Calling all couples! If you’ve been meaning to get started on that all important paperwork to protect each other and your assets, now is as good a time as any. Most of you probably know that as unmarried couples we miss out on all of the federal rights granted het folks and most of the state rights, depending on where you live. So we need to spin our own legal web to protect our wishes with respect to our money and, even more crucially, our wishes concerning decision making when we are at our most vulnerable.

I wish as much as you do that we could simply marry (everywhere!) and none of this would be necessary. Throwing coins in the fountain and making wishes might get us there eventually, but today we need to take action. If you are the type of person that would rather listen and learn than read and learn, then this post is for you. My wife and I produce and host a finance show on our local community radio station. Our last two shows were dedicated to the special financial planning needs of unmarried couples.

We had the great good fortune to interview Sheryl Garrett, a well known Certified Financial Planner and Co-Author of Money Without Matrimony: The Unmarried Couple’s Guide to Financial Security. We’ve extracted just the interview portion of the two shows and combined them here for you to listen or download.

The hardest part seems to be just getting started with the planning. I’d love to hear some of your stories and strategies.

Photo credit: stock.xchng.