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name change advice

Looking for name change advice or some tips for newlywed life? The MissNowMrs experts have created state-specific name change articles and checklists for you. We’ve chronicled our recommendations for how to travel while changing your name AND how to handle voting during the transition.

We’ve also compiled our best guidance for how to handle difficult sister in laws, holidays as newlyweds, the ever-annoying baby questions, and much more. Why? Because, while we are name change experts, we’re also newlywed wives, moms, and sisters.

We hope our name change advice articles help smooth your transition to your new name, and a whole new phase of life. Congratulations and best wishes from the entire MissNowMrs team!

Savvy Newlywed Investing

Now that you’re married, it is time to consider savvy newlywed investing. You may have joint savings, but have you really taken time to make financial goals? If you have goals, have you mapped out steps to achieve them?

We all want to be financially secure, but how do we get there? Maybe you’re in debt from your wedding, or conversely you could be sitting on a nest egg of wedding gift cash. Regardless of your situation, planning and newlywed investing is the way to build a secure future.

Many couples opt to put their money in mutual funds, or have their wealth managed by a professional. These are excellent traditional options that will result in modest returns year over year. I would like to recommend a less traditional way to build wealth: short-term rental investing. This type of investing can yield rapid, high returns and give you a getaway place to enjoy together!

Are you unfamiliar, but excited about the idea of investing in a short-term rental? Consider hiring an Airbnb coach to guide you through the process of identifying a good market, setting your budget, finding the right property and then setting up processes and software to ensure maximum profits with minimal time investment. Savvy newlywed investing usually involves a coach of some sort. Coaches help you overcome any learning gaps and avoid making poor decisions that could lead to losing money.

How many times have you booked a vacation stay at an Airbnb? Did you ever consider that your stay is paying for that property’s mortgage as well as the property owner’s primary mortgage? If you are looking for a way to be a savvy newlywed investor, now is the time to consider alternative ways to build wealth together.

Wedding Checks: 4 Newlywed Tips for Depositing Without Hassle!

Wedding Checks - How to Deposit without hassle

New Spouse, New Name, New Journey: Embrace Your New Married Life.

With Personalized Name Change Services for Every Newlywed.

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As your wedding day approaches, gifts from family and friends begin pouring in…hooray! You’ll also start receiving wedding checks. Monetary gifts are wonderful, as they allow you to purchase exactly what you want/need for married life, but they can occasionally cause trouble at the bank.

Well-meaning relatives LOVE to write checks to Mr. and Mrs. Jones. Which is great, if you’re planning to change your name to Jones, but what if you’re hyphenating or not changing your name after marriage, or if your spouse is taking your name?

Name change does make cashing
wedding checks tricky

However, if you both set up a joint bank account before your wedding, most banks will allow you to sign the checks and deposit them regardless of what versions of your names appear on the check. If a check is made out to both you and your spouse, then when you are depositing checks with two names, make sure that you both sign the back of it.

If you run into a clerk that is a stickler for the rules, you can wait to deposit the check until you can present a certified copy of your marriage certificate. The other solution? Use the ATM machine to deposit your checks. I deposited wedding checks written to my maiden, married and misspelled last names with zero issues!

Also keep in mind that in most cases you do not need to pay taxes on when depositing wedding checks.

Wedding Check Deposit Tips:

1. Create a joint bank account BEFORE your wedding
2. If a wedding check is made out to both of you, make sure that you both sign it before depositing
3. You can use your certified marriage certificate to deposit checks made out to your married name
4. When all else fails…use the ATM machine for your wacky wedding check deposits!

New Spouse, New Name, New Journey: Embrace Your New Married Life.

With Personalized Name Change Services for Every Newlywed.

Ready for a New Name? Order Now!

Newlywed Taxes: Name Change, Returns & Expectations

Newlywed Taxes

Need some help understanding newlywed taxes? It’s that time of year again…time to sort through the folders of paperwork you’ve saved and file your taxes. As you prepare to file taxes jointly or separately as a newlywed couple, there are a few things to keep in mind.

Name Change and Newlywed Taxes

If you or your spouse changed your name after your wedding, be sure to alert the Social Security office by filing the SS-5 form. When the Social Security Administration issues your new social security card in your new name, they typically alert the IRS.  Here’s another article on the topic of name change and taxes as newlyweds.

Worried that your name change might slip through the cracks? File the IRS 8822 (it’s free) and you can rest assured that you’ve completely covered your name-change with the IRS. The IRS 8822 form alerts the IRS of your new name, preventing them from holding your tax returns should they be confused about your identity (yes that really happens).

Mine, Yours, Ours

As a single woman, I loved to get my tax return and put a portion in savings and then use the rest to splurge on something great! Be it a purse, furniture or a trip, my tax return sprees took some of the sting out of what I handed over to Uncle Sam. When I got married, I suddenly had someone else’s return money and ideas to deal with.

Now that you’re married, I suggest having a discussion with your spouse about what to do with your returns. If you filed together, will you both determine what to do with the lump sum? Will you split it evenly? Will you split it based on who made what? Tricky questions to answer, but much better to hash expectations and ideas out now then fight about them when the check comes in the mail.

How are you handling newlywed taxes? Have you ever had an argument about it? Have you come up with a great solution?

Newlywed Finances: Tips For Setting Goals Together

Newlywed finances are incredibly important to discuss. Once the excitement of the wedding is over and the reality of living together as newlyweds sets in, getting your financial house in order is an absolute must. Finding the right place to start, though, can be overwhelming. These tips can help.

Where are You?

One of the first things you may want to do is understand exactly where you’re at. This should involve looking at what the two of you make each month, then making a detailed list of expenses that you’ll need to deal with. Don’t forget to factor in things like groceries, transportation expenses (bus passes, subway fare, or gas) and day to day living expenses. This process should not only help you understand what you have coming in, but also identify any spots where you’re wasting money as well.

New Financial Needs

In addition to thinking about what you’re already spending money on, you may also have new financial needs to consider. For example, now that the two of you are married, do you need to apply for new health insurance together? What about life insurance? If your spouse has a child, are there childcare expenses you hadn’t previously considered? Add all of those into your monthly budget as well.

Set Both Short and Long Term Goals

Lots of couples just move like zombies from month to month without really planning for their goals, but look ahead five years, then look ahead ten years. Where do you want to be together as a couple? Do you want to own a home? Do you plan to have children? Are there investments you need to make right away? Looking down the line a bit will help you set aside money for the future each month.

Flexibility and Fun

Once you set your financial goals, though, don’t assume they’re set in stone forever. Make sure you both reevaluate at least once a year, but maybe even every six months to ensure you’re on track to meeting your dreams and dealing with the reality of financial life together.  Also, make sure there’s a little room in your budget for fun. Your first years as newlyweds should be spent making memories that will last a lifetime. So, be sure to add a vacation or life experience to your list of goals!

How are you handling your newlywed finances? Did our tips help? We’d love to hear from you in a comment.

3 Steps to Setting a Holiday Budget as Newlyweds

Setting a Holiday Budget

Have you considered setting a holiday budget? The holiday season is here and that means many things.  Happy music, good food, great friends, and fun-filled gatherings are certainly on the long list of things that come with this time of year.  Unfortunately, though, not all thoughts are happy during this season.  While giving a gift to a person you love is undeniably wonderful, paying for it isn’t always so easy. If you are like millions of Americans who are finding it more and more difficult to set aside money during this economic downturn, then this might be a good time to consider budgeting for the upcoming shopping spree.

Step One: What Do You Have to Spend? The first step in budgeting for anything is to look closely at what you can afford.  What are you bringing in each month and what is being sent back out the door for bills, utilities, mortgage, loans, etc?  Once you have a clear picture of what is left over and what you might already have stocked away, you can move on to step two.

Step Two: How Far Does it Have to Go? The money that you have accounted for will likely have to cover all holiday spending.  This is something that many people overlook, and therefore, those people end up spending more than they planned by the time the first of the new year rolls around.  Stop to make a list of everything that you will need to buy for the holiday season – wrapping paper, ingredients for dishes to pass, decorations, etc. This list should also include the names of everyone you need to have presents for (don’t forget his side of the family).  When your list is complete, move on to step three.

Step Three: Allotting For Each Category With your list in hand, you can begin to break down the money that you have budgeted, dividing it up by categories – food, gifts, accessories – and then within each category.  At the end of this step you should know approximately how much you can spend on a gift for each person on the list.  Keep in mind that you will generally spend more money of gifts for a spouse than you would on a gift for a friend.  Those distinctions really matter and will allow your budget to be stretched more efficiently.  Create a chart with the names of each person and the budgeting allowance for the gift.  Label a third column as ‘money actually spent’ so you can keep close track of how you are doing during the shopping process.

Have you started setting a holiday budget or wish that you did?  We’d love to hear your solutions for shopping smartly this season!