The Biggest Financial Benefits Of Marriage - YouTube

There's a trend going on in the United States  right now that I just can't seem to understand  

or wrap my head around and I just don't get it.  It's that fewer and fewer people are choosing  

to get married. I don't get it. Can you guys  just leave a comment below? Why do you think  

people are choosing to not get married? Or if  you yourself right now are in a very happy and  

committed relationship, but you're not married,  why do you choose to not get married? Let me know  

because I don't get it. I have a coworker at work  and she and her boyfriend bought a house together  

last year. So both of their names are on the deed  and they both share the mortgage and I asked her,  

do you guys ever plan to get married? Is  that anything in your future plans right now?

No, they don't have any plans at all. In her  mind, she thinks that she can do everything a  

married couple can do, so what's the point  of getting married? I have another coworker  

who just seems to do in my head, everything  in reverse. In my head financially speaking,  

I would think you progress financially by getting  married first, then you buy the house together,  

and then you have kids. But he seemed to in  my head, that's the judging Annie speaking,  

he seems to have done everything backward, which  is he had the kid first with his girlfriend and  

then they bought a house together and then they  plan to get married and they were supposed to get  

married last year, but they had to cancel due  to the pandemic. I asked them if they have any  

new plans to get married anytime in the  future, like a new wedding date and they don't.

There is no plan yet at all and there doesn't  seem to be any rush to get married. I don't get it  

why people are not getting married.  Actually, the majority of my friends  

are Asian. A lot of my friends that are Asian are  married and they're in very happy marriages too. 

But it just seems to me that it's part of the  American culture to not want to do it, but in my  

head, I always thought of marriage as something  that's beneficial, especially financially.  

Maybe I have a very different perspective of  marriage that you guys just don't see because  

I see all of this and I'm just like, it just  doesn't make any sense to me. In my mind, I  

see marriage more as a business transaction  with tons of financial benefits tied to it.

Sure, you can get divorced and that  can financially ruin and devastate you.  

But if you are in a very happy and loving marriage  where you guys really do plan to stay married and  

happily married for a very long time, then there's  nothing but financial benefits to reap from it,  

especially if you have a frugal spouse. I love to  read about money all the time. Even back then when  

I was 20 years old, I was reading about marriage  and money and I came across this study and the  

study is Marriage and Divorces Impact on Wealth by  Zagorsky. Here's what it says in the conclusion,  

"How do marriage and divorce affect wealth?  Regression results show that for respondents  

who married and stay married per person, net  worth was 93% higher than for single respondents.  

Moreover, these married respondents  wealth increased on average by 16%  

per year, the highest of  any marital status group."

People who are married have a per person  net worth, almost double a single person. I  

remember reading the book, The Millionaire Next  Door by Thomas Stanley and these millionaires  

who were interviewed and asked, what were the  qualities they thought were most important to  

accumulating wealth? A more important factor for  accumulating wealth is having a frugal spouse  

instead of where you went to college. Can you  imagine that your spouse is a more important  

indicator of whether you will build wealth or not  than where you went to school, your education?  

A lot of people place very high importance on  their education, but I don't think they place  

as much thought into how frugal their spouse is.  It was basically my goal at 20 to find a frugal  

spouse, and I did do that. I found my husband  on Craigslist. He bought my mattress secondhand.

Now that we've been married for four and a half  years, and it's been a goal of mine and I've told  

him since the very beginning to become financially  independent and I'm going to make him financially  

independent with me. It's going to be our goal  together. We've been planning and strategizing and  

our daily decision-making has always been centered  around, will this help us build our wealth? So  

let's not buy that because that's going to be  a waste of money. Let's not do this. Let's do  

this instead. That's been our focus and now that  I'm on the other side and I can see just what  

the benefits are of being married, I wanted to  tell you guys, it's just like the entire fabric  

of our society and the institutions that have been  set up in our society, they literally help married  

couples build wealth so much faster because  there are just so many financial benefits.  

For example, you can have a joint bank  account with someone you're not married to,  

but it's not usually recommended that you have a  joint account with just a boyfriend or girlfriend.

You guys can budget together with a joint bank  account. You guys can have a joint mortgage. You  

guys can buy a house together. You guys can  do that stuff even as boyfriend, girlfriend,  

but it's just a totally different level of  commitment and I just really think like I would  

not merge my finances with someone that I'm not  married to, especially like they don't have any  

legal obligation. Then also if one spouse's credit  is poor, then you can help the other spouse build  

their credit by having their name on your credit  card so when you make your payments on time every  

month and pay your credit card bill in full,  then their credit will also go up over time.

Also, there's tax benefits to being married.  Insurance companies, especially for auto  

insurance and homeowner's insurance, they will  usually give a discount if you're married.  

Our government has set up so many different tax  policies to benefit married couples from social  

security benefits to contributing to retirement  accounts, especially if one spouse isn't working.  

Whereas if two people were single officially,  they wouldn't be able to take advantage of  

that. Or even, a state tax, you get to avoid  a state tax in case the spouse passes away  

or even gift tax. So you can give money to  your spouse because you guys are married,  

you guys share the money versus if you gave  over $14,000 to someone who's not your spouse,  

AKA your boyfriend or girlfriend, you're going  to have to pay a gift tax. There's just a lot of  

different policies that are set up in our  society that will benefit a married couple.

In my life, I can see just how much I've benefited  from it. In my personal life, I think the biggest  

benefit I've gotten is from economies of scale.  Yes, a non-married couple can do this. They can  

have economies of scale, but I think it just goes  really far because when you guys are committed  

and you guys share your finances together and you  budget together, it's just on a different level.  

Economies of scale, look, if you guys were two  single individuals that were not living together,  

then you would need let's say, two rice cookers,  two blenders, two sofas and so on and so forth,  

two cars. But because I'm married,  I live with my husband all this time  

then I get to take advantage of the  fact that if I only need one item,  

so I only need one cutting board. I only  need one pair of kitchen scissors. The fact  

that I only need one and I guess I get to  share it with him, I save money that way.

Let's say as a single individual,  you guys spend $25,000 a year.  

Assuming that a couple should be spending  times two, $50,000 a year. A couple spending  

$50,000 a year, the quality of life that you  would get on $50,000 a year for two people  

is so much greater than the quality of  life for a single person spending $25,000.  

It's kind of weird. I see myself not spending  that much more money than if I were single,  

but the quality of life that I have because  I'm married and I share my life with my husband  

is just so much better, like infinitely  more better because of economies of scale.

Another personal example of benefits that I  get is immigration benefits. In my example,  

I am the US citizen in our relationship and he  is the immigrant. You would think that I don't  

really benefit, but actually it is yes, in my  best interest because we share finances that he  

has a green card and is able to work freely  anywhere he wants off campus. My husband is  

still a student and if he did not get a green  card, he would not be able to work off campus.  

He would only be limited to earning money  on campus and after he finishes his degree,  

he would only get one or two years of OPT to work  for an employer and then he would get sent back  

to his country or he would have to work really  hard to find a company that will sponsor him for  

a work visa. It's been really beneficial for not  just him, but the both of us that he has a green  

card because during the summers, as a student, you  only get a stipend for eight months of the year.

For four months of the year, you do not get a  stipend. I've always told him in the summer like,  

"Hey, I need you to get a summer job. You  need to help out by getting a summer job  

to contribute, to earning an income in our  household." Because he has a green card,  

he's able to work anywhere he wants. He's not limited to just the school,  

which means that he's free to pursue other  opportunities that will pay him more besides just  

working on campus and also after he graduates, he  will have a better shot at finding a job because  

a lot of companies, when you are applying  for the job they ask, are you a US citizen?  

Yes or no? Do you have a visa? Yes or  no? They ask those kinds of questions.

When he checks the box saying that he's able to  work with no visa issues, then I think in my eyes  

that he will have a better chance of getting a  job than not having it because some companies  

will already write off the bat say, we don't  want to hire somebody who's in that situation,  

even if they're really talented. I've  already thought that far off into the future  

when it comes to earning money,  just how much it will benefit  

us. That's another way that marriage  has benefited the both of us.

Yeah, guys, I really understand that there is  definitely a lot of risk to getting married,  

especially if you get married to the wrong  person and you end up with someone who just  

spends all your money and doesn't know  how to budget or anything like that, or  

if there's always a risk of getting divorced  and you guys will have to split your assets and  

maybe take on the other person's debt, who  knows? But then, I also think in my head,  

if you want to have anything great in life  that's worth having, you need to take a risk.  

Like anything in life, not just marriage. Anything  in life that is worth having requires risk.  

If you want to build your wealth and have a great  and happy marriage, sometimes you're just going to  

have to take that step, because there are just  so many financial benefits. I just feel like  

I don't understand why people don't  see things from my perspective. 

I think in the future, I'm going to talk  more about how married couples can manage  

their finances together. I haven't actually  gotten any outright questions on my channel  

about couple’s finances, but actually in real life  from the people who actually know me in person,  

I get more financial questions from married  couples about how to manage their money.

Then I do from single people about random  financial related questions. I think I'm  

going to talk more about how to do that as a  couple. If you're interested, please subscribe  

and hit the bell icon for notifications every  time I come out with a new video. I'm still  

trying to find my niche with making these personal  finance and money management videos. But honestly,  

maybe I think I will go in this direction  because I think this is a very real problem  

considering that money is the number one cause  of divorce. I think it's a real problem that I  

would like to contribute solutions to and you  know I'm in a very happy marriage right now  

with finances that are very good. So  I think this is what I'm going to do  

for now. I don't know exactly the direction  that this channel is going, but this is what  

I'm going to do for now. So please subscribe  and I will see you guys next time. Bye.