When I got married I did everything backwards. we did not have any money or family around. My then boyfriend was leaving for an overseas deployment, so we made a split decision and got married. We married in a court house and even kept our marriage a secret.  10 months after our marriage my husband was deployed and I had to learn how to balance our finances myself.

Here are some of my tips for post-marriage financial decisions.

Payments and debts- figure out what each of your debts and bills are and make a financial plan on what you can pay off and a monthly budget. Now that you are married your debts become each others debts.  We payed as much money towards our car payment to finally get it payed off and out of the way. Trust me having a  budget can save your marriage.

Save- you saved for your big wedding, now that it’s over you still need to save. You never know when something unexpected will come up and you need money.  I had my first child 2 weeks before my husband left on deployment. Luckily we had money saved up to fly my family out to help me while he was gone.

Plan ahead- Start planning ahead, can you afford a family now or is it a better idea for you to wait. The biggest thing is you want to make sure you and your spouse are on the same page about family planning. A child is a lot of money and you need to be prepared.

Do not finance- I guess it could be okay to finance a car if you can really not afford one straight out.  It is a bad idea to finance furniture or appliances, especially from Rent to own companies.  Always look for deals and second hand. All of our furniture was second hand when we first got married, except our bed.  The furniture lasted us a long time and saved us a lot of money.

Disclosure:  This Article was written using Genworth Financial Educational Resources