Budgeting and Planning for Getting Married “Young”

After asking for blog post requests on my Instagram story last week, someone requested I do a post on getting married young and how to budget/plan for that. I love writing about things you guys want to read and would like advice on, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do today! Keep reading for my best tips on budgeting and planning for getting married “young,” how my husband and I budget and were able to buy a house just over a year after our wedding date, + more!

To give you some background information, Justin and I started dating in February 2014 (spring semester of our sophomore year in college), got engaged in December 2016 (our senior year) and married on June 10 (a year after we graduated). Last week’s “How We Saved Money to Buy a House” blog post has some more insight on budgeting, but I’ll be expanding on that a bit more in this post, per request.

HOW YOUNG IS “YOUNG?”

You’re going to see “young” in quotes in this post because it’s a relative term that has a different definition for everyone. We all have different perceptions of what age is considered to be “young” for getting married. I personally feel like we didn’t get married that young (Justin had just turned 24 a few weeks before and I was 23, 3 months away from turning 24 as well) considering we had already been out of college for a year, but I’ll touch on that more in a minute.

I think it’s important to get married at a time that feels right for you and your partner and is solely done simply because you want to, not due to outside factors (i.e. your friends are married so you feel like you should be too, your lease is almost up and you want to move in together, etc.). I truly think you know when you know and timing is everything.

The general consensus I get from people is that they feel Justin and I got married on the younger end of the spectrum, because people seem to be waiting longer to get married these days. A VERY large majority of people my age from my hometown are already married with kids, but I know that’s not the case everywhere. Though I do know a lot of people our age that are married, we’re not friends with very many that are, so we feel like a bit of a minority in that sense sometimes.

We don’t feel limited whatsoever about being married at our age and it doesn’t hold us back from doing anything whatsoever. That’s a no-brainer to us, but I wanted to state that for anyone who may be wondering or is concerned they’d miss out on something if they get married “young” — you don’t! If anything, you gain a partner to experience all the joys of life with!

BUDGETING + MANAGING MONEY

There’s this stigma that you should wait until you’re “financially stable” (whatever that means to you — I think everyone has a different definition of that) to get married. For me, I think being financially independent is the right way to word it in the sense that you can pay your bills and what not — but there truly are no rules as to when you can or can’t get married. Justin and I knew we wanted to be out of college with jobs, so a year after graduation worked great for us.

A lot of people also want to wait on the financial side of things to get married when they’re able to pay for the wedding of their dreams. To break things down for you, our families helped with our wedding and rehearsal dinner, which we were so grateful for. However, having been in our post-college jobs for a year before our wedding helped us pay for stuff along the way as well. And as for our honeymoon, apartment rent and utilities, purchasing our house and literally everything else in life, Justin and I pay for that through our own income, of course. Again, this is a no brainer to us, but I just wanted to make it clear that we’re financially independent and certainly not trust fund babies! 😂 If only, right? 😉

As for how we manage our money, we each have our own checking accounts, a shared checking account and a shared savings account. We transfer a set amount of money to our shared checking and savings accounts every two weeks, and all of our bills are paid through our sharing checking (we also use it for all other shared expenses: grocery shopping, purchases for the house, dates, utilities, etc.). Having a set amount added to the accounts on a regular basis helps us grow them, which led to saving enough money to put a down payment on our house with more money to spare. This method works for us and I recommend it.

As for spending and saving, it really helps that we’re both frugal people. We think carefully before making purchases and we each do a really great job at managing our separate accounts, in addition to our shared ones. We don’t need to limit each other whatsoever when it comes to purchasing things we want or need because we have similar safe spending habits, so our setup is very comfortable for us. We’re able to hold ourselves accountable for our own spending, which really helps with saving.

I suggest talking to your partner about how much money you’re comfortable spending each month and get on the same page if you’re not already. It’s also important to agree on your timeline, both from a financial standpoint and not, such as when you’d like to pay off loans, buy a house, get new cars, adopt a pet, have kids, etc. Acting as a team will help you reach your goals, maybe even sooner than you expect!

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I hope this answered most of your questions! If there’s anything else you’re wondering about or would like more advice on, please don’t hesitate to reach out! Thanks so much for reading & check back for a new post on Wednesday!