Marriage Thread. RUN!!!!!

[reaper]

I take care of my finances. If she doesn't throw down her full half, I make up for it. I have phenomenal credit for my age, I've been more then successfully providing for myself on my own for a long time now. My foot is pretty solid where I stand. There's no reason I'm not allowed to bitch about my gf spending too much without you coming here and saying "it's life" when you have no idea what I've accomplished or experienced in my life besides what I allow you to know.

I just said having your shit together and finances is important , not sure what you're talking about.

 

[peewee_RotA]

I take care of my finances. If she doesn't throw down her full half, I make up for it. I have phenomenal credit for my age, I've been more then successfully providing for myself on my own for a long time now. My foot is pretty solid where I stand. There's no reason I'm not allowed to bitch about my gf spending too much without you coming here and saying "it's life" when you have no idea what I've accomplished or experienced in my life besides what I allow you to know.

I just said having your shit together and finances is important , not sure what you're talking about.

 

Is gay marriage legal on TS.. because this is turning into a lot of flaming quick. 



  I'm taking the Blitzkreig approach at humor. One of them will be funny. Just sit tight.

[quadz]

After my separation I worried how I would be able to manage now that 40% of the pooled income was gone. After 6 months I was shocked to discover that not only were all the bills paid, but I had money left over.

I don't know... just drives me nuts. I make more money now then I ever did in the past and yet I have nothing to show for it. Very stressful.

That sounds so familiar. My ex girl was wonderful, but she lacked the concept of 'waiting' for things. If she saw something she liked, she had no concept of saving for it or shopping around. It was also the little things, like daily trips to Starbucks and constant lunches with the girls. Add that shit up and it is a house payment wasted each month on nothing.

My wife and I went through a similar stressful period after we merged our finances.

I'm not the type to balance my checkbook--yet on my own, I was overall able to limit my spending so that I was able to put some away each month towards retirement accounts and mutual funds... After we merged our finances it went to feeling like we were scrambling to make rent every month, and there was nothing left over for savings.

So I was suddenly dealing with this... "where the f*** is all the money going?" feeling -- which was a new and unpleasant experience for me.

Fortunately, my wife was and has been very supportive of working together to improve the situation... and she's become a lot more frugal over the years, for which I am grateful.

It turned out we had fairly opposite styles with regard to spending.  I would typically save and make occasional large purchases (new piece of musical equipment or whatever.)  And I could make that work without balancing my checkbook... My wife had the opposite style.  She would balance her checkbook not only to the penny, but she would plan with meticulous precision exactly when which bills needed to be paid (actually: when the checks would clear that she had written to pay said bills!), and when her paycheck would arrive, so that she could (literally) spend every penny of income, right down to the day... When we were dating I used to be amazed at the machinations she would go through... if her paycheck arrived one day late, she would be in a panic because she had already spent the money and there was this whole pipeline effect... eh... it was quite a system.  So in retrospect it shouldn't have come as a surprise that things got a little tense for awhile after we combined our finances. 

Nowadays she has not only become more frugal, but she runs her own secondary business on eBay... which is in one sense a hobby--but she puts an assload of work into it, and it's actually profitable... which gives her some extra spending money.

So it's funny... now these days I guess it's me who's the reckless spender... with all the ISP fees.

But I wanted to mention--one thing we tried for awhile, which I think did help although it wasn't perfect, was to allocate for ourselves a certain amount of spending money each month--say, $200--that we could use however we wanted.  And we set up her own checking account, and transferred the spending money to that every month... So she had her own ATM card for that account.

I think it was probably a net positive experience because I suspect it got her a little more accustomed to differentiating between necessities (which would still come out of the combined checking account) and her own personal expenditures.

It wasn't perfect though--because her style at that time was still the spend-right-down-to-the-penny approach, she started wanting the spending money deposited bi-weekly instead of monthly into her account... then weekly... then started wanting advances to cover some expenditure a few days ahead of time...    And on the flipside, I would kind of get screwed in the deal, because I would typically save my allocated spending money and let it accumulate... and whenever we'd have some unplanned expense (like car trouble, for ex.) then it would be like, shit, we're going to be short on rent... well... i have $1000 of "spending money" i've been saving... I guess I'll have to use that...  So I remember being a little miffed that she actually got to spend her spending money, but mine would end up being wiped out.

In the balance, though, I'm glad we tried that for awhile.  Particularly in that it established the precedent that the general family checking account would now be used to pay for necessities only--and so any nonessentials that we would like to pay for out of the general account would be discussed first.

I remember at least a couple said discussions that ended in, "...sigh, OK, i'll just wait a couple weeks and use my own spending money."  Which wasn't too terrible.

Oh well--this is turning into a damned novel.

One last thing that helped... although it required some programming... When we were still struggling with the "where the f*** is all the money going?" question, I noticed I could download bank statements from my bank's website.  So I downloaded like six months of data, and wrote a small program to categorize all the expenditures... So we could see, we spend on average this much per month on food, insurance, car repair, utilities, ... Starbucks .... etc.   That was helpful to see, but I would have been too lazy to do it by hand if i hadn't known how to code it....

Anyway - good luck jager... it seems you are not alone.



Regards,

quadz

[UUD-40]

One last thing that helped... although it required some programming...

Quicken!

[quadz]

Quicken!

Ah... Last time I used Quicken was 12+ years ago... Back then it seemed like too much hassle.  Can it actually analyze batches of bank statements and auto-categorize stuff these days?  Cool...

[[BTF]Sigma]

So money isn't a problem with us....thank god. We have the idea that what's ours is ours.

Helps she makes a shit load of cash Finding a home is the first priority after the wedding (well after the unconventional sex on the honeymoon...yes!!!). We don't want to be renting much longer and have been scoping the condo market in an area called Port Moody. Places us out of the Vancouver real estate zone that is skyrocketing and into an area that has ample venues for commuting. Probably a 2 and Den with wood floors and granite c-tops.

Quadz I just got the nod from the fiance that Quicken can analyze batches of statements and run calculations refine raw data as you seem to need/have interest in.

June 21st is our wedding day. Equinox.

[The Happy Friar]

things that can ruin a relationship: sex & money.

i'm betting here that we (wife & me) earn less combined then most of you here alone (in perspective: quadz's server costs are higher then my bi-weekly paycheck).  

the trick to finances is that there's no trick.  you need to find what works for you.  we've never had one late bill (because we couldn't pay it.  one car insurance bill was missed because we thought we already sent it out), ever.   we just have done things very very smart (or as the wife would say, i'm very damn cheap).  Ever since the house fire, i've put everything on the credit card.  Every single thing we buy.  I also write it in the checkbook & it's balanced out that way.   The major plus side is that if her paycheck is late (which it frequently is) it's no big deal.  Why?  Because everything is on the CC & money just keeps going IN to the actual bank, not removed until I pay the CC bill.  So if her check is late a few days it's no big deal as the CC bill has a 20 day grace period.   I've started putting $$ in to a mutual fund as of last year to save for retirement.  She didn't want to but I convinced her it's a good idea.

We also do some things most people only consider when they're in "hard times": we hang the laundry outside in nice weather (in winter it was hung next to the wood stove), heat with wood from trees cut down behind the house, don't go out often, don't eat out often, use a STRICT grocery list, limited trips to town (live "in country"), cook on wood stove in winter, no AC, don't use furnace unless need to (IE pipes freeze)... get the idea yet?    We also have farm animals that help things along too.

on the sex section, I've read that's it's good to have any sex vs none  & that if you need to schedule some time, but that doesn't seem to work in reality for us.    but that doesn't mean it ain't enjoyable!  

[DWxchzrles]

Sound like The Happy Friar is into the Peak Oil News, that is the life style they recommend

Keep things simple

http://www.peakoil.com/

[The Happy Friar]

Sound like The Happy Friar is into the Peak Oil News, that is the life style they recommend
Keep things simple
http://www.peakoil.com/

never heard of that site.  That's the way I *WANT* to live.    been like that for years!  I enjoy it!  (i'll get to get a pic of the got tub my dad made years ago...)

[jägermonsta]

It turned out we had fairly opposite styles with regard to spending.  I would typically save and make occasional large purchases (new piece of musical equipment or whatever.)  And I could make that work without balancing my checkbook... My wife had the opposite style.  She would balance her checkbook not only to the penny, but she would plan with meticulous precision exactly when which bills needed to be paid (actually: when the checks would clear that she had written to pay said bills!), and when her paycheck would arrive, so that she could (literally) spend every penny of income, right down to the day... When we were dating I used to be amazed at the machinations she would go through... if her paycheck arrived one day late, she would be in a panic because she had already spent the money and there was this whole pipeline effect... eh... it was quite a system.  So in retrospect it shouldn't have come as a surprise that things got a little tense for awhile after we combined our finances.

Wow. This is pretty much exactly what is going on.

She does the whole balance the checkbook thing and plans out her biweekly paychecks right down to the penny for bills. What ever extra she thinks she has left over is spent useless possessions. One problem there is that she doesn't save a dime and another is that if something goes amiss she screws herself or screws me on the bills which happens more often then not. She'll forget about auto withdraw bills she has setup or something will come up that's necessary for her to pay for at the time or she'll just plain over spend. Then comes the bank fee for over withdrawing which totally fucks everything up.

My spending is pretty much like yours. I make a couple large purchases throughout the year and pretty much nothing small. I've succesfully done that my whole life without anything ever written in that 'registry' part of my checkbook. Heck I'm wearing the same clothes that I got my freshman year in college. Thing is it doesn't bother me... I'll get gift cards or what ever for birthday or a holiday to go towards the little things. I don't go into Target and see 4 tank tops I just HAVE to buy right then and there.   

But I wanted to mention--one thing we tried for awhile, which I think did help although it wasn't perfect, was to allocate for ourselves a certain amount of spending money each month--say, $200--that we could use however we wanted.  And we set up her own checking account, and transferred the spending money to that every month...

Was thinking of trying something similar to this to see how it works out.

So I remember being a little miffed that she actually got to spend her spending money, but mine would end up being wiped out.

Yup. That's what makes me upset over the whole thing.

One last thing that helped... although it required some programming... When we were still struggling with the "where the f*** is all the money going?" question, I noticed I could download bank statements from my bank's website.  So I downloaded like six months of data, and wrote a small program to categorize all the expenditures... So we could see, we spend on average this much per month on food, insurance, car repair, utilities, ... Starbucks .... etc.   That was helpful to see, but I would have been too lazy to do it by hand if i hadn't known how to code it....

Yeah another thing I was going to look into. Something to balance out our expenses to see where exactly the money goes to. Problem is I get drunk on Friday night and I'm to hung over to do it the rest of the weekend.   

Anyway - good luck jager... it seems you are not alone.

Thanks for the suggestions! It certainly seems I'm not.

[[BTF]adam]

Just wanted to butt my currently single ass in and say grats sigma :>

[myamagical]

*butts her currently single ass in here as well*

Congrats Sigma!

[jägermonsta]

*butts her currently single ass in here as well*

Congrats Sigma!

ohh noes, things didnt work out with toxicmonkey? hehe

[myamagical]

No, it wasn't toxicmonkey,
and yeah, they didn't work out. oh well.

[jägermonsta]

bummer. you'll find better!