Investing Success and Marital Health?

[geoffw]

Hi Geoff,

Good on ya daughter with her first job. Did she pick up any money habits from you, like saving x%?

She's worked there for two weeks (only a few hours each week) and so far has not spent a cent of her earnings.

Of course, that may change when she actually gets paid

 

[quintets]

I try to teach my teenager about money,

A friend of mine, who is a pastor of a church, teaches his three year old how to earn monopoloy money for chores. He likes the monopoly money for some reason. He'll probably graduate to real money after a few years.

My wife and I want to do something similar, except we'll keep a stock of their favourite lollies and other privileges with a price list. We'd like to have a whole mini-economy going.

I heard of one family of 11 (5 kids and 6 adopted kids) who actually auctioned off chores on a weekly basis. It was a reverse auction, lowest bid wins and the parents set a reserve. Hah!!

Jireh

 

[Peter 14.7]

Hi All

In my experience the following issues threathen marriages:

1. Renovations ( usually PPOR)

2. Overwork ( usually by the husband but becoming wife as well)

3. Boredom (usually by the wife and can be related to item 2)

4. Mismatched spending patterns

The availability or lack there of, of money can only help avoid these if the fundamentals are strong. If flawed and not addressed , money simply delays the inevitable.

For example:

My parents had little money but spent a lot of time with us kids being part of our life and sports, interests, etc. That cost nothing but time.

However I envied a friends family whose Mum worked full time in a managers position and had more material things. They had a newer car and nicer home.

When all us kids grew up that family divorced. It broke the adult kids into factions and as far as I know, they still dont talk to each other.

Still close to the wife as an adult (an unoffical Auntie) when I told her how I admired her work etchic she told me she would see my family go away for weekends and my parants involed in our lives and she envied us.

She wondered had she worked less and lived more , maybe her marriage would have survived and the family still intact.


Peter 147

 

[House_Keeper]

After much research we purchased a book called 'The Exceptional Seven Percent: the nine secrets of the world's happiest couples'. This book is the fruit of many years research into what makes successful couples tick and how the rest of us can make positive changes by developing a marital imperitive; setting and achieving emotional goals; and cultivating exceptional levels of fidelity, loving, service, rapport, negotiations, gratitude, joy and sexuality.

Generally I hate relationship books (come on guys - men are from earth and so are women - get used to it! ) but I have found this one to be immensely helpful. It is practical, methodical, down to earth, provides concrete examples and real-life stories - almost the Jan Somers of marital investment!!!

For us, the reason we invest is so that we can enjoy our life together even more in years to come. It makes sense to us to put in the same conscious effort to cultivating our marriage as we do in cultivating our investment portfolio. Otherwise - what is the point?

Thanks for that great suggestion Kathie. It looks like an very interesting book that I will get shortly.

As already mentioned in this thread, I haven't seen money as being the key factor in keeping a relatiosnhip strong and healthy.

From my experience with investing and relationship, I would caution people against focusing too much on financial goals and too little on relationships and health goals. I got a bit carried away at the beginning, and my wife had to remind me to spend more time with my family (we have two daughters) and less time with investments. I am glad that I have now attained a more balanced approach, where there is enough time to focus on investments without neglecting the family.

Cheers,