When my husband and I got married, neither one of us had ever lived on our own. Although we were both working and earning money, we both still lived with our parents. Both of us came form totally different financial backgrounds. I came from a family that was constantly in debt, but always made it through. When my parents wanted something they just charged it, when they wanted a new vehicle they just bought it. That's is just how things worked. Both my parents worked, my father made good money and my mom worked in the home running her own beauty salon. Growing up we were not spoiled children, we knew how to work for things we wanted. From the time I was 14 I was working. When I got my drivers license, the deal was that I would work to pay for the insurance on my car, my parents paid for the car. So I got a job, I really didn't mind it, because when I wanted to go to a movie with fiends or out to eat, I didn't have to ask my parents for money I could just go. When I wanted new clothes, I could just buy them. It was a great sense of freedom and independence! So going into marriage, I didn't have any debt, no student loans or anything.
My husband grew up in a family was very careful with their money. They paid cash for cars, they drove those cars until they literally fell into the ground! Both his parents worked, his mom was a surgical nurse making good money and his dad worked in a retail store. My husband was basically an only child who got pretty much anything he ever wanted. He wasn't spoiled and rotten but he also didn't have siblings around to share with. He never had chores to do and was never expected to do much work around the house. He also came into our marriage with zero debt, no student loans, and a car that was paid for.
So where did we go wrong?? That is an excellent question! We began our married life with me working at a day care center, and my husband was an office manager at a local christian camp. We were required to raise support for that job. We were doing really well, living in a little cheap apartment. I think our problems came when after a year my husband stopped working at the camp and took up any kind of work he could find. So we went from a two income family, to basically a minimum wage income. We also had zero knowledge of budgeting or anything like that. We paid our bills and spent the rest! Not a good idea!!
Next time I will talk about where having no budget took us from bad to worse!
For the rest of this series check out these posts:
1) Debt Free Living Part 2
2) Living on a Dental Floss Budget: You know the One that is Smaller than a Shoe string!
No comments:
Post a Comment