Posted under credit cards
A good friend of mine, Dr. Tracy Penny Light, asked that I be a guest speaker in one of her courses on the campus of University of Waterloo. Dr. Penny Light is a professor in the program “Sexuality, Marriage and Family Studies” from St. Jeromes University. The course she’s teaching this semester is “Couples, Marriage, and Family”. Specifically, she asked me to speak about “Family Work and Family Money”.
The class was an hour and twenty minutes, during which we discussed:
Today’s working families- Financial constraints
- Budget/Cash-flow
- How to manage credit
- What can go wrong
- How financial troubles impact marriages
- How to resolve tough situations
We explored how family employment has changed over the years resulting in an increase in the number of relationships that have both spouses working. One of the reasons for this is the financial constraints we have in today’s society which has added great stress to couples and families.
When you factor in the increase in credit use, the average family is now carrying more balances on credit cards and loans then they make in a year’s income. Thus, costs of living have increased over the years and we are spending more and saving less.
During my talk, I had the class work on a family budget for a year’s period. I wanted them to assume they were a family of 4, bringing home $60,000 per year. It is interesting to see the amount of difficulty that the students had with this project. I have always believed that our education system has not properly prepared today’s youth with the fundamentals in personal financial management. There are many techniques and methods to budgeting and not all them work for each person/family.
We then discussed that one of the major leading causes of insolvency in Canada is marriage breakdown. When a couple dissolves a relationship, the costs of living increases significantly as there is now the requirement for two residences as well as support payments. The impact of financial strain on a relationship, like all other stresses should be dealt with as they arise. There are solutions to these financial strains.
If you are experiencing financial stresses or strains and they are impacting your relationship, call us at 310-PLAN or e-mail us to discuss the options you have.
