Love is a Bad investment. I Recommend it.

For Valentines day, I thought I should explore the financial side of love.  

I just Googled "cost of love" and read some fascinating advice on how to manage both the emotional and financial costs of love, including steps like "do a credit check on your love interest" and "pursue someone who is ambitious or has a financially rewarding career".   Not bad ideas.  Some costs of love to consider include entertainment expenses, eating out, significant wardrobe upgrades and personal grooming expenditures,  a lot of excersize and maybe some French lessons, all intended to convince potential mates that we are attractive, sophisticated, impressive and successful people worth spending one's life with.

And if all goes well, someone falls madly in love with us and marries us, which brings up the cost of a wedding, a honeymoon and children.  So far, we're digging a big old hole in the balance sheet!  But is it worth it?  Are you getting a good value for that endless expense called love?

Well, getting married will often make your auto insurance less expensive (yes, gentlemen, you're 25% less of a liability once you get hitched), and if you marry someone with good credit, your score will probably rise too. Combining your earnings and sharing your expenses will reduce your cost of living and you can also gain access to each other's employer benefits.  If you and your spouse are both high income earners you may be among those who experience higher taxes, but more often married couples actually end up paying lower taxes.  And who can overlook the romantic benefits of tax free property transfers at death?  But are these reasons enough?

And what about the risks?

In Woody Allen's 1975 classic (and one of my all time favorite movies) "Love and Death", Natasha says, "I don't want to get married, I just want to get divorced.  While divorce can apparently be both fun and profitable (if you're a Kardashian), a lot of people actually want to avoid it.  For that reason, they are also avoiding marriage, or at least that's what many have said to explain the huge drop in the rate of marriage in the U.S.   Only about 51% of American adults now get married, which is the lowest level ever recorded, and a 20% drop since 1960.  The study which gave us these numbers, also reveals there are socioeconomic and class differences in how we see marriage:  Wealthy women see it as a measure of commitment, while poorer women see it as a financial burden with little or no benefit.   The non-wealthy woman often sees divorce as possibly too expensive to afford, and therefore views marriage as carrying risks too unreasonable to assume  She now chooses co-habitation as a more attractive option.  But this is not the case for many gay couples.  Regardless of income level, gay couples are much more enthusiastic about the idea of getting married.  Everyone wants that sexy unlimited marital deduction.

So love is expensive, and there's never any guaranteed return, except maybe marriage, which is expensive, and that often leads to expensive offspring, and possibly expensive divorces.

So why bother? 

I'll tell you why.  Because money isn't everything.  There, I've said it.  Shocked? Confused?  Don't be so shallow.  And why am I being so sappy and impractical today?  Because while I was watching the Grammys the other night, L.L Cool J gave a beautiful tribute to Whitney Houston, and I was reminded of the obvious; that all the money, talent and fame in the world won't keep you alive, or happy.  And because a long time ago, rather than heed the advice to  "pursue someone who is ambitious or has a financially rewarding career", I did the opposite, and we're still happily married.  

Right after L.L. Cool J. spoke, Bruno Mars got up to perform, and standing up on stage, smiling with his pompadour and gold suit, he said, "Ok, everyone, get up off your rich asses and have some fun!"   And I think he's got it right, because even if it's very well toned, what good is a rich ass if you have no one to dance with?