The Best Way to Pay for a Wedding
By Douglas Goldstein, CFP®
After accepting all the good wishes and mazal tovs, the first thing parents of a newly engaged couple need to think about is the best way to pay for a wedding.
Making a wedding can be costly. If you have savings to cover the cost, great. That’s the topic of today’s article. If you haven’t saved for the big day, however, you’ll need to adjust your child’s expectations since you should certainly not take on debt to cover a four-hour party (no matter how much your bank – or children – encourage you).
From which account should you withdraw?
If you have retirement accounts, don’t use those funds to pay for a wedding. Those funds were earmarked to pay for your retirement, and will likely be subject to onerous taxes and fines if you withdraw them before retirement age.
If you have some well-performing assets and some under-performing assets, which ones should you sell? Though it’s not written in stone, analysis of stock portfolios often shows that winning stocks tend to outperform losing stocks going forward. So all else being equal, sell the stocks that are at a loss. Another benefit of selling positions that have declined is that you won’t have to pay capital gains tax.
Sometimes people accumulate a large cash position in their savings or investment account. Although cash is a safer investment than stocks and bonds, today’s interest rates won’t make you rich, so depending on your other investments, it may be wise to withdraw the cash. Just make sure you don’t use your emergency fund to pay for the wedding.
A pre-nup?
Before writing any checks to pay for the wedding, make sure the bride and groom sign a halachic prenuptial agreement. Not sure why? Send me an email (doug@profile-financial.com) and I’ll send you a copy of the article I wrote about it.
Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, is the director of Profile Investment Services, Ltd. www.profile-financial.com. He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S. and Israel. Call (02) 624-2788 for a consultation about handling your U.S. investments from Israel. Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, FSI. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not those of Portfolio Resources Group, Inc. or its affiliates.