Ramit Sethi advises that you do not need to discuss detailed financial accounts on a first date, but you should have money conversations at natural relationship milestones — e.g., first trip, moving in together, engagement, marriage. He suggests using simple prompts (e.g., 'How did you grow up with money?') and scripts to make these conversations easier and healthier.
Well, sometimes if you listen to people in the personal finance world, you'll hear them saying, you should talk about money on your first date. And I'm like, have you ever been on a first date? You don't have to talk about your Roth IRA balance on date number one, okay? But there are some natural, pivotal moments in your relationship where it makes perfect sense to talk about money. Those are things like going on your first trip if you decide to move in together, getting engaged, certainly getting married. And there are also ways to talk about it, like, hey, how'd you grow up with money? What do you remember your parents saying? Or, you know, I'm trying to work on this thing. How do you do it? So use these scripts. It'll make it much easier to have healthy conversations and feel good.
