand, your family has grown faster than your income, or if the breadwinner has to cut down on work because of ill health, be ready to make that adjustment, too. At the end of each year, look at your financial standing and find out in what direction you’re moving. Then take a look at your family’s long-range plans, and decide what changes should be made in the light of your present financial condition.

Fourth Principle

Fourth and final principle: financial planning should be a family project. This applies to all families – those in which the husband is the only breadwinner, those in which both husband and wife work, and those in which teen-age youngsters contribute what they earn, too. No matter who is earning the family resources, planning on spending should be a group decision. Family support and cooperation in going easy on expenses this year because of big plans for next year cannot be expected unless the entire family understands how much money is coming in and appreciates the values for which the family is striving.

Nothing places more stress and strain on a marriage than lack of complete honesty about money – where it comes from and where it goes. Few breadwinners tell their families outright lies about the family’s financial condition, but some families are misled because finances are kept a mystery. The wife who feels her household allowance is pretty meager, considering what her husband spends on golf or bowling, is developing a state of mind in which all sorts of suspicions might grow. For the sake of sound money management – but more than that, for the sake of a sound marriage – make absolute frankness the order of the day in money management.

Almost every family does some type of financial planning. Sometimes the planning is simple indeed. It goes like this: “If we ever get this car paid off, I’d sure like to get new cell phones and a computer.”

Many families find themselves constantly running short of money although they think they’re earning enough to provide a good living. They decide they would like to do a better job of planning, and they intend to start next week, next month, next year. Why are they stalling? Because they’re frightened by terms like “budgeting” and “keeping books.” Because they think that planning means putting themselves into a financial strait jacket.

Getting the most out of your financial resources does call for some planning, some discipline, some looking ahead. But it doesn’t have to be a gigantic undertaking with stacks of forms to be filled out. The more complicated your method of handling your money, the more likely you are to chuck the whole business.

Basic Rules of Money Management

If you both agree it’s high time you found out where the money is going (and we hope you reach that point early in your marriage), start with these simple rules:

• 1. Keep your method of money management simple.
• 2. Work out a method that is right for you, rather than try to use a set of “average” or “model” figures.
• 3. Don’t try to do it all in your head; keep a written account of what you spend.
• 4. Be realistic.

Reckless spending is not the way to get the most out of your financial resources; nor is miserly hoarding. No doubt about it, money is intended to be spent. The questions are: When? and for What?

• Four Principles to Remember
• Where the Money Comes From and Where it Goes
• Guidelines for Practical Money Management
• What Do You Know About Money Management?

Has this turned out to be the subject of more than one night’s conversation? Quite possibly. The question of values in marriage is not one that is easily settled. Nor is it necessarily settled, once and for all, at any point of your marriage. The values you find important today might well change. No point in clinging stubbornly to outmoded values. The important thing is to agree upon values, present and future, and to work together toward achieving them.

If you missed Values in Marriage or the Values in Marriage Checklist click on the links…

This isn’t going to be easy for all of you. Today’s needs can be very demanding. What you want right now has so much more reality for you – and so much more influence over you – than what you might want ten years from now. The natural response is to get while the getting is good. The ability to look ahead, plan ahead and stick with your plans is, as a matter of fact, one way of separating the men from the boys, as it were. In other words, a significant measure of your maturity is your ability to postpone immediate satisfactions in order to protect future goals. Only when you have this type of maturity are you really ready for marriage. There is no age at which you automatically acquire it. Some people have it at 18. Others still lack it at 35. Without it, a marriage is makeshift. With it, headway in reaching goals is possible.

As you plot the major steps in the course of your marriage, you may be called upon to make decisions you do not feel qualified to make. It’s one thing to agree about the values which are important to you; it’s quite another to make concrete choices when you are confronted with them. We live in a complicated age in which most of us need the advice of experts from time to time.

As early as possible in your marriage, select your own personal panel of experts. You may not need to call on them at once – maybe not at all. But when you need advice, help, or just someone to talk to, there should be “advisers” to whom you can turn – people both of you know and trust.

There should be, for every family, someone with whom you can discuss personal problems. Perhaps the person who will come first to your mind in time of stress is the pastor of your church. Get to know him and let him know you, so that if you have need of his counsel, you will not be strangers.

Have a family doctor. If you wait until you face a medical emergency, you may not know whom to call, and you may settle for someone who would not have been your ideal choice. A doctor has more to give you than his ability to make a diagnosis and write a prescription. He can give you comfort, reassurance, a sense of psychological support. Pick a doctor in whom you have confidence; see him at least once a year for a physical checkup; let him get to know all members of the family while they are well. It will help him help you if you become ill.

It is unlikely that you will go through your entire married life without needing a lawyer. There should be someone you can check with if you have legal questions, large or small. There will be leases and contracts; you will be drawing up a will; or you may have more entangled problems. Pick your lawyer before you need him.

Most families could benefit by occasional expert advice on money matters, too. As you survey your values in marriage, are you perplexed about the financial realities of your goals? You will need the judgment of an expert in financial matters just as you need the counsel of a physician about health problems.

Many families talk over major financial problems like purchasing a home or a business, with an officer at the bank where they have checking or savings accounts. If they are concerned with the handling of sizable sums of money, they may select a personal investment counselor. If they are more concerned with budgeting and smaller credit needs, they may seek the counsel of one of the experts in family budgeting employed by consumer finance companies throughout the country, or some other person who works closely with family financial problems.

Your panel of experts on matters personal, medical, legal and financial can guide you when you face decisions which must be made in getting what both of you want out of marriage.

In Part 1 we started an overview of the Values in Marriage and how it was much more than money. Below we continue with a checklist to review with your spouse or future spouse on what to your future together may look like!

Family

• How many children do you hope to have?
• What kind of life would you like to provide your family – in terms of home? Health care? Education? Opportunities?
• Are you ready for the responsibilities of parenthood?
• Ready for the sacrifices it may call for?
• Ready to provide leadership and example to your children?
• Are you ready for the continuing financial responsibilities of parenthood?

Work

• Is the husband (this applies to the wife as well) now doing the sort of work he wants to continue to do?
• Does it make the best use of his abilities?
• Does it give him a sense of satisfaction?
• If not, at what point will he be able to make a change?
• Has he thoroughly investigated a new field he would like to enter?
• If he plans to continue in his present work, does he know where he would like to be five years from now? Fifteen years from now?
• Is his present company one in which he has the best chances of getting ahead?
• Would he do better in business for himself?
• Does he need additional training in his field to get as far as possible?
• When would be the ideal time to get that training?
• If the wife is working, how long does she intend to continue?
• Does she plan to resume work after the family is full-grown?
• Do your financial plans make it possible for the head of your household to change jobs?
• Get training?
• Start a business of his own?

Home

• Are you now living in the home in which you plan to raise your family?
• If you are living in an apartment, do you plan to buy a home? If so, when?
• Have you thought of the advantages of suburbs vs. city? Small town vs. large metropolitan area?
• Do you know what kind of neighborhood would best meet your present needs?
• Your needs ten years from now?
• What furniture and appliances do you plan to buy this year? Within the next five years? Within the next ten years?
• Do your financial plans support your goals in terms of home ownership?
• Moving into a larger home when you need it?
• Furnishing your home in the way you want?

Education

• Are either or both of you still in school?
• Can you postpone most of your major purchases of durable goods until you have completed your education?
• Do either of you plan any advanced training which you feel is necessary for your career?
• When would be the most suitable time to get such training?
• Do you plan to take advantage of adult education opportunities which will enrich your enjoyment of life? Or develop new skills, interests, hobbies?
• How soon? How much?
• Are your financial plans geared to your educational plans, so that you can afford to continue your present educational program?
• Get advanced training?

Recreation

• What are your chief sources of recreation now?
• How might these change as your family grows?
• How far ahead do you plan your vacation?
• Do you have hobbies, sports interests, and other recreational outlets that make leisure something you look forward to, actively rather than passively?
• Do both of you share hobbies?
• Will any of your hobbies give you increasing pleasure as you grow older?
• Are you interested in traveling around the United States?
• Do you know what points of interest you particularly want to see?
• When do you plan to take these trips?
• Do you have any plans for foreign travel? When?
• What things will you ultimately want to buy in order to realize your plans for recreation – another car, SUV, trailer, boat, camping equipment, barbecue equipment, swimming pool, time share or a week-end cabin in the mountains?
• Do your financial plans include the costs of an annual vacation to the place of your choice?
• The eventual purchase of the recreational equipment you want?
• World travel when you feel your family is ready for it?

Future Security

• How long do you plan to work – health and other factors permitting?
• What plans can you realistically make to meet increasing needs for medical care as you get older?
• What will be the sources of your income after you stop working?
• What provisions will you make for providing income in case the head of the household dies before his wife?
• Where, ideally, would you like to live after retirement?
• Which of your present interests would you like to continue when you are older?
• What can you do in the years between now and age 65 to achieve the sort of life you want then?

Personal Development

• What kind of person do you hope to become in the course of your adult life?
• What sort of cooperation will this call for from your mate?
• Where do you want to put most of your personal energies – family, career, church, social activities, politics and community activities?
• Do you have talents you want to develop?
• How can marriage help you reach greater self-understanding?
• Do you have an image of the person you want to be twenty years from now?
• Are you making any plans now to attain that image?
• How can money management help you reach your goals of personal development?

Let’s look at “Values in Marriage – People in Your Life“