One of the top reasons for getting a divorce in the United States is fights over money. My Forever and I didn’t have pre-marital counseling. We had one session I guess, but can’t remember anything that was covered. Then we switched ministers right before the wedding and didn’t do anything else with our new minister. So while there is a lot of things that probably should have been discussed in those sessions, so far we’re doing pretty great. We’ve fought about a lot of things, trust me, but money has never really been one of those. My Forever bought the house and land before we were married. So we had a lot of debt when we got married. I wasn’t okay with it. (There were a lot of zeros involved and our income wasn’t that big!) We both decided that we wanted to get out of debt as fast as possible. We set about doing that. And now can say we’re happily debt free!
Our best financial tips:
HAVE A GOAL
Have a goal. We have big goals in life that take money. While it’s such a silly concept that so many of us hate what we’re doing and spending literally years of our life doing it just to get paper with green ink on it, that’s the way we function in society today. Cash is still king. We like Dave Ramsey and follow (mostly) what he teaches. We customize our own plan, but the concept is similar. Without debt (someone else taking all your paycheck through payments), we have the ability to become wealthy by investing and keeping our own money. Without a big enough why, nothing gets done. You have to know why you’re doing what you’re doing in order to do anything in life. Don’t just think it in your brain, put it on paper and put it somewhere you see if EVERY SINGLE DAY! Life will continue happening to you if you choose to not make life happen your way.
BUDGET
Budgeting. This is HUGE in Dave’s approach. To be 100% honest with you all, as I’ve promised we will be, we haven’t done a budget and stuck with it ever. Matt and I are super frugal. Our shopping consists of grocery and essentials shopping. We’re redoing our kitchen, ourselves and spent entirely too long picking out a sink. I wanted the one that cost about $100 more than the one he wanted and we, mostly I, had to justify that it’s okay to spend a little more in the position we are financially. Plus, this is going to happen like once in the next 20 years. We went with the more expensive one. It’s still in the box. It might become an antique in the box at the rate we’re going. (Kitchen remodel was going great until we hit summer, now it will wait until winter, and now that we’re almost through winter again, it will wait until next winter). This year, I did start doing a retro active spending analysis. Each month I go through our expenses so we know exactly where we spent money and how much. It takes time, but it really opened my eyes even though we don’t spend a ton. I see those things on paper and think about how I can get to my goals faster and think about whether I really need what I’ve bought.
BE ON BOARD WITH YOUR SPOUSE
Last thing I will recommend is being on board with your spouse. If you’re not married, find an accountability partner and stick with it! Nobody wants to fight about finances. Nobody needs more stress in their life. Don’t let finances be a negative thing in your life. We all want the freedom to do what we want in life and money normally gets us to the point we can do whatever that is. Find that person that is going to hold you “to the fire”. Obviously, if you’re married, your spouse is that person. If you’re not, don’t pick the person that is going to go easy on you and say it’s okay to get Starbucks 5 days a week when you’re trying to get out of debt. You want someone that cares enough about you and your goals to say, NO! On the same hand, you want someone that is going to acknowledge and congratulate you on your accomplished milestones!
Find a system that works for you! Need more help? We would be willing to help coach you and make your finances a happy place in your life and not a more stressful one. More to come on finances in the future since they are SO important to everything we do! Take one step today and decide on the why. Once you have decided that, you won’t be stopped because that why will be WAY too important to quit on. If you can quit on it, you don’t have the right one.
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~Matt & Kelsey