My wife and I believe there’s a connection between our financial decisions and our life goal, which is to have a fulfilled and happy life, and you may already know that this connection is the main theme of our couple’s blog. Today let me stretch the connection between money and happiness a little by writing about how marriage itself affects our money.

It has been well documented that married people acquire more net worth than single people. Apparently married people acquire 77% more net worth than their single counterparts. (You can read Jay L. Zagorsky’s comprehensive study about the impact that marriage and divorce have on wealth.) I guess we could say that getting married could be one of the most important financial decisions we can make. I find it funny how a decision about love or happiness can have such an effect on finances.

Let me testify here about my own experience even though I am only one point in a statistical sample. I did spend more freely when I was single. Once I got married and we planned for children, I became much more conscientious about spending money for a good purpose rather than just for the heck of it. After all, a family forces me to be more responsible overall, not just about money.

It almost goes without saying that there are a bunch of other risks associated with getting married, but there is definitely a financial risk involved. In the unfortunate case that a marriage falls apart, the wealth effect is tremendous. Eventually, divorced people end up with a net worth about three quarters less than when they were married. That is an enormous cut in one’s net worth! Apparently one’s net worth starts declining four years before the actual break up. So, married people who end up divorcing do get some warning about what’s coming, but I suspect that most of us would not associate a declining net worth with an imminent divorce. If that was the case almost everybody should be on notice right now since overall net worth fell by over 10% in 2008 according to a Fed study! Or should we get ready for an avalanche of divorces hitting us?

Tags: higher net worth, lower debt