Money and marriage

Being married really complicates money management; at least for me. Before I was married (and when I was working full-time) I didn't use a budget. I just didn't spend very much, and I saved up enough that I was able to put a down-payment on a condo.

Then I lost my full-time job and got married. And now everything is more complicated. If I were totally in charge, we would probably spend much less then we do now. For me, technology will never be an emergency. But when I've indicated that we're in the red for the month, my husband will mention some deal on a cellphone he found on ebay and ask if I want it. Eek! Or, if he wants to buy something, he asks me for permission. I don't want to be his mom, and I don't want to be a bad guy. I just want us to stick to our budget and amass some savings. I'm starting to learn that common sense really means that people think that the way their parents did things is the right way. But in this case I know I am right! But it does hurt to be called a "money-Nazi".

We're working hard on this, and things are getting better, but it's easy to see how money can cause problems in marriage.

P. S.-If you read this post, you have to read tomorrow's, which will say all the nice things about having a husband and worrying about money : )

Mint.com

We've been using Mint.com to keep track of our finances since about December. For the most part, I really like it. It's free, and very conveniently tracks everything by accessing our accounts online. I used to use Quicken, but they stopped updating it for Mac so it wouldn't download all our accounts. This is the first time in my life I've really had a budget and followed it, and actually I think having a budget helps me feel less guilty about spending money on certain things. And I like monitoring things like our spending in certain categories, or our income on the different graphs they have. We also have created goals, like having a certain amount in our emergency fund, and a travel fund.

Here are just a few things to be aware of, when using mint. Number one, they create a budget based on your past activity (how much you have been spending, on average in certain activities). It took me longer than it should have to realize that the budget they suggested for us involved us spending more than we were making. It's easy to adjust, but that's something to look out for.

Another thing is that our retirement goal doesn't predict interest. We have a certain amount we put in to our ROTH, etc. each month and that's accounted for in the goal. But since it doesn't understand interest, it thinks we can't retire until we're in our 90s. I looked at what our interest has averaged around, and adjusted our contribution to add that, but I just basically have to ignore the predicted goal date for our retirement fund.

I also have not been able to find a way to graph expenditures in just one category over a series of months, to find an average. Any suggestions?

Edit: I figured it out: in trends, go to expenses over time and then there's a search bar where you choose a category. At the top, select "all time" and it will show you that. Now if it could calculate the average for me : )

Dave Ramsey

Have you read Dave Ramsey? My sister gave me a book of his and recommended it to me. I read the whole thing, but have to say we're not following his book exactly. His "after" sounds very promising, and his arguments are sound, except for one thing: his idea is that the first few years of following his plan, you're basically doing nothing but working your ass off scrimping and saving until you pay off your debts, with $1,000 in your emergency fund.

Well, when am I going to be 27 again, newly married, with no kids? I have friends moving away to go to graduate school and who knows where they'll find jobs. We are pretty frugal, we never carry debt on our credit cards, but I think we should be having some fun at this part. We have a restaurant budget, the amount of which we're going to decrease while I'm not getting paid, but we do go out sometimes (especially when our friends are available). And I think that's the point of handling our money: being able to go out.

Also, the emergency fund: I would have daily panic attacks if our emergency fund was only $1000. We never would have been able to get our cavities filled! Not to mention that I'm paid hourly as a teacher, so things like spring break and certainly summer could mean us defaulting on the mortgage. So Dave Ramsey might be disappointed in us, but I don't quite think following his plan to a t is the right thing for us.

I will say, though, that his stories of all those people with so much debt made me feel better about my situation : )

Make my money work!

So I think I'm usually pretty good with money...but lately things just don't seem to be working. I've been married for almost a year, lost my full-time teaching job a year ago and have been working part time since. We use mint.com, and have been working hard to follow a budget, but we still have too many months when our balance is in the red. A few years ago that would have seemed like a huge emergency, but now it's happening regularly. Here, I'll try to explore how regular people in our situation can make things come out more even.

I've been reading books and peoples' blogs and finance sites and forums, looking for some insight. So far I've come up with: we need to earn more money. I would prefer to spend less, as well, but boy is that hard sometimes. And my husband and I have been working and compromising to make that more palatable. When we have a "normal" month, it comes out ok. But we've had two months with major dental work, and I don't have my regular teaching jobs over the summer, so here we are. I'll let you know how it goes.