Credit card debt: Who’s fault is it?
Answer is typically looking back in the mirror. I keep track record of my statements and I looked back, way back to some in 2003. Why in the world I bought some of this crap with a credit card is beyond me, but I’m paying for it today. Some of the things on the statement can be half justified, like books or supplies for school. I had a part time job in college making $8 an hour, but living like I was making $18 an hour. Moving forward though and getting this mess cleaned up will help though. Live always throws different things at us though.
Now I get to the interesting part. My wife and I are approaching our one year anniversary and it sort of falls into my hands on figuring out what we should do and how to finance it. She likes ’shiny things’ and we have talked about for a few months about an anniversary band. I can probably pay for about half of this but the other half would have to go on a credit card otherwise I can’t buy it. When she’s not happy, I’m not happy, yet at the same time I’m not happy about debt. My birthday is coming up here at the end of the month, she asks me what I want for my birthday, I tell her I don’t want anything, she laughs. I’d rather be debt free than pretend to own things.
Now so far this year I have made some great personal accomplishments paying for stuff. I own my stove, the furniture package for my living room, and this month her earrings. It is getting to the point where I simply don’t want anything unless I can pay for it. Back in March I got stuck in Best Buy playing Guitar Hero 2 for Xbox 360 and thought it was great. Waited until April to decide to actually buy it because I figured out that I had enough money in gift cards (I hate gift cards!) and finally a reason to use them. I love this thing too.
Maybe I am being selfish trying to budget our first anniversary. I always seem to make sure everything stays on track in the end though. It just halts paying off debt as quickly as I would like. Gears are always spinning here, trying to figure out what to do.
Hi,
Thanks for dropping by.
I agree with you about staying within a budget for gifts. I’m still almost a newly wed (3yrs August) and would only want a gift that we could pay for. I know hubby and I are in for the long haul and we can save for bigger purchases live an aniversary band. Plus remember anniversary bands used to be 25th Anni gift, then dropped down to 10 yrs. So maybe 1st is rushing this type of gift. Just a thought.
Have a great anniversary and know that working together is the best gift you can give each other.
For our first anniversary we just went out to dinner. It was a nice, relaxing evening, without worrying about work. And I think we had some champagne and strawberries in the afternoon before we went out that day.
The most important thing is that you be together, it doesn’t matter what you do or what you buy. There will always be time for shiny things.
We are going out to dinner to a place she has wanted to try for many months now. The plan is to also to break out the top of our wedding cake (not sure about that) and enjoy each other’s company. I don’t know why gifts have to complicate this thing like it’s a birthday and we have to have a party or something. It has been very stressful as this approaches (which it should not be) to figure out what else I am supposed to do. My wife is the materialistic type and wants shiny things but I hate pretending to own them. She thinks because this is the first one it should be something big and money shouldn’t play a factor in it. I am at a total loss on where to go with this.
I completely forgot about the wedding cake. We had that also, and it was actually still good! The key I think is in how well you wrapped it.
My wife and I also have a marriage counselor that we visit once a year near our anniversary. You might want to take up a similar tradition, especially if you think the money issue is going to cause problems.