Personal finances when transitioning from single-hood to being married.

Ok, today's article is to simply tie up a loose end from the talk. We failed to address the question directly from a question in the audience who asked us how our personal finance changed when we transitioned from single-hood to marriage.

Theoretical answer

I will first share a theoretical answer because it is more likely to be experienced by a reader. In the presentation I shared a table which showed that households becoming more economically efficient as the number of family members increase.

If you transition from a 4 person household to a 2 person household of a married couple, you are likely going to experience a 33% increase  in expenses. However, if you are already living alone as a single person, you may experience a reduction of 20% as you find more efficient ways to spend your money as a couple.

Personal answer

I was borderline financially independent when I got married, getting around $2k+ dividends a month but spending about $1200-$1500 as a single man. Me and my wife stayed with my parents for quite a number of years and we both worked then.

The only major change was that every month, I channelled an extra $1500 into a joint account to build a dividends portfolio for my family.

The first major change to my personal finances was the time we bought a weekend car for $28,000 which meant that I had to pay road taxes every year.

When my daughter was born, it was financially a non-event as accumulated dividends paid for almost everything and everything else was settled by the matching I made to the Child Development Account.

It was good to farm 100% of my earned income into the stock market and pay for everything from dividends payouts.

The only stressful event was getting my first mortgage because I was already transitioning out of a job by then and now I have property taxes and conservancy fees. My CPF can still last me about 3-4 years, but setting aside the dividends equivalent to the mortgage value is stressful even although I am currently investing that amount too to push my dividends up even further.