My Debt Blog

A two days ago my wife and I hit the two year mark on our marriage. She is essentially working a job and a half this week, school in the morning and training for her summer job after that. With that being said, we decided it would be better to celebrate this time on the weekend. I think we’re going to go downtown Chicago and visit the Museum of Science and Industry which we haven’t been to in years. Best of all is she can get us in for free, along with some other places, as a perk of her new job. That evening we’re going out to dinner at the Olive Garden.

I remember last year the first anniversary was a huge stressful deal. We had to buy each other gifts, got a suite in a hotel, and ate at a very pricey restaurant. Last year the grand total of everything was probably over $500 and it just totally busted the month along with the car insurance bill. This year though we agreed that our home entertainment upgrade to HDTV was our gift to each other. So this weekend I’m estimating it will run at most $100, which still allows breathing room to deal with the car insurance bill this month.

When we started dating in college, every time we hit a year we would go out to a nice dinner. Six and a half years we’ve been together (two married) later I don’t see why it should be any different. I do think that when we hit a milestone, our ten year anniversary, we will take a vacation somewhere nice. What would be even better is to be debt free before that day comes. Most likely other things will happen along the way but it’s good to have a long term goal. We’ll stay DINKs for now though because neither of us desire family expansion right now. Two years married though and I think we have grown stronger than we were last year.

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We’re finally in the first full week of the first month of the year. I was worried about my paycheck being less than what it normally was due to increased cost of insurance, but it wasn’t too bad. Even with that said, it still wasn’t much money to work with coming out of December. At the same time my wife has no money coming in yet which is now a problem.

My wife graduated with her masters, so she is officially a teacher now. I am patiently waiting for her to make the effort to get a temporary substitute job while she is working on a more germinate position. She is fully qualified and will make a great teacher, but the school isn’t going to hand her a job. Money has been tight since she stopped working and did student teaching. We need to get back to DINK (Dual Income No Kids) stage so enough money is coming in so I don’t feel all the pressure.

The reason I’m frustrated during this period of single income, our spending has increased not decreased. Sometimes I would pull from the EF just to hold us over to rebuild it back to its original amount. Since the EF was blown apart in December, we don’t have any cash to spare right now. This is why I get very frustrated when stupid things come up like Coldstone (ice cream) and Starbucks. We can’t afford these things right now and really need discipline when it comes to spending. No more using the credit cards to hold things over.

I’ve tried to have a serious talk about money before, but it usually turns into something else. The last thing I need is a fight because that doesn’t accomplish or change the present situation at all. Something tells me I’m going to have to find an additional job to bring in extra income. I hope she gets some temporary sub spots soon because we can really use the money to help ease the pressure I have been under. We have awhile to go yet before I get paid again and 2/3 of that goes directly to our regular monthly bills. Lifestyle is going to get seriously cut here until the income situation improves.

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Thanksgiving is that time of year we’re supposed to be give thanks for the things we take for granted. This is not the case with major retailers given that they make 25-50% of their annual profits in the 40 days between holidays. Not that I wanted to go, my wife and I got caught up in the Black Friday mess.

I noticed a lot of stuff, even on sale, wasn’t that great of a deal considering I have seen the same prices weeks before. So what makes it about Black Friday that gives people permission to spend money? My wife actually didn’t spend that much money and meanwhile I got my mom the doorbuster Mickey Mouse snow globe at JCPenny. So we’re still in the black for now.

December is going to be another story. Just as the issue came up in June, our semi-annual car insurance bill is coming due. An added bonus though my wife’s insurance will be discounted more so we will save over $100 bucks this time around. It will still take some money though to cover our insurance bill so we’re covered the New Year. I’m not sure how we’re going to do both Christmas and car insurance in the same month. My wife starts to look at that emergency fund as though it is regular savings for this time of year. It almost sounds like she thinks we should go into the New Year with no EF.

At the same time along with Christmas is my wife’s birthday. She already told me she wants a Coach purse for Christmas and the matching wallet for her birthday. I’m at a loss here when it comes to figuring out how to cash flow a $300-400 gift. Getting out of debt isn’t a priority to her this year and I don’t know if it will be next year. Sometimes I just want to stop trying anymore because I’m not getting anywhere. Is all the effort on my part really worth it?

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I’m not sure what it is with relationships and money, there is never enough of one or the other. It seems for us when money is there our relationship is good, but as the money runs low or out for the month, it leads to problems and not talking. Why does money have so much power in a relationship?

I think there is a difference between poor and broke. My wife feels that when we run low or out of money we’re not doing any better than poor people. This bothers me big time because I define poor people as lazy and lack the ability to make money. There is a difference in poor and broke, and broke is temporary. We don’t really have a budget or spending plan as some people call them, so after the important bills and such are paid the remaining is used for the day to day. Eating out and clothing seem to be trending as our largest monthly expenses. I’m also finding it highly frustrating that I make a large amount of effort to stay on top of the money.

A friend of mine actually suggested to stop doing everything and let her take it over. I could do this but I cannot say that I would put it out of mind and would be keeping tabs that everything got properly paid for the month. The last thing I need is a bunch of people calling us because they show we did not pay a bill. What I really want to do is for us to work together when it comes to paying the bills and staying on top of the money. She can see what comes in and what goes out, and what little is left if any.

My wife suggested doing separate checking accounts which would split the money to my money and her money, no longer our money. I don’t agree with this because the common household expenses and bills would have to be split based on the income levels between us to make it fair. This almost reduces us to a roommate status living in the house together. The other things like taxes would also be separate on top of that. I am avoiding doing this like the plague.

I’ve taken on a lot more work lately and could very well possible be getting promoted which also comes with a pay increase. It would be nice to utilize extra pay and bonuses wisely in order to pay off debt faster. The problem that always comes up with lump sums of money is my wife almost mentally spends it before it hits the bank. I don’t seem to have much of any control over the extra money, which bothers me. Obviously this cannot continue because it isn’t working for either of us.

Please don’t bother mentioning marriage counseling because it is very expensive for a Dr. Phil to tell us we have a communication problem. I am fully aware of the problem it is more how we can solve it and work together. It’s difficult to keep putting myself on the line wanting to work with her, and she just tells me to keep doing what we’re doing. For the next month I would like us to do a spending activity where we will track every cent we spend every day for a month and identifying if it is a need or a want. At the end of the month we will see what is happening with the spending patterns. I would like to develop a spending plan or budget that we could actually follow, but it hard to solve the problem unless there is evidence of a problem.

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College is a wonderful thing to go through before going full force into the real world. The issue with a college degree is it never guarantees income. I knew exactly what I wanted to do at the end of high school and went to college to help open the employment doors for me. There are a lot of things I learned in college far beyond what the degree is worth. When you’re done and have that paper in hand, it doesn’t mean you’ll get a job either.

My wife wasn’t sure what she wanted to do in college and switched paths a few times. Then after she graduated there was an opportunity for her to do an internship. Based on the field she was going into, I thought this was a good idea, except it didn’t pay anything. I got a job right out of school and made plenty of income to support the both of us, so it wasn’t a huge problem. After the internship was over, she was not interested in doing that as a career for various reasons. Great, so now what do you want to do with your life?

She ended up getting into a graduate school program in the education field to become a teacher. I was not really involved much in her going to graduate school to pursue this, but I wanted her to find something she would enjoy doing. Now that things are getting to the end of the rope, the amount of student loan debt scares me.

I didn’t know how much exactly she was borrowing, and as it turns out it’s quite a bit. When doctors and lawyers have to take out massive loans, most of the time they can eventually reach an income that will let them manage it. My wife will not be making a huge income, at the most half of what she borrowed, which would make it very difficult to pay off her student loans. Since we are married, income and debt is combined, so we will be paying off these for hopefully only several years. My focus regarding paying off debt is to try and get rid of the credit card debt completely. Once we no longer have those credit card payments to deal with, it will free up extra money to pay down student loans. It will be nice when she gets a salary so we can focus on a mutual goal together.

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I have been pretty upset with my wife since last night. She is going to be student teaching soon and has some time off until the school year starts. This week she has gone out shopping for clothes and setting things up for school every day. Our ‘budget’ has some room for her to be able to spend some money on clothes, but what happens when it’s gone? That is where the fighting started.

She came home with a few more bags then I had expected. At first I brushed it off because I just didn’t want to know what she spent on all this stuff. Later that night she modeled the various things she bought and I tried to keep my cool. Then the ultimate question came up: how much did all this cost? She told me not to worry about it which confused me at first, then she told me she opened a new credit card and charged about $250 on it. It feels every effort I make to pay off debt is shifted into a new debt.

This is when it got interesting because she told me that when she is done with student teaching and gets her job, she wants her own checking account to handle her money. I told her it is a good thing I’m not that selfish with my income in that I consider it both of ours since it pays the mortgage, bills, and general cost of living. It’s not like this stuff is invisible either because I show her the exact amounts of what all this stuff costs and the extra at the bottom is the only wiggle room we have. Its not that we don’t have enough money, there’s just not enough extra for her anymore.

It always seems like a simple solution is when there isn’t enough money for lifestyle, instead of cutting lifestyle for a period of time, try to make more money so the standard of living doesn’t change. We are effectively going nowhere quickly because any progress is balanced out by overspending. I’m also being compared to our friend who is in the banking industry and recently was promoted to a VP at the age of 25 (same age as me) and got a huge pay increase from his already large salary, which I’m not sure what to think about that. My wife wants me to keep pushing for promotions and pay increases and my response is always the same, it all takes time. It is starting to depress me when I’m trying so hard to make our lives better and she only sees success as job title and salary. She still doesn’t know for sure if teaching is what she wants to do for a career. I don’t know what to do anymore but things are really ugly right now.

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