Balancing Financial Goals in a Relationship

Last updated 15 May 2026

MAS Head of Growth (Investments), Jacob Hattersley, looks at ways couples can balance their financial goals when it comes to saving, spending and investing. 

How can couples create a financial plan that respects both their styles?

It’s not uncommon in relationships that one person has a very different perspective and relationship with money than the other. That’s why it’s so important that shared financial goals are discussed honestly and openly, and reviewed on a yearly basis. Not doing so can create friction and lost opportunities later down the track. 

For both individuals and couples, it’s a good idea to do a review of your total budget as a starting point. Then you could try a specific budgeting approach like the 50/30/20 model. To do this, you start by looking at your total income and working out what expenses are non-negotiable. These would likely be rent or mortgage, utilities and groceries, and they might take up somewhere around 50% of your total income. The remaining amount is a bit more exciting. Thirty percent could perhaps be utilised to fund the ‘wants’ – things like dinners out, a bit of shopping or travel (which might involve a bit more side-budgeting). This amount is for keeping people happy during their life and throughout their journey. The remaining 20% can be invested longer-term for the much bigger goals. 

Not everybody will have this much left to invest, but even putting aside a small amount regularly, perhaps each payday, works really well. It opens the ability for a ‘dollar-cost averaging’ strategy towards an investment. This method means that, irrespective of whether the market and indeed unit prices are high or low, routine set payments over a long period of time will provide an average cost of purchase. 

Actively managed investments – such as MAS Investment Funds, which offers diversification at an asset, global and industry level – can be opened with as little as $500. This fund can then be contributed to on a routine basis according to your budget, and can also accommodate any ad hoc lump sum payments. The investment works well for individuals and couples who wish to invest for the longer-term while still having the ability to access funds in the investment. 

Often, couples who are reviewing their budget can benefit from some advice to ensure their bigger long-term goals are met. MAS has Advisers across the country who can provide personalised investment advice at no additional cost. There is also no minimum sum required for advice to be provided.

What approach should couples take to investing if they have different attitudes to risk?

There are a few factors to consider when working out your attitude to risk and your best approach to investing, which a MAS Adviser can help you work through together. They are: 

Capacity for risk

This considers your age and current net worth. Understanding your capacity for risk is vital because it defines how much financial loss you can realistically withstand. Factors like age, which affects investment time horizons, and net worth, which determines financial buffers, directly shape suitable strategies. Aligning advice with capacity can protect you from undue stress and long‑term financial harm.

Tolerance

This refers to how comfortable you both are in seeing fluctuation to your investment value based on market movements. Advisers always look to understand this as people can actually end up ‘locking in losses’ if they make a knee-jerk reaction during a period of market volatility. It’s important to stay on course in the investment journey and take emotion out of the equation. Interestingly, people’s tolerance to risk can sometimes be completely misaligned to their capacity. Also, some investors might feel comfortable around risks for one asset class (such as property) versus another (such as equities), despite both carrying different kinds of risk. 

Requirement

This refers to how much risk needs to be taken in order for goals to be achieved. If a couple have big aspirations for growth in their investment returns over a 20-year period, for example, they might not have their expectations met by a conservative investment. Conversely, the Adviser’s job is also to ensure investors are not exposing their investments and capital to more risk than is required for their goals to be met. 

Timeframe

This is critical for both the investing couple and the Adviser to understand. If the investment timeframe is too short, then certain investments may not be appropriate as there is simply not enough time for an investment to recover should market volatility ensue. For example, a couple with an investment timeframe of 1 year should never consider investing solely in equities. On the other end of that, if a couple is young, have already bought their first home and are saving for retirement, which could be 35 years away, they have an exceptionally long investment timeframe and will go through multiple investment cycles. 

How can couples balance twin goals of a good lifestyle now and a comfortable retirement later?

It’s very important that we don’t purely focus on the future and equally look to enjoy the present. In my time working as an Adviser, I’ve spoken to couples who admitted they had previously gone through long periods of not ‘treating themselves’ and perhaps tightening the belt a bit too much. This ultimately made them miserable and subsequently led them to access an unnecessarily large portion of their savings or investments to make up for lost experiences. I wondered if this would have been the case if they had agreed on a plan and perhaps enjoyed the odd pleasures along the way to their financial goals? 

That said, I also recall speaking with a couple in their late 40s who admitted they’d had much fun travelling and spending everything they earned, but felt panicked at the prospect of retirement and frustrated at themselves for not saving at all. Neither were a member of a KiwiSaver scheme and one of them had just lost a well-paying job that they’d held for around 15 years. 

So balance is definitely key. There are great tools online where you can input the kind of retirement lifestyle you want, your current age, when you wish to retire and your current investment values and existing contribution rates. The MAS KiwiSaver Retirement Calculator offers this, though a MAS Adviser can also work through a more thorough process. For some, it might simply be a case of adjusting their risk profile; for others, it might be a combination of things like risk profile adjustment, increasing contribution levels and reducing expenses. 

A MAS Adviser can help you work through this based on your own specific circumstances. If you would like to chat with a MAS Adviser, phone 0800 800 627 or email info@mas.co.nz.