Gibson

A Tale of Two Couples

Two conversations, a fortnight apart, about essentially the same thing.

A lady got in touch about her retirement planning.

As we talked, it became clear that the household bills, the holidays and the lifestyle they’d built together depended on both her income and her husband’s.

But she didn’t want him involved in the planning. She couldn’t really see why he needed to be.

We insist on working with both partners at the outset. There are rare exceptions, of course, but this wasn’t one of them.

So we declined to take her on.

A few days later, a potential new client came in to see me on his own.

He was keen to make the next few years count and get himself into a strong position for retirement.

He and his partner have always kept their finances fairly separate. They each pay a set amount into a joint account for the mortgage, bills, holidays and everything else, then manage what’s left themselves.

But he could already see where that was heading.

He was doing the saving and investing. She tended to spend whatever was left over.

His worry was that when they eventually retired, he would end up carrying the financial weight of their lifestyle.

And it was already starting to cause some friction.

I told him what I tell anyone in that position.

Get her involved.

Let her see what you can see.

Let’s get you both around the same table, looking at the same numbers and talking about what you actually want your future to look like.

He texted me later that day.

They’d gone for a walk at lunchtime and talked it through.

She was happy to come on board too.

That’s a big win, and not just for us as financial planners.

Because if two people are building a life together but pulling financially in different directions, eventually something has to give.

The best spreadsheet, investment portfolio or retirement plan in the world won’t fix that.

Worse, resentment can start to build.

I’m certainly no marriage counsellor (Lynda will attest to this), but I’ve been doing this long enough to see how money can become a source of tension between two people who otherwise want exactly the same things from life.

Two couples. Two very different outcomes.

One wanted a financial plan built alone, around a life that had been built together.

The other turned a private financial worry into a shared conversation about their future.

We only ever build the second kind of plan