It’s Friday! So it is time for a marriage situation post. As always, Liz’s comments will be normal and Paul’s will be bolded.
Raise your hand if you and your spouse have ever disagreed over something financially related. Raise your hand if you have ever read a finance book together. Raise your hand if you have ever tried to create a budget together and ended up on opposite sides of a room with one of you fuming and the other despondent.
So maybe that last one only happened to us : )
After a two years of marriage we were still in graduate school (albeit different ones than when we’d started our life together : ), still working just-slightly-above minimum wage jobs, and still eating the occasional ramen noodle dinner in order to save on groceries. Not destitute, but not raking in the cash. We’d kind of coasted through our graduate school years while in South Carolina. I’d entered our marriage with some money that I’d inherited from my grandparents and we used that to graduate debt free and subsidize our (very) meager income. We weren’t crazy spenders and since Paul worked at the bank where our one little checking account was held, he would glance at it once in a while to make sure we didn’t overdraw. Living like that worked for me. What I didn’t know couldn’t upset me! However, once we moved to Michigan, Paul put his foot down and decided (and I reluctantly agreed) that we need to get our finances in order. Daily balanced checking account! Save for retirement! Save for a down payment! Save for a car! Strictly enforced budget! No more opening store credit cards so that I could save 15% on whatever $20.00 item I was purchasing!
And following about three weeks of living with a strict budget, I came apart. I couldn’t handle the stress caused by constantly thinking about a budget. I hated thinking about our (lack of) savings. I despised balancing our checking account. And I kind of missed the little thrill I got from opening a store credit card in order to save on a purchase. I told Paul that I couldn’t do it (read: dramatic pronouncement “I just can’t LIVE like this!!”) and that I wanted to go back to the tried and true coasting method of financial management. Hence, feeling despondent on one side of the room with Paul on the other side, vainly attempting to think of a way to fix this problem.
Fast forward two years and there was a fateful day when a “budget crisis” forced my hand. We were down to a few hundred in our account and Liz did the strangest thing ever–she got upset. She couldn’t believe that we could be so low in our account. Seeing (but not understanding) her distress, I decided to give some dedicated time and thought to budgeting. Now I could make a budget for her good–to keep her from getting upset…and I do so love to organize things. So I drew up a beautifully detailed plan and knew it would work flawlessly. Of course, this budget slashed any entertainment we normally did and brought the food allowance back down to consistent ramen noodle levels, however at the end of the month we would actually have money to save! (About $60 dollars : ) Hmmm. . .gulp. . .not sure how to sell that one to Liz—but maybe she would be impressed with how detailed it was :-). So I gave it to her all at once, no sugar coating at all. I became the budget Czar, and determined to maintain financial order. Well, that lasted for about three weeks, until Liz’s declared that she just couldn’t make it work.
Our first financial crisis! What can a couple learn from this type of situation? What did we come away understanding? (Tune in tomorrow to find out… : )
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