Finance
How to navigate financial conversations with your partner as newlyweds
FOX Business’ Lauren Simonetti took to the streets of New York City to get people’s take on the recent Bankrate survey that revealed 40% of Americans who are married or living with a partner commit ‘financial infidelity.’
After the wedding and honeymoon bliss wears off, it’s time to get back to reality.
Money is a topic that requires discussion between you and your partner, hopefully before nuptials take place. Finances can be a huge point of contention between couples, so it’s important to establish a plan early on about how you both, as a married couple, are going to deal with money.
Money is also often an awkward topic between partners, but it’s vital to be honest with each other through financial conversations. After all, 44% of couples argue at least occasionally about money, according to Bankrate.
Below are tips to follow as newlyweds to help you navigate through the sticky situation of finances.
Discussing finances is a difficult, but important conversation to have with your spouse. ( / iStock)
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- Put the discussion of money out there
- Determine your long-term and short-term financial goals
- Figure out how you are going to save as a couple
- Create a budget
- Adjust finances when necessary
1. Put the discussion of money out there
When you sit down with your partner to talk about finances, put it all out there. Be 100% honest with each other, so there aren’t any surprises down the line.
One important topic is debt. This includes everything from personal loans, credit card debt and student loans. Figure out how much you both have and come up with a plan on how you will pay it off.
Also, talk about your spending and saving habits. What do you spend a lot of money on? Do you consider yourself a spender or a saver? How much money have you already saved? Do you have a retirement plan in place?
2. Determine your long-term and short-term financial goals
Establish the goals that you have together, short- and long-term.
If you have outstanding debt, one goal is probably going to be to get that paid off as soon as possible. Maybe you want to save for a down payment for a house. Do you have an emergency fund set up yet? If not, maybe one of your first goals is to get that funded.
You can also talk about short-term money goals. This includes things like saving for a vacation or maybe a new vehicle.
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When talking about finances with your spouse, be open and transparent about things like debt and your own personal spending habits. ( / iStock)
3. Figure out how you are going to save as a couple
There are three different ways you can handle finances together. The first is doing everything jointly. The second is keeping your finances completely separate and the third is a combination of both.
Today, 43% of U.S. couples who are married, in a civil partnership or live together have only joint accounts, according to Bankrate.
Thirty-four percent of couples have a mix of joint and separate accounts, according to the source, and 23% have completely separate accounts.
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The stats do show that keeping money separate as a couple is an idea posed by younger generations, with 69% of millennials keeping separate accounts, according to Bankrate.
How you and your spouse plan to handle your finances is a personal decision. Some, like Dave Ramsey, for example, believe that when a couple is married, their money should get married too, and all income should go into the same pot.
Others would rather keep things separate, although this does pose difficulty when bills and children come into play.
Certain couples find value in a combination of both ideas.
For most couples, individuals won’t have the same debts and income, which can quickly create financial imbalance and hostility towards one another.
That is why it’s so important to talk through all of these options with your partner, and determine what is best for you during the stage of your life that you’re in. Remember, you aren’t stuck to one way of doing things forever. If the method you choose isn’t working, you can always change things.
That said, lumping everything together still remains the most popular option.
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4. Create a budget
Creating a budget is a great way to keep you on track with your goals and see spending habits clearly.
Whether you’ve made a budget before or not, creating one with your partner for the first time is a new experience. Even if you’ve made one as a single individual for years, it’s going to look different now that you’re married.
When creating a budget, key things to consider are your combined income, expenses and saving plans.
Revisit your budget monthly to make sure you are on track with your goals and to make any necessary adjustments. ( / iStock)
Once you know your combined income, list out all of your expenses, including bills as well as debts that you need to pay.
Then, don’t forget to also include how much you want to save from month to month. A popular budgeting method for couples and individuals is the 50/30/20 rule, where 50% of money goes toward needs, 30% toward wants and 20% to savings.
5. Adjust finances when necessary
An initial money conversation is great, but it should not be the only one you have. Check in with each other on a monthly or bimonthly basis to ensure changes are made and points are heard.
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Make any adjustments you need to make in order to maintain a healthy relationship with your significant other and your finances.
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For the generation that should be in its “peak savings years,” the prospect of retiring on time has shifted from a plan to a prayer.
A newly released Employee Financial Wellness Survey by PwC found that nearly 50% of Gen X employees are pushing back their retirement dates, citing stagnant wages, rising everyday costs, and a lack of liquid savings.
Additionally, only 38% of Gen Xers believe they can retire when they originally planned, and more than half of this demographic expect to withdraw funds from their retirement accounts early to cover short-term costs.
“For employers, this isn’t a future problem. Financial anxiety during peak career years can affect focus and engagement,” PwC researchers write. “If the risks are clear, the question is why more employees aren’t taking action. It’s not a lack of desire. Most employees want stability, confidence and to feel in control. But many don’t feel equipped to get there.”
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The primary driver of this retirement delay is the inability to save as inflation eats away at monthly expenses, the report notes. Twenty-five percent of the total workforce is living without a buffer, and nearly half cannot meet basic household expenses.
Nearly half of Gen X workers are delaying retirement, PwC reports. (Getty Images)
“[Forty-nine percent] say their compensation isn’t keeping up with costs. As expenses rise faster than income, day-to-day trade-offs are becoming routine. Employees aren’t just feeling squeezed. They’re making difficult financial decisions to stay afloat,” the PwC report continues..
As a result, when Gen Xers cannot afford to leave their current jobs, the entire corporate ladder stalls, creating business risks, with companies facing higher costs as older talent remains on payroll longer than expected.
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“When employees dip into retirement funds early or delay retirement altogether, it affects more than personal finances and retirement plan leakage,” the report says. “It may also influence workforce planning, healthcare costs, succession timing and overall organizational stability.”
The findings also show that a significant portion – 41% – of the workforce feel they were never given the tools to manage a crisis of this magnitude, leading to a sense of being “overwhelmed” by financial choices.
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PwC provided a call to action for employees and their employers, encouraging them to reduce the stigma around financial education, foster trust through human coaches, emphasize skill building and focus on day-to-day finances before long-term goals.
“Employees define financial wellness simply: less stress, fewer surprises and the freedom to make financial choices with confidence. For employers, that’s the opportunity.”
Cybersecurity and enterprise software stocks have been market dogs in 2026, with fears that AI will wipe out a wide range of companies in the enterprise space dominating the narrative. But they snapped a brutal losing streak this past week, joining in the broader market rally that saw all losses from the U.S.-Iran war regained by the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500.
Cybersecurity has been “a victim of some of the AI-related headlines,” Christian Magoon, Amplify ETFs CEO, said on this week’s “ETF Edge.”
It wasn’t just niche cybersecurity names. Take Microsoft, for example, which was recently down close to 20% for the year. Its shares surged last week by 13%.
A big driver of the pummeling in software stocks was a rotation within tech by investors to AI infrastructure and semiconductors and some other names in large-cap tech, Magoon said, and since cybersecurity stocks and ETFs are heavily weighted towards software companies, they were left behind even as those businesses continue to grow on a fundamental basis.
But Wall Street now has become more bullish with the stocks at lower levels. Brent Thill, Jefferies tech analyst, said last week that the worst may be over for software stocks. “I think that this concept that software is dead, and then Anthropic and OpenAI are going to kill the entire industry, is just over-exaggerated,” he said on CNBC’s “Money Movers” on Wednesday.
“Big Short” investor Michael Burry wrote in a Substack post on Wednesday that he is becoming bullish about software stocks after the recent selloff. “Software stocks remain interesting because of accelerated extreme declines last week arising from a reflexive positive feedback loop between falling software stocks and changes in the market for their bank debt,” he wrote.
The Global X Cybersecurity ETF (BUG), is down about 12% since the beginning of the year, with top holdings including Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Akamai Technologies and CrowdStrike. But BUG was up 12% last week. The First Trust NASDAQ Cybersecurity ETF (CIBR) is down 6% for the year, but up 9% in the past week.
Piper Sandler analyst Rob Owens reiterated an “overweight” rating on Palo Alto Networks which helped the stock pop 7% — it is now down roughly 6% on the year. Its peers saw similar moves, including CrowdStrike.
Performance of Global X cybersecurity ETF versus S&P 500 over past one-year period.
Magoon said expectations may have become too high in cybersecurity, and with a crowding effect among investors, solid results were not enough to to push stocks higher. But the down-and-then-back-up 2026 for the sector is also a reminder that when stocks fall sharply in a short period of time, opportunity may knock.
“Once you’re down over 10% in some of these subsectors, you start to see the contrarians start to say, ‘well, maybe I’ll take a look at this,'” Magoon said.
He said AI does add both opportunity and uncertainty to the cybersecurity equation, increasing demand but also introducing new competition. But he added, “I think the dip is good to buy in an AI-driven world,” specifically because the risks to companies may lead to more M&A in cyber names that benefits the stocks.
For now, investors may look for opportunity on the margins rather than rush back into beaten-up tech names. “I think investors are still going to remain underweight software,” Thill said.
But Magoon advises investors to at least take the reminder to keep an eye on niches in the market during pronounced downturns. “The best-performing are often the least bought and do the best over the next 12 months versus late-in-the-game piling on,” he said.
While that may have been a mindset that worked against the last investors into cybersecurity and enterprise software in mid-2025 when the negative sentiment started building, at least for now, it’s started working for the stocks in the sector again.
Meanwhile, this year’s biggest winner is also a good example of what can be an extended trade in either a bullish or bearish direction. Last year, institutional ownership of energy was at multi-year lows, Magoon said, referencing Bank of America data. “Reverse sentiment can be a great indicator,” he said.
But he cautioned that any selective buying of stocks that have dipped does have to contend with the risk that there is a potentially bigger drawdown in the market yet to come in 2026. That is because midterm election years historically have been marked by large drawdowns. “If you think it is bad right now, it could get a lot worse,” Magoon said. But he added that there’s a silver-lining in that data, too, for the patient investor. The market has posted very strong 12-month returns after midterm election drawdowns end. So, for investors with a longer-term time horizon and no need for short-term liquidity, Magoon said, “stick in there.”
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New innovation in the exchange-traded fund industry could come at a cost to investors during extreme conditions.
According to MFS Investment Management’s Jamie Harrison, ETFs involved in increasingly complex derivatives and less transparent markets may be in uncharted territory when it comes to violent downturns.
“Those would be something that you’d want to keep an eye on as volatility ramps up,” the firm’s head of ETF capital markets told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week. “As innovation continues to increase at a rapid pace within the ETF wrapper, [it’s] definitely something that we advise our clients to be really front-footed about… Lack of transparency could absolutely be an issue if we’re going to start seeing some deep sell-offs.”
His firm has been around since 1924 and is known for inventing the open-end mutual fund. Last year, ETF.com named MFS Investment Management as the best new ETF issuer.
“It’s important to do due diligence on the portfolio,” he said. “Having a firm that has deep partnerships, deep bench of subject matter experts that plays with the A-team in terms of the Street and liquidity providers available [are] super important.”
Liquidity as the real issue?
Harrison suggested the real issue is liquidity, particularly during a steep sell-off.
“We’ve all seen the news and the headlines around potential private credit ETFs. That picture becomes much more murky,” he added. “It’s up to advisors, to investors [and] to clients to really dig in and look under the hood and engage with their issuers.”
He noted investors will have to ask some tough questions.
“What does this look like in a 20% drawdown? How does this liquidity facility work? Am I going to be able to get in? Am I going to be able to get out? And if I’m able to get out, am I able to get out at a price that’s tight to NAV [net asset value], and what’s the infrastructure at your shop in terms of managing that consideration for me,” said Harrison.
Amplify ETFs’ Christian Magoon is also concerned about these newer ETF strategies could weather a monster drawdown. He listed private credit as a red flag.
“If your ETF owns private credit, I think it’s worth taking a look at, kind of what the standards are around liquidity and how that ETF is trading, because that should be a bit of a mismatch between the trading pace of ETFs and the underlying asset,” the firm’s CEO said in the same interview.
Magoon also highlighted potential issues surrounding equity-linked notes. The notes provide fixed income security while offering potentially higher returns linked to stocks or equity indexes.
“Those could potentially be in stress due to redemptions and the underlying credit risk. That’s another kind of unique derivative,” Magoon said. “I would very closely look at any ETF that has equity-linked notes should we get into a major drawdown or there be a contagion in private credit or something related to the banking system.”
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