Julie Gumm - Author, Speaker, CliftonStrengths Coach

Joining Financial Baggage

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Part 2 of Financial Freedom Friday (Read Part 1)

One of the hardest things about marriage is arguably meshing two different money styles and two different financial backgrounds.

I came from a very rigid financial family – my dad is a spreadsheet guy (well back then he was a green ledger sheet guy) who tracked every penny. There was never a lot of extra money but we had what we needed and my parents put all of us kids through Christian schools and through college.

We drove cars until they died (one was 17 years old when my brother finally totaled it), rarely ate out and never got really expensive gifts.

Despite this upbringing I will be the first to admit that I am more of a spender than a saver. I got my first job at 15 working at Burger King, and held down a job consistently on into adulthood. My jobs only served to support my shopping and social habits. Sure, my senior year I saved up some money for college but I didn’t really have a savings goal or any big motivation.

Mark grew up in similar financial circumstances but from a much less structured system. So he had even less experience with living on a budget.

All of this contributed to our disjointed system – well it wasn’t even really a system. We could make a budget, sure, but had trouble sticking to it and soon found it wasn’t working and would give up for awhile.

We’d have what we call “The Visa War”. I would get the Visa bill, open it, keel over in shock from the balance and then begin to vehemently highlight everything on the bill that Mark had charged. I would total it all up and march into the office and declare something like “Did you know you charged $457 this month?!”

Yeah, it wasn’t pretty. I am not proud.

Because usually the unhighlighted expenses (mine) were nearly that if not more J

It took us nearly 7 years of marriage before we finally got our act together.

Next Week: Driving Our Debt Around

The Early Years: In Love and In Debt

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Part 1 of Financial Freedom Friday

As high school sweethearts, Mark and I had dated for four years by the time we got married in 1993. We still had a year and a half of college left at the time but had a budget and a plan to live off of our scholarships, ROTC money and part time jobs.

Our housing was paid for with scholarships and we had about $450 a month to cover food, utilities, gas, insurance, etc. We ate a lot of Mac N Cheese and Hamburger Helper in those months but it was a pretty carefree life.

Not long after we’d been married we decided we “needed” a newer car. We put together some wedding money and crunched numbers and decided we could afford the $156 car payment. I think we actually covered part of the down payment with student loan money (ugh!).

As we finished up college there were of course “unexpected” expenses and by the time we graduated we had a couple thousand dollars worth of credit card debt, and the car debt.

Shortly before graduation the Army offered ROTC graduates a “wonderful” deal on a new car – 6 months of no payments and a low interest rate loan. Since we’d need two vehicles Mark went out and found a truck. Because if you’re going to live in Texas you need a truck, right?

It was a nice feeling to leave for Texas with at least one guaranteed job and a known salary. For a couple used to living on $450 a month we were looking forward to having a real income.

Unfortunately we didn’t really take the time to make a plan for what to do with that money.

The first six months of our new life seemed to include plenty of disagreements about the money, surprise $175 long distance phone bills (long before the days of free cellular long distance), and disorganized bill payment system.

But that didn’t deter us from making the leap to homeowners. The housing market in San Antonio was such that we quickly realized we could buy a house with a mortgage payment about the same as our rent. So we quickly added a $69,000 VHA (no money down) loan to our debt portfolio.

And of course a house needs furniture right? Where do you think the money came for that? Yep, good old Visa.

In the midst of all this it’s not like we were living in denial. Neither one of us liked the debt and we did try to shop wisely but the cycle just perpetuated every month.

Next Week: The Early Years: Joining Financial Baggage

Financial Freedom

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I Met Dave!

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