Money Together
The first shared budget is a values conversation wearing a spreadsheet
You are not arguing about the grocery number. You are arguing about what money is for, and neither of you has ever said it out loud.
Rohan Fernandes
Contributing writer, Fresh Marriage
Rohan writes about household labour and who ends up carrying it.
Contact Rohan through our contact page — mark your message for their attention and it will be passed on.
15 articles
Running a Home
Invisible labour is a noticing problem before it is a fairness problem
The dishes are the visible tenth. What the other nine tenths consist of, why only one person can usually see them, and how to make…
Money Together
An emergency fund is a document about what you are afraid of
The size argument is never about arithmetic. What the buffer is genuinely insuring against, where it should live, and why both of…
Money Together
The nominations nobody updates: insurance, pensions and next of kin
Marriage changes your legal position in most places, and it does not change the forms. What actually needs revisiting, and why an…
Money Together
Renting or buying together is a decision about risk, not property
The mortgage calculator answers the wrong question. What the choice actually turns on, how unequal deposits get handled, and the…
Running a Home
Paying someone to clean is a budget decision, not a moral one
Outsourcing housework carries more guilt than it deserves and more complications than people admit. What it actually solves, what…
Running a Home
Hosting has a hidden bill and it is not the food
Guests arrive for four hours and cost two days. Where the work actually sits, why it lands unevenly, and how couples decide what…
Running a Home
The chores that happen once a year still need an owner
Nobody forgets the washing up. Everybody forgets the boiler service, the visa renewal and the mattress. Why annual tasks fail, and…
Money Together
The subscriptions a merged household is quietly paying for twice
Two independent adults arrive with two of nearly every recurring payment. A practical audit of what duplicates, what genuinely…
Money Together
A joint account links your credit files in ways closing it does not undo
Sharing money is a financial connection with consequences beyond convenience. What actually links two people's borrowing records…
Money Together
Who owns what after the wedding is a question with fifty different answers
Marriage changes property rights in ways that vary enormously between countries and rarely match what people assume. The main…
Running a Home
Somebody has to notice the rice is running out, and that somebody is doing a job
Grocery shopping looks like one task and contains three: monitoring what is low, deciding what to buy, and carrying it home. Only…
Running a Home
Two people can fill any home in eighteen months
Clutter accumulates faster in a shared household than either person expects, and the thresholds for keeping things rarely match. A…
Running a Home
The errand load: queues, counters and the jobs that eat a Saturday
Some household tasks cannot be done from a sofa or an app, and they consume whole mornings. Where errands come from, why they…
Running a Home
If one of you were away for a fortnight, could the other run the house?
Most households quietly become dependent on one person knowing where things are. A test for that dependency, and a short list of…