If I'm being honest, the biggest threats to our marriage will probably be money, spiritual laziness, and differences in parenting. We don't fight a lot, and we communicate well. Problems that have cropped up, we talk through eventually. Granted, things will evolve and change with time (I was reading yesterday about Parley P. Pratt's second wife. When he returned from jail, she ran to his arms. Six years later, they divorced. How does it switch so fast?). Vigilance on all fronts should be constant, but those three things are my biggest concerns right now.
When I was single, I did fairly well with money. I have a savings account that I steadily put into. I paid for my Master's degree and subsequent endorsement. I paid for my trips. I had no debt other than my house. But I also had only me to take care of. I could go out to dinner every night if I wanted; I had a decent amount of expendable income. That is no longer the case.
The Mister came with no debt (Hallelujah!), but he did come with a couple finanicial entanglements from the divorce and, of course, child support. He's still getting his degree which is also a financial commitment.
Suffice it to say, we both have something to learn about being careful budgeters.
The most tense conversations we ever have are about money. I need to live within my means to feel safe. If I feel that we're getting close to not having enough (and my definition of "enough" is bills AND money for savings), my body reacts like I'm near danger. My breathing gets shallow and my muscles tense.
He is used to being guilted about money, so he doesn't love talking about it. He will, but it's an emotional trigger for him because he's used to it being used as a weapon against him to make him feel inadequate. And when he doesn't want to talk about it readily, my fear heightens.
I usually back off because I don't want him to be uncomfortable, but then that means we don't deal with the issues and follow through on a plan.
A month or so after we got married, we tried an idea my step father gave us. He suggested putting everything on a credit card that gives a high cash back bonus, and to pay it off every month. It sounded great. But I have discovered that my brain subconsciously knows the difference between my debit card which has limited funds and my credit card which effectively doesn't. It's not working. We're not living within our means.
So we need to pare down. Eat more meals at home. Make more lunches from scratch. Do more with less. Any advice? Ideas? Resources?
J and I made a spreadsheet (of course) of our income and expenses. We budgeted certain amounts from each of our paychecks to put into the different columns: bills, rent, utilities, grocery/household, savings, personal spending.
ReplyDeleteWe maintained our own accounts and opened a joint account for rent, utils, grocery and savings, but have kept our own bills separate and our own "fun money" separate. It's working out quite nicely so far. We're both a lot more careful about what and how we spend and the savings account is growing much faster than we anticipated. So, yay!
xox
Hmmm. A third account. That might be something to consider. Also, is there a way you can send me a template of your spreadsheet? I'm terrible with them....
DeleteI wish I had something wise to say about this but I think we're still figuring it out...one thing we did was talk about what our biggest priorities are in our marriage: mine is getting out of debt, JR's is getting finished with school. We realized when we put it into words, that we can't do those things if we don't restructure the way we think about money. With that at the forefront of our minds, every time we think about eating out or doing something expensive with the kids we can ask the question: will this help with our family goals? If the answer is no, then we forego...sometimes, I (who like you have weekly money convulsions) have to be the hard ass who says, we can't. And sometimes, I have to hear JR talk incessently about the Shins concert we missed getting tickets to because we aren't using our credit cards for fun stuff. But I can handle it. And we're both on board for the most part. Good luck with this...tell me if you come up with something brilliant.
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