While love is its own reward, the many financial benefits available to married couples can have you both feeling especially joyful. Here’s are six ways getting married can save you a ton of money.

1. Tax-related breaks
Our legal system definitely has a soft spot for married couples, offering financial advantages including:

• Joint tax returns: Married couples often benefit by filing jointly.
• Estate tax exemptions: After the death of one spouse, the survivor is permitted to inherit a sizeable estate tax-free.

2. Increased borrowing power
When it’s time for a major purchase like a home, married couples have an advantage due to having two incomes in the household. Applying for a mortgage through a financial institution like VCNB as a two income couple means potentially qualifying for nicer or more expensive home than maybe you could afford with just one income.

3. Lower health insurance costs
Most employers not only shoulder part of the cost of an employee’s health coverage, they also offer options for spousal coverage as part of their benefits package. Paying the premiums and deductibles for one family policy is almost always more affordable than paying for two individual policies. That’s especially true if one spouse has been self-insured and has paid the entire cost of coverage, without any contribution from an employer.

4. Cheaper auto and life insurance
You’ll probably notice your insurance bills going down once you’ve tied the knot. Statistically, married people, particularly men, are less likely to be involved in car accidents than singles, so most auto insurers offer a marriage rate reduction. The difference in auto insurance premiums is most dramatic for couples in their 20s, and it tapers off with increasing age.

Life insurance premiums also tend to be lower after marriage because, on average, married people choose less risky lifestyles than their single counterparts. Additionally, taking advantage of multiple policy bundling discounts brings even further savings.

5. Reduced college tuition and more
One of the most surprising financial benefits of getting married is that it can sometimes knock down the cost of college tuition. As long as the couple’s parents don’t continue to claim them as dependents, marriage supplies the proof of independence many schools require as qualification for reduced in-state and even out-of-state tuition. That independent status can also affect the amount of financial aid that students can get by reducing the income and assets they have — compared with the assets of their parents — and by making them eligible for scholarships aimed at married students.

6. Enhanced Security benefits
Marriage insures that both spouses qualify for Social Security, even if one of them has never paid taxes into the Social Security System. If you should die first, your spouse will receive whichever amount is greater — the sum that you were eligible for at the time you died, or the amount that he or she is qualified for.

Roberta Pescow, NerdWallet

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