Richmond Tung

Getting married is a huge lifelong commitment. You will not only be committing to your partner for the rest of your life. You’ll also be committing to possibly many financial burdens such as a mortgage loan, car loan, wedding loan etc…. A dream home is surely on everybody’s wish list. Any home is not complete without having your own children but that will mean responsibilities and of course another big ticket “item.” Before you know it, there isn’t much money left to spend and most of it is siphoned off to pay off all these burdens.

Worry no more, this article are for those who are planning for marriage. My aim of writing this article is to help couples plan for the long-term. As this article is close to my heart and as many of my friends embark on this segment of their life journey on settling down with their future spouses, it makes more sense to write it now. Before we continue, let’s make some assumptions and have a fictitious couple as a case study for this article:

Mr. Wong and Ms Lee

Age: Both 28

Gross annual salary: ($48,000 + ($8,000 Bonus/AWS) )*114.5% = $64,120

THE FUNDAMENTAL – CASH FLOW
The basic principle of financial planning is the Cash Flow which is simply Income minus Expense. The Cash Flow must be positive on a long run otherwise there goes that dream home and your dream family. Financial planning for the family can be summed up as follows:

Income

Minus

• Personal Expenses
• Insurances

• Loan installments (i.e. car and/or house)
• Long term saving plans

• Dependent’s allowances
• Others

Equals = Negative or Positive Cash Flow

~End of Part 1~