Money and Marriage Can Work
Money and Marriage it can work! I know it may seem daunting at first but combining finances and getting out of debt is possible. I wanted to share some of our money story and I hope that it encourages you if you are on a debt-free journey!
Some years ago My husband and I decided to pay down our debt. I was working from home and managing our finances. I had such a strong desire to not have anything hanging over our heads.
Since we would be living off [mostly] one income we had to find creative ways to save money. This was our first encounter concerning money and marriage.
Since we would be living off one income we had to find creative ways to save money.
I started doing some coupon deals, and meal deals that were cheaper. We also stopped eating out as frequently because that really added up.
*This post has been updated 2021
Money and Marriage: Financial Burdens
We didn’t have any astronomical bills, but we certainly had some financial burdens. In the past, I would get a free annual credit report, and you can get one as well, it’s free to get your Credit Report from all Credit Bureaus once a year.
In order to see where we stood financially, we decided to get individual credit reports. As far as debt goes I had some old medical bills that I didn’t even realize I had. We also found some things on my Husband’s credit that we weren’t aware of.
I printed out all our credit reports from each Bureau and went to work contacting the numbers associated with each debt.
Printing our credit reports and seeing them in black and white brought a sense of reality. We looked through the report and started contacting companies one at a time.
After I contacted one of the companies, I found that we could “settle” an overdue account for about 1/3 of what was owed.
Without my Husband’s knowledge, I agreed to send in a lump sum. I thought since I was managing the finances I was doing the right thing.
The settlement would be for slightly over $800, I told my husband and it was not an easy discussion to have.
My assumption was that I was “helping” and my husband would be thrilled that I was making this arrangement. I didn’t pay anything without speaking to him but I did make the arrangement.
Looking back I should not have done that without speaking to him first!
Money and Marriage: Don’t point fingers at each other
If I could give any advice it would be, don’t point fingers at each other. Neither of us was perfect according to our credit reports. Most importantly we didn’t point fingers. We put our heads together and came to the agreement that we would pay it and work with the money we had left.
We were able to “settle” that bill. I will not lie it was a super hard conversation to have at the time.
We dated in the past so we were not strangers to each other. But, it’s completely different when your finances are involved and combined.
We didn’t actually agree to pay that settlement amount [during our first conversation]. We had to have several conversations about it before we [actually] sent that payment in.
I was so nervous, that’s an understatement, I freaked out for a while.
I thought, what if this Collection agent guy isn’t legit?
What if this company is a farce?
What if I’m about to make a huge financial mistake that’s going to affect our household and my brand-spanking-new marriage?!
I was a nervous wreck sending in that payment! However, I did some research on the company. Since it was on the credit report I was able to verify they did in fact have the debt.
I even called the original lender to see [to] who they sold the delinquent debt.
We were beyond relieved to get that debt off our backs, and not having to pay the full amount was a Blessing!
The next step was to begin calling around and setting up payment plans with our medical debts.
Money and Marriage: Paying down debt
I learned that if you agree to pay the bare minimum it puts you in less of a financial strain.
Agreeing to pay $20 per month to a Debt meant the company couldn’t hold you to more.
Not getting in over your head and agreeing to the smallest payment amount is key.
This kept us from being in over our heads with what we “agreed” to pay the collectors.
If we could pay more that’s what we did.
We gained a bit of momentum with paying things off and I believe it helped our marriage. It set the tone for conquering something together!
It wasn’t
Style and Stewardshiphis debt, ormy debt, it was our debt. Because we were in this marriage thing together.
It would have started out very differently if I still had the mentality that I did before we got married.
When we were just dating it was “my money,” and he had “his money.” The fact that I was not working shifted something within me. It caused me to look at what I was bringing to the table that was not monetary.
Working “in” the house was what I was doing now and Managing Our Money.
Money and Marriage: Two Become One
We both brought, what I call financial baggage to the table. There was no separating our finances or sweeping them under the rug. Leaning on our individual strengths was vital in our relationship.
This was not something that either of us had many examples to learn from. I know God really led us in the way we handled this learning, and stewardship experience.
It was hard, and it was not cupcakes and roses to manage our money well…. together. Having hard conversations about money from jump-street was such a pivotal first step in our relationship.
Since we had to be transparent and chose to be in the very beginning, finances are not a super tough subject for us.
I know married people that have completely separate bank accounts. Some don’t even know how much the other person makes.
They split bills down the middle and make secret credit card purchases the other person isn’t even aware of.
I mean that has got to be extremely exhausting and hard to deal with.
I don’t condemn anyone for doing things that way. We all have a different way of handling money, and many of us have baggage.
Whether from our family or other areas we learned how to deal with finances.
Regardless of where we learn our money habits, we carry that into our marriage.
Our Experiences
I’m not a money expert or a relationship expert. If things had started differently with my Hubs and me, I may not even be writing this post. Who knows?
I write this to share our experience with money and how it has affected our household. Things have changed even more since those days (10 years ago) (12 years ago as of 2021).
We have taken those same principles and learned even more.
Our way of managing finances has shifted to a greater degree since becoming parents. We know that now it’s about making sure our little one sees a different picture and example than we saw.
We want to talk about money in front of our child and teach him how to manage it at a young age.
Having some people in our community that have similar financial, and familial goals helps.
We know the word legacy means different things to everyone. Personally, we consider it to be more than finances because it affects so many other areas of life.
It’s important for us to plant the right seeds of how to steward finances to our children so they have the tools to use, and pass them down is important to us.
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Managing Money and Marriage: Stewardship of finances
Stewardship of finances is just like any other area and we want to manage well.
It takes time, learning to use new tools, and intentional effort. You won’t be perfect, and there is a learning curve.
Because none of us knows what tomorrow will bring, there may be bumps in your plans. Remember there is Grace and one intentional step at a time.
As we were able to pay more and more things off we felt more and more Freedom.
We started hearing of different resources. My mother told me about Financial Peace University and gave my Husband a small book in his stocking one year for Christmas by Dave Ramsey.
The momentum continued and we got even more serious about managing our money since he works in an ever-changing field.
I went back to work for a while and I was selling handcrafted jewelry online and I still do.
We had times of lay-offs and because we didn’t have any major consumer debt those lay-offs were not as bad as they could have been.
Something changed when we heard about the Financial Peace program. It motivated us to finally have a blueprint and a system.
We wanted to know how to have a bit more financial security. We began by printing the “baby steps” offline and began there.
Our Brother and Sister-in-law hosted the program at their home to a few married couples.
My husband and I gained so much clarity, and encouragement. Our momentum from getting all the information from that DVD curriculum made such a difference.
The community around the program really helped. Those were some of the best and logical tools we had ever heard. So, we dove right in and we were Both on board.
Money and Marriage: Budgeting is not a bad word!
I had always heard the word Budget and I thought it was a bad word. The word budget equated to poor in my mind. I’m not even sure how I got that notion.
Honestly, I had never heard the word used in a context that didn’t also include a sense of poverty or lack.
Creating a budget together was a weird transition. Neither of us had ever done one up until this point. Well, we didn’t do one the right way.
Being naive as to what a budget [actually] was, we assumed that whatever was left over after we paid our bills, home, food, and gas was free money.
That’s not even a joke, that’s how we approached money.
We were “adults” and in our minds, we could buy as many new things as we wanted.
As long as it was in cash and not on credit we thought, we were doing an awesome job with our spending, to be honest! I laugh at that now and how wasteful that was.
Needing Financial Security: Establishing an Emergency Fund
When my husband went back to work establishing an Emergency Fund became paramount. We had to go out of town for this new job and that brought a new motivation. It was almost like the perfect storm to get us 100% on board.
The feeling of falling without a parachute was looming. My husband’s career is in an ever-changing field.
We wanted security, “financial peace,” and the freedom of not having to take any job that was available.
An “available” job in his career field could mean re-locating on a whim. We have done that in the past!
After we began the Financial Peace program one of the first things we realized was that we were [actually] NOT budgeting at all.
We grew up seeing people live check-to-check and that’s what you believe to be normal.
Learning how to budget: having a zero-based budget
Having a zero-based budget was not a term that either of us had ever heard. We learned to apply this budgeting approach and it really changed things for us.
Utilizing this particular budget meant being accountable for every dollar. It required planning how we were going to allocate all income, down to the last dollar.
Categories on the budget included saving for emergencies per the baby steps. The first baby step included having a category for an Emergency Fund that you built up every month.
This budget helped us create the habit of saving for a rainy day, as opposed to scrambling for shelter when a financial storm came.
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It made complete sense! We were already of the mindset of managing our finances well, this really accelerated our process.
But…Now we had a plan!
With combined forces and a plan, you can really push through the debt!
Money Baggage: Money and Marriage
Growing up we all have different experiences and some of us have money baggage.
My husband and I are no different. Feeling like you worked hard for something you sometimes want instant gratification.
We had some things to prove to ourselves that was not conducive to saving money as working adults.
Things were different when we were single.
It’s crazy now to think of how we spent our money.
Making purchases like an entirely new outfit because it was Friday was totally fine. Priorities, priorities.
We counted on the next paycheck and spent it [in our minds] before payday even came. I think many people do this and it’s what makes consumer credit so attractive.
Paying bills was an area that we weren’t that intentional about. It wasn’t uncommon for us to pay a bill the day of, or after it was due. These are just a few examples and not by any means an exhaustive list. We made some mistakes for sure that I didn’t list!
Money and Marriage: Money Mindset Shift
Money and Marriage don’t have to be oil and water. We had to work together and learn to be on the same page.
Our mindset with money really started to shift years before finding an official plan to follow.
When we first began our Financial Managing Journey the first thing we did was get rid of unnecessary bills.
This is before we had any plans or budgets in place. I would encourage you to start with getting rid of unnecessary bills.
My radar was on for any area that we could save more money. We began to look for other areas to save, and cutting contracts was on the chopping block.
Sometimes initial “costs” come up when trying to save money. This was the case in one scenario in particular.
I can still remember trying to get out of a Contract with a Satellite TV provider. We had to pay them to part ways! The Cable provider in our area didn’t require a contract at all.
That experience helped us come to the decision that we didn’t want to be locked into any contracts in the future.
We left our cellphone service carrier when our cellphone contracts came to an end. We purchased basic phones and went with a No-Contract service.
Get creative about saving money
A new device came out called Roku and we decided to try this new streaming player. Paying $50.00 for the device and using our new Cable service router and internet was a Major saving.
We still stick to the philosophy of avoiding contracts 10 [now 12] years later.
We realized that It wasn’t necessary to be glued to a contract for cellphone service either.
By utilizing the Roku streaming device and Wireless internet we realized we didn’t need the Cable package either.
It is truly amazing how much we saved just the first year of getting our Entertainment and Cell service this way. There is a price with everything even with saving money.
Sometimes your priorities shift, and you think out of the box a little.
Saving money is like working a muscle. That muscle gets stronger over time.
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It will be so natural to Not spend unnecessary money on Entertainment after you get used to doing things differently
Money and Marriage: How we work together
We learned to really work together, and it didn’t happen overnight. By far the greatest concept we learned from doing the Financial Peace University Plan was not just working together. FPU gave us a plan, and that plan helped us see that we had a common goal for our family.
We use the Every Dollar app (which is free) on our phones. Using the App helped us stay on the same page with our spending, literally.
At the end of each month, we planned for the next. Typically we would discuss what the budget needed to have in place.
Any purchases that needed to be made, were added and accounted for. We no longer waited until the last minute to figure out what we were doing with our income.
Budgeting gets easier after the first few months and the Every Dollar App helped us.
The App is a great tool. It keeps us Accountable for our goals, spending, and family vision.
We are so thankful to be in the position that we are in now!
We are thankful for the mindset we have!
Our Journey was not an overnight process.
It would not be possible without God’s Grace, especially through the beginning of this journey.
I want to encourage anyone out there to not be afraid to talk about money with your Spouse. I truly believe when you plan together it is so much more than finances.
We believe It’s about Legacy, the vision you have for your family, and Stewarding what you have in the best way….Together!! It’s possible with God’s grace one day at a time, and one intentional step after the other.
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