There are a lot of great things about being single when it comes to your finances:
- You don’t have to take on anyone else’s debt.
- Your spending/saving plan is completely within your control.
- You can even take more professional risks without worrying about how it will affect someone else.
Bottom line: financial planning looks a little different when you’re single. I should know. I spent most of my adult life as a single woman and didn’t get married until I was in my 40s. So, I’m well aware of the pros and cons you’re dealing with…and the – sometimes unrealistic – financial advice you might be getting.
Save, save, save…blah, blah, blah.
That’s all us financial planners talk about, right? “Save ALL your money! Your future self will thank you!”
However, the RIGHT financial planner always takes your personal situation into account. For example, I would never give a single woman in her 40s the same advice I would give a married couple in their 40s; their situations are different, and their plans should reflect that.
Anyway, I remember being single and constantly hearing that same broken record about saving…but I realized pretty quickly that my lifestyle was different because I didn’t have a partner. Never spending money or staying home because I needed to save every penny until all my retirement accounts were maxed or my debt was paid off was unrealistic.
What am I…a nun?
To be social as a single person usually takes at least a little bit of money. You go out with friends or maybe have them over and entertain. If you’re dating, that requires some spending, too. People who are partnered at least have another person at home with whom they socialize, so it’s possible to cut back on spending and enjoy nights at home. But being on your own is different.
Having a financial plan that wouldn’t allow me to spend at all would have required me to isolate myself more than I probably should have. From a personal perspective, I would have never been able to hold off seeing friends until my financial goals were 100% reached. I would have been miserable.
Yay! Liz is telling me I can spend all my money!
Hang on. Don’t take this too far.
What I hope you’re getting from this blog is that if you walk into a financial planner’s office – no matter what your situation is – and they start using words like “always” or “never” you might want to walk back out again. Advice should be tailored to each individual situation and what is reasonably attainable.
What your plan SHOULD do is allow you to live your life now while planning for the future. This means that if you require more money to be social because you don’t like being alone, you should discuss that with your advisor; they can take that into account and help you come up with a spending plan.
So, if you’re reading this and thinking the following…
- I wish I had someone who understood my situation as a single woman.
- I wish I had someone I could bounce ideas off of when I’m not sure what to do financially.
- I wish my finances didn’t feel so overwhelming.
…let’s talk. I get it.
