Marriage is the start to many beautiful chapters in one’s life. It’s truly a wonderful feeling, having that unmatched security of a lifelong companion.
However, any successful marriage with all it perks demands a certain amount of responsibility right from the start on both the husband and wife’s part. No genuinely committed person should avoid decisions that compel his or her spouse or family to suffer because of not making one at the right time.
Realising how unpredictable life can get, it’s always good to be proactive from an early stage to ensure that the family and future family are always protected from different types of contingencies.
Here are some basics, which you must cover to tackle contingencies, to ensure your partner and family are always in their happiest version:
Discuss Family Planning with Your Partner
While many newlyweds shy away from the topic of discussing future children, the aspect of family planning is something that deserves early attention. Eventually, marriage does mean starting your own family and discussing the timeline and sticking by it is important for both partners.
With most couples being both working today, having a child early on is known to interfere with the career and financial goals of many. In that case, having unplanned children early causes a lot of mental discomfort and sometimes even financial strain.
Additionally, delaying it for too long is also known to cause complications in terms of conceiving and health. Having such things discussed and planned beforehand often avoids unforeseen outcomes.
Make Sure to Be Protected from Crimes
While the safety is not completely in one’s hand, it’s a good idea to build a safe environment. Mostly, with the help of technology you can achieve the goal of a safe environment.
In that sense, if you do plan on renting a new house with your partner after marriage, you must look for a society or housing arrangement with good and attentive security. If you happen to live in a slightly isolated area, you could consider incurring a one-time cost of CCTV camera from a long-term security angle. For any servants that you hire, you must maintain a proper official record with their photograph, address and other important details so that they can be traced in case of any wrong doings. Moreover, it’s always good to keep the local police station’s number stored on your phone to be contactable quickly in case of emergency.
Always Be Financially Prepared
With marriage, what comes almost immediately is substantially increased level of expenses. Automatically, having another member in the family, their needs and desires, coupled with personal goals of vacations and even having children in the future does require a lot more money than when leading a single life.
Emergency Fund
To ensure that none of the needs and goals are compromised, it’s better to have a financial plan. The best way is to save and invest regularly in a disciplined fashion early on. But, before you can start investing, you need to prepare for the times when either your income suffers, or your expenses shoot up.
It’s advisable to create a pool of funds of about three to six months of household expenses. This way, you can taper off lean periods in employment, and unseen shots in the costs.
Insurance
You can prepare for small contingencies, but when push comes to shove, it could be difficult. For example, emergency hospitalization could add to your worries. You may afford smaller treatments out of your emergency fund, but for larger expenses you will need an additional support.
Insurance is the last mile support in the worst-case scenarios. Health and life insurance are the two basic personal insurance plans everyone should have.
Also, buying a life insurance plan early on in marriage gives you cost advantage. Another benefit for you can be that, later as your family grows, you may increase the cover to include their life goals and expenses at a lower cost.
Investments
Final stage of your contingency plan includes investments. You may consider this as part of your investment plan too. But, as it happens, families look after these situations out of their regular income most of the time. However, investing for contingencies like, home renovation, new vehicle, urgent travel, etc. can benefit you in the long run.
As life goes by, things move fast, and the lost time never comes back. Decisions not made at the right time are wrong decisions. With all the unpredictability life is known to serve one with, it’s a good idea to take all kinds of contingency measures early on.