Divorce is way more expensive than your savings. I went through this; you save $12-16k/yr for 10 years and if you invest the difference smartly, it's $300k.
Without a prenup, and most don't cover earnings during your marriage anyway (They're hard to keep updated yearly), you're giving away half in California, which can be over $1M if you're a diligent saver and investor. Then if your spouse is REALLY nasty, you'll owe her spousal support that can be thousands per month, depending on your income (and income POTENTIAL), for the rest of her life (after 10 years of marriage in CA).
Any cost savings are completely nullified by divorce if you're a high earner and almost never make sense. Don't get married for tax savings, marry for other reasons and have the most iron-clad prenup you can afford and get your partner to agree to. I promise you, your future self will thank you.
Marriage seems like a dated concept from when traditional gender roles were a thing, and men and women worked more as a team because they needed each other. Now that they don’t, with the high divorce rates and the high risks for men I can’t see a reason anyone would want to get married, especially outside the US where there’s minimal tax benefits.
Sadly accurate - and what is worse is that child support laws by state [0] are actually even more dated in their mechanisms, where despite using an "income shares" model, most don't take custody & parenting time into account.
So despite "savings" from a MFJ filing status, when you go back to Single filer or HOH filer, you're penalized on the child support side.
Actually, you don't care if your partner agrees to the prenup. You care that your partner's lawyer (you can't have the same lawyer for this) agrees to the prenup. The reason for this is that there are judges that are hostile to prenups and you need evidence that your partner made an informed and explicit agreement.
Also don't add sunset clauses because those are ticking time bombs. There is nothing worse than having a stable marriage only for a looming deadline to change the incentives towards instability.
Without a prenup, and most don't cover earnings during your marriage anyway (They're hard to keep updated yearly), you're giving away half in California, which can be over $1M if you're a diligent saver and investor. Then if your spouse is REALLY nasty, you'll owe her spousal support that can be thousands per month, depending on your income (and income POTENTIAL), for the rest of her life (after 10 years of marriage in CA).
Any cost savings are completely nullified by divorce if you're a high earner and almost never make sense. Don't get married for tax savings, marry for other reasons and have the most iron-clad prenup you can afford and get your partner to agree to. I promise you, your future self will thank you.