Hello Fellow DINKS. My name is Kristina and I am the new daily blogger for DINKS Finance. My blog will follow market trends and report on financial news as well as discuss general business topics. As a Certified Financial Planner I will also provide financial advice and discuss current financial hot topics that are of interest to Couples with Dual Income and No Kids.
I am 29 years old and I have been working in the financial services industry for 10 years. I have done it all from working at an inbound call center, to answering client inquiries by email, and currently I work as a Financial Planner in a bank branch. I manage the credit and investment needs of approximately 385 clients. As with any good Financial Planner, I provide advice to clients in all areas of financial planning and life stages. However, my area of specialty is Investment and Retirement Planning. I have a Bachelors Degree from Concordia University.
OK, now that the black and white is over with, and you have a resume of my resume, let us discuss what makes me qualified to write for DINKS Finance. I have been with my boyfriend Nick for the same amount of time that I have been working in Finance. Actually, I have been with him for 4 months longer. We are in our late twenties and we have no children. We actually don’t have any pets or any living things at all in our home. We used to have a plant but it died and we used to have a fish but it committed suicide. That’s right, one day I came home from work to find out that my fish had jumped out of his bowl and onto my couch. He was DOA.
I work in Finance and Nick works in Computer Programming Management. We are a young couple with Dual Income and No Kids. We don’t have a house in the suburbs; we live on the 21st floor of a high rise building in the middle of downtown. Now I know what you are thinking…Total Cliché. True, except that we own a Honda Civic…Not an SUV.
Yes, you heard me right. After 10 years together Nick is still my boyfriend…and I am not happy about it. I am old school and I believe that people should be married but I also do not believe in forcing someone to do something that they clearly do not want to do. He feels that “If it’s not broken don’t fix it.” Whereas I believe that naturally as a relationship progresses marriage should follow.
Until Nick can say “I Do” to marriage I will be saying “I don’t” to joint anything except the home and the car. Two incomes should not become one bank account until the ultimate commitment is reached. In my opinion the ultimate commitment is marriage. After all, it is until death do us part.
~ Kristina
I have a friend who lives with her boyfriend, and they're getting married in a year or two. They've opened up one joint account to save for the wedding, but other than that, their finances are separated. I told her it's a good idea. There's legal procedures for dividing things in case of divorce. In case of break-up, things can get more complicated.
Welcome aboard! I'm truly impressed how "corporate" DINKS Finance is, with the interns, staff writers, and so forth. Very impressive!
I feel your frustration on your BF Tahnya. In fact, I wrote an article especially for ladies like yourself. It's entitled, "How To Get Your Super Motivated Boyfriend To Marry You". It may sound flippant, but trust me, it's very real. This article could change y'alls lives!
http://www.financialsamurai.com/2010/02/08/how-to-get-your-super-motivated-boyfriend-to-marry-you/
Hey Tahnya, my name is David and you could say I am a former intern or former employee for DINKs (most of my work was done behind the scenes). I am a finance and political science double major so I naturally have some questions I would like to ask you about working in the financial services biz.
I know you just started and Jay is still working on some site redesign, but will your email be posted eventually? Or could you just post your email in the comments?
That is if you are willing to let me pick your brain!
Looking forward to reading your posts.
-David
I too live with my boyfriend (of 4 years) and I think some people would argue to never mix your money! We have one Joint account for the house we own together and bills, but of course, all else is seperate since as you pointed out, we are not legally married. I make sure we do not even jointly buy things for the house, like couch/TV "incase" something were to happen.
Hello,
Thank you all for the comments and thank you for reading DINKS…specifically my post :-)
David (and everyone else) you can email me anytime with questions and comments. My email is TahnyaP@hotmail.com
Samurai, thanks for the link. The no marriage thing does bother me, but it doesn't bother me more than I love Nick. So I guess for now things will remain the same.
As Beth posted of course there are financial and legal ups and downs to merging finances. The moral of the story is… Don't let your finances be blinded by love.
Hey, David is back! Welcome back! When are you graduating?
My wife and I combined our finances before we got married, but we also created individual accounts for ourselves in addition to the joint account. We made sure that money going into our individual accounts was equal, so one person didn't end up with more discretionary spending than the other. If one person in a couple makes more money than the other, he or she might feel more entitled to it, and you can also choose to distribute that proportionately instead of equally like we do. There are lots of ways to manage this, but the important thing is to communicate your expectations.
Tahnya – Great Post! Good to have you on board with DINKs. Your post makes me thankful that even while James & I don't have the traditional married life of dinner on the table at 7 (since we'll be lucky if we are both in the same country most of the time!), we do absolutely love being married and couldn't be happier together.
I think you are absolutely smart to keep things separate. You can see my posts on prenupts and what not to get my opinion there. We delved right into lots of big financial projects (buying and selling three places in a year before we were married) but we also still have our daily finances mostly separate even now.
I figure with couples finance, you have to do what works for you, but it is always helpful to learn from others.
Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Miel
Tahnya, you and BF are still DINKs, so that is something. Good luck to your new position!
RW
Tahnya, good to hear! The one thing though is once you turn 30, let's revisit this topic if you guys are still not married.
Best to you guys.
Sam
Tahnya thanks for the email address
Financial Samurai I will be graduating December 2010.
I'll be looking forward to reading your posts – sounds very interesting. I haven't been visiting financial blogs for a while – really busy at home; and in my spare time spent some time on YouTube indulging in my real passion – opera. But I think I'll try visiting this blog occasionally again.
"we live on the 21st floor of a high rise building in the middle of downtown. "
Which downtown? Not Manhattan by any chance?
Hi Kitty,
Thank you for your comments. No, we are not in Manhattan. Although it;s funny that you mentioned it because I am going to NYC next weekend for some shopping!!!
Thanks for reading.
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