Giving Credit Card where Due - Trusting my Filipina Wife with Finances

Many guys are concerned about how much to trust their Filipina with finances. Today I will reveal why I suggested my wife get a credit card for herself. Subscribe to Love Beyond The Sea, and I will give you help in having a serious relationship with a woman from the Philippines. Comments are always encouraged, get notifications and share the videos with someone who could benefit.

I believe there should be trust, otherwise the relationship is off to a bad start. No one can know “everything” about their spouse and to some extent all you may know about the Filipina you decide to marry is what has been revealed to you, either circumstantially or verbally. We got married very quickly but I made sure to talk to her about finances.

Money needs to be handled with extreme discretion in the Philippines. I would guess that in a family of eight, maybe only two or three are working. Often, that is the daughters. They may have to sacrifice what they have for themselves in order to provide for momma, papa and the rest of the family. This may be of necessity but I still think highly of the woman that does this, such as my wife. I saw it first hand when I met her the first time and married her.

I knew she handled her money situation well (she was a teacher of special needs children), but this does not necessarily illustrate how she would handle “her own” money in marriage or how she views the total money situation from the present until my passing.

Since it is believed that money issues/disagreements are a leading factor in divorce, you want to make sure that before you marry a Filipina, you have discussed the importance of handling money properly in your marriage. The Bible says a lot about how we should handle money or our wealth. By the way, most of us in America ARE the wealthy of the world. Many Filipinos live in poverty, much worse than what we consider poverty over here in the USA.

I told my wife that all our money is all our money. In other words, it is not a matter of hers or mine but ours. This is true even though when she got here ALL of it was money I earned through a pension, a 401-K, what I am earning by working six days a week, and will receive some day, Lord willing, in social security. I am 58 as of today. I insist my wife go to as many meetings as she can with me to our financial advisor because it is her money too and she needs to become educated on how to handle finances. She needs to know that at age 60 she can apply for my full social security. We need to know when she can get her 401-K from working in the United States when we retire to the Philippines. She works full-time (she insists on it) and I think would if I had ten million dollars, which I don’t. A good Filipina won’t want you to work to help her family, she considers that HER job. I think it is wise to allow her to do that, even if it isn’t necessary, but that has been talked about in other videos.

She has been shown how to manage our bills with on-line banking and how to write checks for a few of them. She is aware of all our expenses. She is not all that excited about managing this or transferring all our spending to our budget spreadsheet but I think it is important she see how we are paying for things and where our money is going every month and how much. This includes how we are faring compared to budget.

Believe me, she wants to learn how to do things and she just started mowing the lawn (she put the mower together out of the box) and using a lawn edger which she put together in addition to waterproofing our deck. She has started to assemble our outdoor charcoal grill. She is an amazing woman, but I can understand why the money things could be a little intimidating since she simply has been used to living day to day and using money to spread around to the whole family.

After a few years I decided to trust her with her own credit card. She has wanted to get one and I have encouraged her to. She knows how to use it and has booked hotels and things like that, and anything she thinks is important. She understands we won’t charge anything we can’t pay off right away as using it is for ease of doing some things and also for her to establish credit. She has been trustworthy with our money as I do not hide our credit card or our checkbooks from her. I trust her, end of story. Her name is on all of our accounts. She insisted on one that has rewards on it.

She also has been with me to the attorney who wrote our will so I want her aware of all things financial even though initially it might be a little overwhelming but I insist she know how to properly handle money, and to do that I have to trust her with it. She has been working here in America about four years and also works overtime.

She wanted to buy a car and to pay for it herself as I told her we can’t afford a second car unless she buys it. She wants something to save for and her own car is a good idea. I tried to help her buy a car with her favorite color yellow but we noticed there were not many yellow cars out there and the ones that exist are on the small side, and I wanted her to drive something larger for safety, even if it cost more.

I love it that she prefers to pay everything in cash, saving if she doesn’t have it, and that includes her future car but for the sake of building credit, we decided to make a down payment and pay it off in four years.

She has her own checking account and we share our main checking account. She pays for the cable bill and phone bill. That’s all I ask her to do. She also pays the lion’s share of our house in the Philippines for those who think I paid for it as an inducement to marry her.

She is investing from each paycheck into her own 401-K and gets matched for that as well. I want her to know that she was able to save a good amount of money on her own.

She also sends money home monthly. She asked me not to help her family anymore as “you have done enough already”. Since I love her family, I will certainly be helping them still.

When I pass away, it is my responsibility to have done everything I can to prepare her financially for life without me. That is because I love her. I am so happy to know that when that day happens, she will have an exceptional resource in our main financial advisor who is maybe five years older than her so she could be valuable for a long time still. That person has already told me that she will take care of Aiza in the future.

I have tried to teach her about planning for the future, which is not a skill she is likely to learn in the Philippines. She is realizing that with having money comes responsibility to use it wisely. If she ever had ideas that money grows on trees around here, she’s learned that it doesn’t. She is amazed at how much we pay in taxes.

It is a good thing for us she is frugal. I have allowed (we talk about purchases with each other ahead of time) her to buy shoes, purses and sunglasses as she really likes them. I have even bought her shoes and clothes that I thought flattered her so I am not being miserly at all. I encourage her to help her family and I want her to visit home when she needs to and wants to.

The prosperity gospel does exist in the Philippines and I denounce that and she knows why. She works overtime too and likes the idea of saving money. She even wants her siblings to learn to save a certain amount a week so they can use it in the future.

Gambling is a problem in the Philippines since there is a lot of poverty, but my wife will be a wise earner and saver.

Learn to trust your Filipina with money after you marry your Love Beyond The Sea.