How you can live richly ever after...

This chapter will show you that creating a budget is actually pretty simple. You just need to figure out how much money is coming in every month (your income) and how much is going out (your expenses). That's a basic budget. But the key for couples is to keep that budget somewhat flexible, based on your wants and needs and your spouse's (and kids', too!). You need to talk about your budget-not just put it on paper. That may be the hardest part. Even couples that communicate well about other topics are not great at talking (calmly) about money. This chapter has some strategies that should help.

When it comes to working out your finances as a couple, you have to keep those financial muscles flexible. You may have your own dreams and goals, but the more rigid you are, the tougher it will be to work together to realize those financial objectives. The key to staying limber is to communicate. Talk it out with one another. Identify your dreams and goals. Share them with your partner. Discuss why they are important to you.

The desire to start a family is what got my husband and me to start working on our finances. I'm a planner by nature. I wanted to feel financially secure before I had a baby. I wanted us to have wills, set up separate retirement accounts outside of our jobs, and also create a "rainy day, one day we'll get a house, then eventually we'll send our kids to college" fund. We didn't have a lot of money, but we put a plan in place so that, we hoped some day, some way, we might. We didn't get these ideas from our parents. Neither of us grew up in households where personal finances were discussed very often. But both sets of parents-all educators-taught us the importance of caring for your family, because that's what they did for us growing up.

As in my own experience, issues that get couples to start discussing money matters and deciding that they need a plan of action are often life-changing events: the birth of a child, death of a parent, divorce of a friend, approach of retirement, beginning a new job or loss of employment. It can also be a relatively small thing. A husband buys a high-end remote-controlled car (price: about $350) and his wife is offended. She thinks his spending is getting out of hand and starts a discussion about their finances. Or a wife may buy a new Dolce & Gabbana dress and silver necklace and the husband decides she's spending too much money. So he suggests they need to start adhering to a budget. Another couple finally agrees they need a new SUV (they want a $42,000 Acura MDX, not another $28,000 Ford Explorer), so they decide to write down all of their expenses to figure out how long it will take before . . .

Excerpted from The Big Payoff by Sharon Epperson. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission from HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.

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