Personal Finance

Todd: Anita, I thought we would talk about money and investments.

Anita: OK.

Todd: So, you're pretty young.

Anita: Yes.

Todd: And how old are you?

Anita: I am 23.

Todd: 23, so that's very young. So as a young person, do you think about your future and saving and retirement?

Anita: I think about my immediate future. I'm not too worried about my retirement just yet, simply because I think you never know : will you retire? will you not retire? I mean, sometimes people get so caught up planning for retirement and saving money for retirement and they don't get to enjoy their life.

Todd: Right. But I think, like, I'm getting older. I'm 37 right, so...

Anita: That's still young.

Todd: It's still fairly young, but I think everybody that's my age wishes we had started saving when we were your age.

Anita: I agree. I agree. I'm not thinking about retirement but I'm definitely thinking about my immediate future. What will I do after university? Because right now, I'm a graduate student. When I was an undergraduate, I never thought about saving. I just was worried about paying monthly bills, paying my rent, things like that, so I was worried about having enough money to pay the current expenses. I wasn't worried about savings, but now that I'm a graduate student and I'm about to finish my education, I have to think about what will I do after university. Where will I go? If I look for a job, maybe I will have to travel somewhere. Maybe there will be a period of time when I will not have a job, so that, yes, I am worried about, so right now I'm thinking about savings for that part of my life.

Todd: Now, Anita, you're married, correct?

Anita: Yes.

Todd: So is finances something that you normally talk with your husband or is it something that you still are used to doing separately and independently?

Anita: No, no, no. We have joint accounts. Any financial things we discuss.

Todd: Right, yeah, cause I think especially with marriage, that's probably always one of the main things is money.

Anita: You see, for me personally, I don't think how I could... I cannot imagine that I would be married to somebody and have two separate bank accounts: one for him and one for me. I don't think that would work for me personally.

Todd: Yeah, it does actually sound strange.

Anita: Because then, think about it, if you go for dinner with your husband, who pays?

Todd: Right.

Anita: And if it's him paying all the time, well that's not fair towards him, so I think once you're in the marriage together, once you're doing everything together, you might as well be saving and spending together as well.

Todd: You're right. That makes perfect sense, but I think in the U.S. nowadays it's common now for couples to have separate checking accounts.

Anita: It is and, even my parents had that for awhile. I personally don't like it because to me it seems like a back door. If somebody had two accounts and their married to me it's a way of saying, "I love you and I'm married to you, but just in case something happens to us, I've got my own account to depend on.

Todd: Great point.

Anita: And to me, personally, I will do my upmost best for my relationship not to get to that point, so because I am not even taking that into consideration, I'm not acting that way right now.

Todd: Well said.