It’s easy to get bogged down by the details—making a couple thousand more dollars each year, keeping an eye on investments and accounts, paying those bills—but here, Dr. Lois Frankel makes it simple. In her 20 years coaching and consulting individuals and large companies on finding professional success, she’s narrowed down finding your financial happiness to seven straightforward steps.

1. Have a bank account of your own. Borrowing from the Virginia Woolf classic, A Room of One’s Own, every woman should have money that is hers alone. More and more couples are going this route. It doesn’t mean you should put every penny you make into your own account or that all investments should be individual ones. It means there is no good reason for not having at least one investment that is yours alone in addition to a joint one to pay the household expenses.

Never allow joint investments or property to be held under anything other than both names. Even if your partner gives you 100 good reasons why it should be held differently, the risks far outweigh any potential advantage should there be a death or divorce.