The Best Money Advice I Can Give: Make Sure that You Can Afford to Live Alone

One of the best pieces of advice that I have ever given my children was that many of the problems in relationships stem from money issues. Keeping in mind that I said many and not all, I told my kids that the best way to minimize, and potentially eliminate those money problems is to make sure that they can afford to live on their own. This means that whatever their living situation is, they need to make sure that they can afford everything by themselves.

The idea of being able to afford everything alone seems unreasonable based on today’s economy. However, it also forces people to reach higher in order to have the lives that they want. 

If a single person is able to afford all of their living expenses alone, when they bring a second person into their home, whether it is a roommate or a spouse, as long as the first person’s revenue does not change, the housing will never be compromised. In addition, if the second person is also able to afford all of the living expenses, should either party’s revenue get interrupted, the living expenses can still be covered. 

Consider this; if each person can only afford half of the expenses, hence their reason for living together, and one or the other of them suddenly finds that they are unemployed, the entire household falls apart because the other half of the expenses is suddenly unavailable. On the other hand, if each can afford the total of the expenses yet was only paying for half, they both should have been able to increase their savings. If one or the other is suddenly at a loss of revenue, not only will both have savings to call upon, the employed one’s revenue will also be able to carry the house until the other is able to recover. 

Without having to worry about money, the two people are less likely to fight over money and are likely to be more supportive when one of them falls on hard times. Without the resentment over the feeling that the couple is struggling due to one’s lack of revenue, other smaller fights are likely not to happen. While I cannot guarantee this in every case, know that most fights that couples have are not actually about what the couple is fighting about at the time.

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