How to get 'financially naked' with your partner

Does our show help you save a little money or make better decisions about your health? Does it just make life a little easier?

“If you love life kit, why not take a moment to rate and review us in your podcast app?”

That helps other people find us. Thanks for listening. You're listening to life kit. From NPR.

Hey, it's Mario. When Vivian 2 first got financially naked in front of her partner, it was out of desperation.

She and her roommate had moved into a roach-infested apartment in New York City. These roaches were getting into everything. They were in our clothes. They were crawling all over our food. One of them died in our ice tray.

Ultimately, we had to pay $8,000 in total so for her for me to break our lease. And that was all the money that I'd saved after a year of working. And I had nothing left. So she temporarily moved into her then-boyfriend now husband's apartment. And I had to sit him down and I had to be like, "I have no money. I am broke.

I don't have any debt. This is how much I spend every month. I have nothing I can not afford to pay you rent. I don't know what to do. I have to get out of this apartment." How long have you all been seeing each other? Oh, 30 days.

Oh, like 30 days. Like, terrible timing. At the time Vivian was working on Wall Street. Now she's a financial educator. And she says, "Well, this was terrible timing.

It did lead to a very open conversation around our finances. And I think that's something that I really encourage couples to do is to ensure that you're having these really brutally honest conversations sooner rather than later. She calls that getting financially naked because when you decide to spend your life with someone, you're likely getting naked in every other way.

Physically, emotionally, spiritually, politically.

“She says you should be talking that openly about money, too.”

You need to know the basics about each other's finances. What you make, what you have, what you owe, and what you spend. And to understand this person's goals are on money. What they value, what they think is worth spending money on. It is insane to me that people think love is enough.

Love is not. You need to actually know that you can build with this person.

Now, you don't necessarily have to bear it all after the first day or after 30 days,

like Vivian did. You can break the stoner to steps, using some of the common relationship stages as checkpoints. Vivian walks through those steps in her book, well endowed. And she shares them with us on this episode of LifeKit. That's after the break.

Do you think that it's advisable to get financially naked while you're actually naked?

“I think this might be a clothing required conversation at first, just because it's a very vulnerable conversation.”

As fun and silly as it sounds to be able to do this is like pillow talk. Like I think it's a lot more effective if you're both focused. And I do think money talk scares a lot of couples, and I don't think it should have to. You can start money talk on the very first date. If enough money for your rest of your life fell into your lap tomorrow,

what would you do for work, would you still work? If I gave you $100,000 to plan a perfect two week vacation, what would that look like? Somebody who wants to go climb Mount Everest and someone who wants to go to the mall deives and lay on a beach for two weeks, these are two very different people. I think that having those fun money conversations early on makes it easier to be like,

how much do you make, because we're planning on moving in together, I need to know what the rent can be.

You've started with the casual dating side, which is like first date, second date, third date.

Anything actually right before you become maybe exclusive or committed to each other? Yeah. And in that realm, you're thinking mainly kind of fun discussion questions, but also you say in the book, you can discuss things like, what do you do for a living? Obviously, how do you like to spend your time? What are your general career or school plans or goals? Yeah. You want to be able to know what somebody's ambitions are.

You want to be able to know what their tenure plan is. Someone who's like, oh, I'm planning on going to grad school in California when you two currently live in New York. Are you ready to do that? Are you ready to move to California? Someone who says, oh, I would like to become a, you know, mogul of some sort in media or in business. You know they're going to be grinding. Are you cool with having less time for the two of you?

Getting an understanding of what somebody's happily ever after looks like is very telling. All right. Take away one. You're in the early stages of dating. Exciting. Don't worry about diving too deep on finances here.

What are their career goals? You can also ask each other fun questions. Like, if you had unlimited money to plan a two week vacation, where would you go? What would it look like?

Or if you were handed a million bucks tomorrow, what would you do with it?

And this doesn't have to feel like an interrogation. It's just a chance to know each other over time. When you're defining the relationship and you're saying, like, we're going to get more serious. And very often that means becoming monogamous exclusive. What might you talk about before that or when you're considering that? I think there are some things to be said about having a conversation of like,

Oh, like, what are your dreams for your career? Like, do you want to buy a home? Do you want to live here forever? Are you planning on moving back to your hometown? These are money conversations that will help guide the trajectory of your relationship Just to make sure that you're on the same financial page.

“I'm not someone who's like, you have to, you know, date someone who is really rich.”

You have to date someone who has no debt. That's not true. But you have to date someone who values a dollar the same way you do. My girlfriend has this phrase and she's like, hilarious. That dating is actually short for data. And that is your data collection period.

So we are collecting data about this person. How do they spend their money?

How do they spend their time? If you know that they are, you know, in a job where they don't make that much money. But every single weekend they're out blowing money on designer stuff. One, where is that money coming from? Or two, do they just have like crazy credit card debt?

Both of which you probably need answers to. This data collection period is really when you can be smart. And learn something about this person and decide if they're going to fit into your life and are there changes you're willing to make so that you can fit into theirs? Yeah, and you say in the book some other things to discuss at this point are

how each of you sees yourself with money like to see yourself as more of a spender or a saver. Yeah, or another way of putting that is like, are you into luxury?

“Are you more frugal with your money? Like, when is it worth it to spend money?”

What is your luxury? Right, versus where do you want to save?

Yeah, I like spending money on high quality food and organic produce.

You know, and on travel to a certain extent, but like I don't need to stay in the most luxury hotel but I want to be comfortable. Right. Right. I am 32 now.

I have back pain. Yeah. I cannot stay somewhere that's less nice than my own house. Yeah. I don't want to go.

Yeah, exactly. I'm like, no, it's hard. Like, I did the whole staying in hospitals and stuff, getting bed bugs, and also staying in Rome when I was 19. I've backpacked.

Yeah, I've been there. I'm good. And also, you say, like, you can do, you can talk about how you're doing with your savings and your debt, bringing that up. Do you think that it helps to kind of say,

“here's my situation and then let the other person share theirs?”

Yes. I think if you go into a conversation and you're like, tell me something. It feels like an interrogation versus offering something up. It almost feels like an olive branch. Like, you are offering something.

You are bringing something to the table. You are bringing new information and allow them to reciprocate. In the same way that, you know, relationship counselors, teach people in marriages to use eye statements instead of you statements. It's the same thing.

Yeah. Instead of being like, how much debt do you have? It's easier to be like, oh, by the way, I just want to let you know. I may be on a little bit of a tighter budget next month because I'm making a large payment to my student loan or on my credit card.

I have this much in debt and I'm hoping to have it paid off by XYZD. Now they know what your financial situation is in that regard. But also, you have a plan. You're going to make it happen and, you know, it's not going to necessarily negatively impact your relationship together.

Now, what if you share that and they're like, okay, cool. And then they don't say anything about their debt. I think at that point, you can then ask because you've now offered something. You can say, by the way, do you have any credit card debt? Yeah, or even something even better would be like,

are there any months coming up that you might be, you know, feeling a little bit more tight financially that we should keep in mind together? Mm-hmm. I can also imagine being like, things are going to be a little tight for me because I'm making this debt payment.

But I was thinking, this could actually be a good time for us to talk about our finances. Yeah. Would you be open to that to talking about how much debt each of us has and what kind of savings we have? Yes, a hundred percent.

And I also will say, I get a lot of DMs from people that are like, I've brought it up and my partner is super, super resistant to talking about money. To me, that would have been a red flag, red flag. Like, I cannot be with this person because if we can't talk about money, how are we going to talk about raising a family?

Yeah.

How are we going to be able to talk about buying a new car?

How are we going to talk about any of this stuff?

“And at that point, I'm thinking, like, what are you hiding?”

You know, right, right. Take away two. You've gone from casual dating to commitment, whatever that means for you. You're spending more time together, sharing a lot of meals and day-to-day activities, maybe planning, joint adventures.

This is a good moment to get more specific. To either of you have debt, how much? How do you spend your money? How much do you make? These are questions you'll absolutely want to ask and answer before you move in together.

I think if you haven't had any money conversations up until this point, this is a really good, like, true-up moment where you can get them all out.

Because this is now a point where you can no longer lie.

When you go submit your information for a rental application, you actually have to show bank statements. You actually have to show proof of employment. You have to show proof of income. And so it's a really good time to talk about what you make, what you have.

So assets, what you owe in terms of debt, and then what your expenses are every single month. That's the fore square. It's what you make, what you have, what you owe, and what you spend. If you can talk about those four categories before moving in together, you should be in a good spot.

And frankly, it'll make other conversations a lot easier. Now, what might come up in this conversation that could make someone say, "Uh, halt, I don't want to move in together, or I don't want to date you anymore." For some people, high levels of credit card debt. That's going to be a burden on your relationship.

This is also where you may be find out that they're spending every single month is vastly beyond their means. That's scary. You could find out that they have a family situation where they're being supported by their family, but that means there's puppet strings and caveats associated with everything.

Maybe you don't want to be a part of that. Maybe you find out that they make a lot more or less. This is something that you would probably find out more throughout the relationship versus just during the movement period, but if they're really controlling using that money, if you don't have a lot of it, or maybe they make so much less money than you anticipated,

that you're not necessarily feeling like you need to support their lifestyle, but they can't even keep up with yours. I think these are all things to consider. For me, I am very confident in saying that money does factor into my ability to see a life with someone. I mean, especially marriage as a contract.

It is a financial contract. It's a legal document. Yeah, it's a legal document with big financial implications. It is insane to me that people think love is enough. Love is not.

You need to actually know that you can build, build with this person. Yeah, I like that idea that what you're trying to do is build with someone. I mean, money is a part of that. Money is a part of building life. Yeah.

We'll have more life kit after the break. Vivian, let's talk about marriage.

“What conversations about money do you need to have when you get engaged?”

Well, I think if you're already engaged, you should be having all of those conversations we just discussed. But one thing that I really encourage people to try and avoid is any sort of financial infidelity. And people are like, what does that even mean? Financial infidelity is like when you make purchases and deliberately hide them. Or you have some sort of debt that you are keeping from your partner.

Or you are even like when they show like in like TV dramas or movies or whatever. It's like the wife goes out and she like spends $5,000 on a shopping spree and then like hides the shoes and the closet. I actually think that's a really, really unhealthy thing to portray as normal. We absolutely should not be normalizing lying to our partners. I'm not saying that she shouldn't get to go out and buy shoes.

I'm saying it shouldn't have to be a secret. Yeah. We shouldn't be hiding bank accounts. We shouldn't be hiding credit cards. It should all be out on the open and everybody should just be okay with it.

And if they're not, that's a conversation you need to have. Totally. That says something about the relationship if you can't be honest with each other. Yeah.

You have a note in your book about basically don't become the suggestion in your book is don't become financially co-dependent.

And what does that mean? I've thought about this a lot.

“You know, I think one of the scariest things that I get as a creator online is DMs from people saying,”

Oh, I'm in a relationship. I don't really want to be in, but I can't afford to leave. Worse is I'm in an abusive relationship and I can't afford to leave. Yeah. We should have our own money.

We should have our money that we share for our shared goals. But you need to have your own money. Period. Money gives you power. Money is freedom.

You need to be able to leave a bad relationship.

You need to be able to leave a bad job. You need to be able to leave a bad situation. And without money, you can't do that. So do not ever, ever, ever give your financial power to somebody else because if they can feed you, they can starve you.

“And it's going to be really hard to remember that when you're just about to get married.”

Because it's like, no, they love me. Yeah. You know? And I love them. Like nothing could go wrong.

I mean, this even comes up with prenaps. It's like, well, it's, it can be hard to, to tell your partner I want to prenaps. Because it's like, wait, sorry, are you planning to divorce me? Right. Exactly.

What do you say if your partner does have that reaction when you say you want to prenapp?

A prenapp is not, I don't trust you. A prenapp is not, we're going to get divorced. A prenapp is, I don't trust the government. A prenapp is, I want to sit down with you on a sunny day where we have nothing but love for each other and decide what is fair. Because if you don't, your state and local government gets to decide.

And I don't trust them to know my relationship better than me and my partner do. It is so important for you to do it yourself for you to make those decisions. And also, it allows you to be in charge of your financial future. When you are thinking about splitting your money or combining some part of your money, I mean, a lot of people don't even know where to begin with that.

Do you create a joint checking account and savings account? Do you keep your own separate ones? I like a yours mine and our strategy and getting those numbers out in the open. So yours mine and ours is you have your money.

I have my money and then we agree to put in a percentage into a joint account.

Consistently to help fund our expenses together. But also, it means if I find out that like you are behind on your retirement, let's come up with a strategy so that we can help fix that. That doesn't necessarily mean I just automatically pay more for stuff. Maybe it does mean for a temporary period of time you are putting more towards that one goal.

And we are pausing on another goal. What I don't want to have happened is you agree to pay for all of my debt. And then two weeks after the debt's paid for, I'm filing for divorce. That leads to a lot of resentment. You are not your partner savior.

Your partner needs to save themselves for you, for your relationship.

“And that's why I think it's really important to have chosen a partner who has a plan to get to where they want to be.”

Versus someone who's like helpless. I think there's a difference between dating someone with $10,000 of credit card debt. Versus dating someone who has $10,000 of credit card and a plan to pay it off. Take away three. You've decided to get married.

Congratulations. A couple things to keep in mind. Vivian says you and your partner should not be hiding financial information from each other. If you made a big purchase, you should be able to tell them even if they don't agree with it or it doesn't match their priorities. If you have debt that you haven't told them about, you need to.

Also think about how you're going to split your money and seriously consider a yours mine and ours strategy. Of course, the money conversation shouldn't stop after you get married. I think this is constantly just like goal setting. How big do we want our family to be? What's that going to cost? Where would we like to live long term?

What does that look like? If you say, oh, I want to have two kids, but then you only end up having one. That changes the calculus or say you have a pet. But then all of a sudden that pet has consistent health problems. That also changes the money calculus.

Maybe it's, oh, I wanted to retire here. But since my parents are also aging, maybe we consider moving here ahead of their retirement. That changes the calculus. So I think it's just constantly having this conversation. A money conversation is not a one and done.

You don't get to do it and just be dumb with it.

“It's something that you have to have throughout the course of your life.”

Yeah, and it occurs to me to that flexibility is an important thing to assess here when situations change. When you're with your partner, do you find them to be flexible in how they problem solve or rigid? You know, like, well, you said this, so we're doing this. Yeah. Like, if you have an aging parent who has dementia and like, you need to be there to help them.

Are they going to see that as a huge burden and treat you badly because of it? Because it's not their parent? Exactly. Or are they the kind of person who's like, no, your burdens? Are mine, too.

We've agreed to be a wee. I think at the end of the day, this is just a conversation around Are you a good partner, is your partner a good partner, and do you make a good pair? Vivian, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me.

All right, time for a recap. Take away one in the early stages of dating. Don't worry about diving to deep on finances. But do ask basic questions.

How do they like to spend their time and what are their career goals?

You can also use fun prompts.

“Like, if you were handed a million bucks tomorrow, what would you do with it?”

Take away two. You've gone from casual dating to commitment.

Now's the time to start sharing things like, do either of you have debt.

How much? How do you spend your money? How much money do you make?

“How much do you each have in savings or investments?”

Those are questions you'll absolutely want to ask and answer before you move in together. And take away three before you get married. Vivian says you and your partner should not be hiding financial information from each other. Also, think about how you're going to split your money and seriously consider a yours Mine and ours strategy.

“And keep the conversations going once you tie the knot.”

Life will throw you curve balls.

An unexpected third child.

An illness in the family. A huge job opportunity in a new city. These all have financial implications. And hopefully, you've chosen a partner who's able to talk through those things with you. This episode of Life Kit was produced by Claire Murray Schneider.

Our digital editor is Malaika Greeb and our visuals editor is CJ Rikalan. Meghan Kane is our senior supervising editor and Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Andy Tagle, Margaret Serino, Sylvie Douglas and Mika Ellison. Engineering support comes from Damian Herring. Fact checking by Andrea Lopez Grustado.

I'm Mary Elcegarra. Thanks for listening. (gentle music)