Five things you need to know
Managing your finances and your relationship can be quite a balancing act.
- Being open and honest about money can help you and your partner live in harmony and achieve your shared financial goals
- Understanding how to manage credit and debt, both individually and as a couple, will help support any credit applications you may need to make together in the future, such as applying for a mortgage
- Your credit reports can become linked through a joint credit application, for a loan or mortgage – even shared utility bills
- If you are linked through a ‘financial association’ and one of you has a poor history of managing credit and debt, it can have a negative effect on both of your chances of getting approved for credit in the future and at the best rates
- If you and your partner decide to part ways, remember you must also officially ‘disassociate’ or remove the record of shared finances from your credit reports to ensure you are no longer affected by each other’s credit ratings
