Monthly Personal Finance Meetings Are More Exciting Than The Latest Season of Bridgerton!*

No, seriously.

I know, I know, this is when you can tell I am an accountant.

But don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!

Monthly personal finance meetings are amaaaazing.

They are WAY more fun than they sound (honestly) and they have a whole HEAP of other benefits.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think you need to have monthly meetings to stay on top of your finances, but when you’re first starting out I do believe they help you to establish long lasting healthy habits with money, they hold you accountable to improving your financial situation, they facilitate open money conversations with a partner or spouse (which we all know can be haaard – my ex husband and I next to never had them) and they motivate you to achieve your goals.

Let me elaborate, by first explaining what they even are…

What are Monthly Personal Finance Meetings?

Monthly finance meetings are a deep dive into your personal finances for the prior month, preferably with another person, a meeting partner. That partner can be your spouse or other half, a parent, a friend or in my case my brother (although I did also have them with my last boyfriend too… and no they weren’t the reason we split up)

You can have them on your own, but I think having someone to meet with to talk them through has the benefit of not only holding you accountable to the process (in other words making sure you don’t make an excuse to skip a month) it also holds you accountable to your earning and spending habits (knowing you will need to talk through the numbers makes it faaaar less likely you will go and blow $200 on that perfect little crossover bag in Max or $600 on the Dyson hairdryer!)

Monthly finance meetings are an opportunity to check in with each other and be completely vulnerable and honest about the month you just had and how it went for you. Did you spend more than you earnt? Did you overspend on a particular category? Were there any nasty money surprises? What are your major expenses? How do they compare? How are your investments performing? How are your retirement savings looking?

It’s a chance to look at your income, expenses, gap, net worth, debt, investments, returns… the list goes on. In business we call these things KPIs or Key Performance Indicators. They are measures by which you can tell the health of your business, or in this case your personal finances – so perhaps they are FHIs? Financial health indicators? It’s a good idea to agree a set of FHIs with your accountability partner, the person you will be meeting, so that you can track and discuss the same things.

Although personal finance IS indeed personal so you may find you each look at a couple of additional different things depending on your situation in life: for example one of you might have children and may way to look at Children’s Sharesies or Kiwisaver balances, and the other person may still have a student loan they are paying off, and monthly finance meetings would be a great time to check the balance.

This is the thing with personal finance tracking and monthly finance meetings, it is a very fluid process. What you are doing, how you invest, trackers and meetings all change over time as your financial knowledge and situation evolves. I know our trackers and conversations have changed a lot in the 9 months my brother and I have been having our meetings. They have evolved as our knowledge and interest has grown.

When we started I was very fixated on income and expenses, then as we learned about FIRE and the simple path to wealth we added investments and net worth, and now I measure my savings rate. And I am sure they will continue to evolve, even our priorities may change has our lives continue to unfold. But we started simple! If we had sat down to my tracker the way it looks today that first month… we would probably have never made it past month one. As it is we are coming up to a year.

What to Track for Personal Finance Meetings

My brother and I started simple and I would definitely recommend the same. Make your first meeting just about your income, your expenses and your gap – the difference between your income and expenses. If you look at and talk about that the very first month it won’t feel too intimating or scary and it will give you a good foundation to build on.

Here are some financial health measures you might want to start tracking for your monthly finance meetings:

Income and Expenses

Income – from all sources

Expenses – ALL of them

Savings & Investments – how much you put in to each

Gap – the difference between what you earned and what you spent

Savings Rate – your savings as a % of your income

Assets & Liabilities

Bank Balances – including any sinking funds you might have

Investments – including returns or movement each month

Kiwisaver – balance and growth or decline on the previous month

Credit Card Balances – and interest rates

Loan Balances

Mortgage Balance

Student Loan Balance

Net Worth – your assets minus your liabilities

Questions to Ask

We don’t have an agenda as such any more but we used to when we first started out. My brother and I found it helped us to not get too stuck in one particular topic and to cover the areas that we both wanted to talk about. At the start you might want to do the same, or have your first meeting and see how things go.

Nowadays our meetings are agenda free and flow naturally, with subjects changing from month to month depending on what our wins or losses are for the month. But when you have no idea where to start here are a few suggestions for the kind of questions you can ask yourself and each other (but you might think of others that are more relevant to your individual situations)…..

Income

• What was it and where did it come from?
• Was it higher or lower than expected?
• Is it enough to cover your expenses?
• Is there a way to make more?

Expenses

• What was your total expenses?
• Was this higher or lower than last month?
• What were the main contributors to this?
• What are you biggest expenses?
• Any unexpected expenses?
• Are there any expenses you can lower or cut?

Gap

• How big was your gap?
• What will you do with your gap?
• How could you increase your gap? (especially if it is negative – as it was in my case)

General

• What are your wins for the month?
• What’s one thing you want to stop, start and continue?
• What’s the thing you are most proud of?
• Is there anything you would do differently if you could have the month again?

Then as your knowledge and interest grows you can start adapting your trackers, adding more information to them and in your following finance meetings begin looking at and talking about things such as:

Debt

• What are your debts? Credit cards, loans, mortgage, student loans, family loans, BNPL
• What are the interest rates on each of your debts?
• How much debt did you pay off last month?
• Are you happy with your level of debt?
• How are you approaching paying off your debt?
• With loans and mortgages, are the interests of any due to roll-off/change?
• Is there anything else you can do to pay down debt (especially high interest debt) faster?

Investments

• Where are you investing?
• What are your investments for?
• What are you investing in?
• How much did you invest last month?
• What did your investments grow/decrease by last month?
• What are the returns on your investments to date?
• Are they tracking as you hoped/would like?
• Are you happy with your overall investment strategy?

Kiwisaver

• Who is your Kiwisaver provider?
• What is your Kiwisaver contribution?
• What funds do you have your Kiwisaver in?
• Does this align with your age, goal and risk profile?

Net Worth

• What is your net worth?
• Is that higher or lower than you thought it would be?
• Has it increased or decreased from last month?
• What is driving the growth or decline in your net worth?
• What is one way you could make your net worth grow for next month?

Retirement

• How are you saving or investing for retirement?
• What are your goals or plans for retirement?
• How is your retirement savings and investments performing?

Goals

• What is your vision for your ideal life? What would you need to earn/own to live it?
• What goals do you have for the next 5 years?
• What are your top 3 priorities for this year?
• What is 1 goal you have for next month?
• Where would you like to spend more money?

You might not talk about ALL of these things every month. But it gives you an idea of some of the conversations these meetings open up to you. And because you came together to specifically talk about money, it makes doing so SO much easier.

When I was having meetings with my partner I was able to ask questions that I might otherwise have felt awkward doing so, like how much was his child support payments? What was his Kiwisaver balance? What insurance policies did he have in place? None of these things are difficult to ask once you get started talking about money on a regular basis. They become natural, less intimidating, and you find yourself talking about them outside of the meeting too! Sending things to each other that you have heard or read that you think the other person might find interesting or might help. The conversation evolves and it becomes exciting. I can honestly say that we look forward to our monthly meetings (even my ex partner)

That’s not to say the subject is always fun, sometimes it’s tough when things aren’t going to plan for one or both of you. However, simply knowing you have this process in place removes the shame, procrastination, and avoidance of even the most difficult financial situation. Knowing that you have someone you can talk the situation through with, and someone that might be able to offer help, advice or if nothing else an understanding ear to the situation immediately makes you feel better.

The Benefits of Regular Personal Finance Meetings

That’s just one of the benefits of having these meetings. Money problems are stressful but having someone you can talk to them about immediately makes them feel more manageable and resolvable.

For me the biggest benefit, apart from getting to catch up with my brother, is they hold me accountable, helping me to stick to my budget and achieve my goals.

It’s a good form of comparison. It’s nice being able to compare what we earn, spend and save each month even though because he’s in the UK our situations aren’t all that comparable. He manages to save far more than I do, which inspires and motivates me.

I get a different perspective because my brother comes to our meeting with different experiences, skills, values and ideas. He thinks about and looks at money in a completely different way to me. It’s beyond valuable to talk to someone that has a different view on any money problem I am having, and it is a good reminder that how I am thinking about or seeing something isn’t necessarily accurate or true.

I also truly believe that done right they will make you closer (whatever the relationship with your finance meeting partner).  Money is the second biggest cause of arguments in a relationship (after children) and it’s estimated that money problems contribute to 20% to 40% of all divorces according to some flash US lawyers (also couples that argue about finances at least once a week are 30 more likely to get divorced according to US statistics) Which says to me that if you can be aligned and on the same financial path, or at least have honest and open conversations about money instead of raging arguments, your relationship stands a better chance of standing the test of time. Whatever comes your way, financially or otherwise.

When and Where to Have Monthly Finance Meetings

My brother and I meet the first Wednesday of each month after a weekend – that way the weekend allows us a chance to update our trackers, review and understand our numbers so that we can talk each other through them. But I don’t think it matters what day you meet, the most important thing is that you have given yourselves enough time to review your numbers, and you choose a time that one or both of you aren’t exhausted or rushed.

We generally allow about an hour for our meetings, which sounds like a lot when you first start – talking about money for a whole hour?! Yuck! But once you get started it is amazing how quickly that time goes. Especially once the meetings start evolving and you begin to talk more widely about finances. Our meetings now are often more like 2 hours and they still fly by!

With my brother being in England we have our meetings over Zoom, but I would suggest the most perfect finance meeting is in person, ideally with a glass of wine (or something stronger) and a sweet treat. Some people, such as the Donegans of Rebel Finance School fame suggest doing it over brunch at a local café, which sounds like a fabulous idea…. but I wouldn’t recommend it when you first start out. When you first start looking at and understanding your numbers it takes some concentration or at least a lack of distraction. Which reminds me, if you have kids I would definitely recommend waiting until they are in bed to have your finance meetings. Peace and quiet help to make what can be a fairly complex and at times stressful topic a little easier.

The Key to Success

I have covered a lot in this post (because I am such a firm believer in monthly finance meetings and their benefits), but I don’t want you to see this as intimidating. You can keep them as simple as you need to, the most important thing is that you start having them (in whatever format) and start talking about money.

I think there are 5 very simple keys to getting the most out of your meetings:

1. Make them fun! Especially if you are having them with your partner and your finances aren’t where you would like them to be. Talking money can be stressful, but it doesn’t have to be. Have your monthly finance meetings over coffee, lunch or a flash dinner. Cook or buy something delicious. Make it a treat. Make your meetings something you look forward to.
   
2. Agree to a number of rules. You decide on your own rules but I would suggest the following 2 are a must: complete honesty and absolutely no blame. This is especially important if your meetings are with someone you are in a relationship with. Monthly finance meetings need to be a safe space where both parties feel they can talk openly, and a space of no bullshit. There is no point talking finances if you aren’t going to be completely honest about the state of your financial affairs.
   
3. Make them future focused. Don’t just review the last month, look ahead to what that means for the coming month or year. Looking back is helpful, but only because it is a good indicator of what the future will look like UNLESS you make changes.
   
4. Create goals, short term and long term. And ideally shared goals if you are having these meetings with your partner. Goals motivate you to manage your finances in a more positive way. And shared goals that align with a vision of the future that you are both equally committed to, means you are both more likely to buy into improving your finances.
   
5. Remember they are a conversation. They aren’t a lecture or a rant or a chance to nag. No one person should have significantly more talking time than the other. This is a collaboration, both parties contribute and have their say.

Last but not least try to keep them positive. If each month you catch up you talk about only the negatives, neither of you are going to look forward to the following month. Challenge yourself to find 3 positives to the month, and always end on a positive – even if you have to change the subject from money to do so.

You might find being vulnerable with this person about money opens other topics of conversation and that’s ok too. You don’t have to keep the meeting on track if that happens. There is no hard agenda or deadline. The more you open up to each other the more value you will each get from them.

You Are the CEO of your Personal Finances!

If you were the CEO of a company, you would review your business performance right? Monthly (or even weekly) you would sit down to look at revenue, expenses, profit and your balance sheet – how much you own, how much you owe and how your bank balance is looking.

And yet hardly any of us do this for our own personal finances. Even us business owners.

Why don’t we think of our households as a business?

When I think of it like that it seems crazy to me that having been a management or tax accountant almost my whole life (with a small break to be a wedding blogger – yep talk about a career change!) that it has taken me until this age to see how the process of reviewing past performance might be as beneficial in my personal life as it has been for the businesses I have worked in and for.

Well today I am officially giving you the role of CEO to your personal finances. You are in charge. You create the result you want with what you do from now on. You can turn losses into profits, and profits into a thriving business, you just need to make a start.

Amy

XO$

* I must confess, I cancelled my Netflix subscription at the start of the year for a year of no television so I haven’t actually watched season 3 of Bridgerton!