Some of us may fear to lose a loving relationship over money problems. What can you do to preserve your money and by doing so, preserve your relationships?

How to

First, you need to identify the money stresses in your life and create a plan to combat each element. The two major areas are income and expenditures. You must either work on having more income coming in or you forecast your budget to resize your expenditures. Relationships require financial security and financial freedom for current and future living to help reduce stress in life. To make a financial plan that is less stressful on relationships, it should include the following elements.

Emergency fund

- To help absorb unexpected financial shocks such as:
  - The loss of a job
  - Unexpected major repair
  - Medical bills
  - New adventures, etc.

Insurance

- To help protect:
  - Human lives
  - Assets
  - Possessions

Debt free credit cards

- To help restrain purchases
- Rein in spending
- Save on wasted interest and late fee payments

A lean budget with no spending leaks

- To help save money to invest in building assets
- Saving for retirement

Good documentation

- To help in:
  - Streamlining paperwork including filing taxes
  - Keeping a good financial emergency kit of all important documents

Financial family meetings

- To discuss financial goals
- To assign financial tasks to keep all members engaged in making money decisions

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Practice

Now that you know how to preserve your money and your relationships, think of paying it forward and discuss your experiences with a friend or a family member.

Congratulations! Now Test your knowledge about Money and relationships!

Would you like to review again? You can start over at Introduction.

To review the full module on Money and relationships, click here.

The Penn State Sokolov-Miller Family Financial and Life Skills Center hopes you have enjoyed this module in the MoneyCounts: A Penn State Financial Literacy Series. Please tell us how we can serve you better, leave us a feedback, ask a question, or request additional information at: finlit@psu.edu