What Is a DINK?
Dual Income, No Kids households, or DINKs, have partners who work and earn higher incomes but without children. With fewer financial obligations, these households can focus on accumulation of wealth, spending on discretionary “fun” items, and planning for their individual and joint futures.
SuperMoney featured OWLawyers Senior Shareholder Michelle May O’Neil in an article entitled What Is a DINK? Understanding Dual Income, No Kids. The article discusses how women in such households can protect themselves and achieve their financial independence. SuperMoney provides a website that eases comparison shopping for financial services, with rates, terms, and features for thousands of financial products and services in one place.
For women with no children who also have a partner earning a similar level of income, the chances of achieving financial independence grow significantly. With two incomes available to support one household, a woman has freedom to focus on her personal financial goals more so than if she were in a traditional family structure. This includes investing, saving, or paying down debt. She may also have more flexibility regarding education, professional development, and career choices; or even the ability to take entrepreneurial risks. These types of choices have the potential to pay off big in the long run by providing career advancement opportunities or business opportunities that may not have been available to her otherwise.
How to Protect Yourself as a Woman in a DINK Household
As a woman in a Dual Income, No Kids household, it’s important to maintain clear legal boundaries to protect your financial independence. In an unmarried relationship, keeping finances separate and allocating household expenses between you and your partner will protect against comingling and losing assets in the event of a breakup.
Establish a Marital Agreement
For married spouses, a premarital agreement can identify assets owned before the marriage and outline how assets and debts will be handled between spouses during the marriage or in the event of divorce. Without an established premarital agreement, half or more of the assets you earn during the marriage could be lost to your spouse in the divorce.
To protect your autonomy as a high-earning woman in a marriage, you will want to get a premarital or marital agreement that outlines which assets belonged to you before the relationship and how assets and debts will be handled during the relationship. These agreements provide clarity and boundaries in managing assets and debts and making future financial decisions.
Estate Planning Documents
Estate planning documents ensure that spouses are taken care of in the unfortunate event that one spouse dies during the marriage, especially if joint assets are not titled properly, or future dependents are not addressed. In this situation, estate planning documents will dictate how assets are managed or distributed.
Business Planning
If you decide to go into business with another person or your spouse, having an agreement in place that outlines how a business venture will be managed, or eventually divided or dissolved, provides clarity and protection for you as a woman to ensure you retain your rightful share of assets.
Whatever the nature of the relationship, it is a good idea to keep joint debt to a minimum and clearly define how joint debt will be handled if it is incurred.
To learn more about your role as a woman living in a Dual Income, No Kids household, be sure to read the Supermoney article here.