After she turned down four times one unlucky young man who asked her to be his date for the prom, my stepdaughter announced this week that she will be going with someone else. I immediately envisioned a shopping marathon where we’d find the perfect dress and shoes, with a manicure appointment to boot. I was positively giddy.

I have to admit – sometimes I like to be the fairy Stepmom – the one who bestows fantastic shoes and lovely gifts on my stepchildren. And I can go a little overboard. My husband appreciates my enthusiasm, since I’m usually the stingy one when it comes to the family purse strings.

It’s a far cry from the early days of our marriage when I was shocked at the grocery bills and worried we would overspend on the tiniest thing. I wasn’t fully prepared for the financial demands of three kids, child support, and a new home – not to mention the whole idea that my life was now interlocked both personally and financially with five other people – my husband, his 3 kids, and his ex-wife.

Here’s a few tips to help the transition:

• Know what you will be spending. Draw up a monthly budget. We kept our living expenses as close as possible to what they were before we got married. Separate checking accounts and splitting expenses were the norm for us initially – although we adopted a more common pot approach after our business took. According to a study on the financial insecurity of women entering remarriages conducted in 1998 by the now-defunct Stepfamily Association of America, about 44% of stepfamilies kept separate personal accounts and open joint accounts that are used for household expenses.
• Find out if your spouse is still listed on credit accounts with his/her ex-spouse. Get out of it if at all possible. My husband stayed on his ex-wife’s mortgage to keep the payments low enough for her to be able to stay in the house after they parted ways. When she slipped behind in her mortgage payments, it was reported on my husband’s credit report. Financial institutions didn’t care that he had a divorce agreement stating that she was responsible for timely payment – they only cared about getting paid on time by the people on the mortgage. With his credit rating affected, we were at a disadvantage for buying our own home. Eventually, she wanted to re-finance the house and he was able to negotiate a buy-out and get off her mortgage.
• Discuss the financial obligations already in place for the kids. Child support is only the tip of the blended family financial iceberg. Consider health insurance, grocery bills, clothing, eye and dental care, and sports team expenses.  Has a child been promised a car? Or access to one? Or full tuition and expenses for four years to the college of his/her choice? Is life insurance being used as collateral for child support?
• Assess spending patterns. Sometimes divorced and single parents feel so guilty, that they will over-indulge their children and spend too much money on them. Is the child accustomed to going shopping at the mall every weekend when visiting Dad? Are they used to getting everything they want? Can these patterns be sustained? Is it realistic for them to continue?
• Identify your own baggage. Own your own issues and realize how the culture you came from shaped your feelings about money. Spouses who are remarrying may carry scars financially and in how they approach money management. Although my husband and I have very (scarily) similar ideas about financial management, I came from a family of penny-pinchers, and would occasionally find myself questioning a reasonable purchase because it felt extravagant.
• Find ways for children to see both spouses contributing to the household. In our case, it was obvious that marriage raised my husband’s standard of living (and mine too) because we benefited from combining our incomes. Instead of his two-bedroom apartment bachelor pad, we moved to a much nicer home where two of the kids had their own rooms. We paid for my oldest stepson’s books at college with checks written from my personal checking account. My stepchildren see their dad making his child support payments on time and both of us paying for things they want or need.

How we approach our finances can teach our children (and stepchildren) valuable lessons about money management and how healthy marriages work. Hopefully, we are giving them a strong foundation to build on.

Dawn Miller writes a column on life in blended families at thestepfamilylife.com. 
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