Business

Monday October 29, 2012

Tips on what to do after marriage


“Why? Because I love you, darling.” “Why? Because I love you, darling.”

“I do” is possibly the most romantic two words uttered at weddings. Romantic as it sounds, a whole new financial life starts for the two new individuals starting a lifetime together.

JOYCE CHUAH writes...

Bank accounts

Start a joint account for family expenses such as groceries, family holidays, mortgage, transportation, and schooling. It is still advisable to maintain your own individual accounts for personal spending and hobbies. This also allows you to track your own personal expenses and ensures that the family expenses are tracked separately.

Plan financially for unexpected events

Joyce Chuah Joyce Chuah

Decide how much is required if one of you was left to support your household alone, and consider whether or not life insurance would be appropriate. What about health insurance should you change your current hospitalisation benefits and increase critical illness coverage as your financial responsibilities increase when you are married?

Re-write your will and revisit named beneficiaries

You may have written your will as a single individual. When you are married, your will has become null and void. Rewrite it again as soon as you can.

You may also want to re-visit your named beneficiaries on existing will, EPF, private pension plans, insurance policies and any other assets you may have.

When you have established beneficiaries on these accounts, you can ensure that your assets are disbursed properly to the ones you love.

Financial responsibilities

Decide with your spouse how debts, assets, bills, and even savings will be taken care of. Create a family budget and look at your combined cash flow. What debt payments will you both have? How much can you save? Can you find ways to combine expenses, such as switching to the same wireless phone plan? Answering these questions together will help you develop the most realistic budget for your married life.

Matrimonial assets

Particularly if you are a Muslim, it is advisable to set up a declaration of matrimonial assets (harta sepencarian) to ensure that each partner is protected from any undesired third party claims on your assets acquired during your marriage.

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