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Morning Zimbo....a thug hummingbird huh? I'm guessing a stern discussion about acceptance and sharing is out....
So far so good here. I'm putting off going out in the yard - I have some mulch that has been sitting in bags on the side of the house for about a month now. I need to put down some landscape fabric first though. I keep putting it off but I know it will make my life easier once it's done.
DD comes home tonight. Not sure when she'll head back to school. This week sometime. Probably depends on her doctor appt situation and results of all of those. We have to choose a night to all go out to dinner celebrating birthdays - our birthdays are all pretty close together so we choose on night when we're all home and go out somewhere we don't typically go. We'll need to do that before she goes back. She'll be 21 and DS will be 18. Nevermind how old DH and I will be..LOL...
Which reminds me - didn't Mattie say it was her birthday today? Happy Birthday Mattie!
Hi MM - have fun with everyone home. One birthday celebration sounds nice. My sister and I have birthdays a week apart, and we like to do that too. Although her birthday is on New Year's Eve, how lucky to ALWAYS have a party to go to on your birthday!
We should be gardening too. We haven't had rain in forever, so watering is as much as I can do for now. DH planted like crazy in the spring = more work .
Hi MM - have fun with everyone home. One birthday celebration sounds nice. My sister and I have birthdays a week apart, and we like to do that too. Although her birthday is on New Year's Eve, how lucky to ALWAYS have a party to go to on your birthday!
We should be gardening too. We haven't had rain in forever, so watering is as much as I can do for now. DH planted like crazy in the spring = more work .
Yes - 3 of us have birthday's within one week and then DH's birthday is about 1 month later. We've done the out to dinner one night for several years now - DD is away at college for her birthday so this is a way for all of us to celebrate. We're pretty low-key on birthdays anyway. I will usually make someone's favorite meal at home for their actual birthday.
Aconite - I too am ready for fall. It has been a hot summer and I'm over it. Even at night, which usually cools off pretty nicely around here, it has only cooled off about 1/2 the time. I'm not much of a summertime person anyway. Fall is my favorite weather pretty much anywhere I've lived. Nothing beats a beautiful, crisp fall day with a lovely blue sky. Ahhh.....
How many of you CD mom's who rock manage the money?
I've been doing this for most of my marriage. No major problems.
But it annoys me when men (not just hubby but any man I've ever lived with) acts like there should be money.
Case in point:
Hubby checks my breaks today and informs me that I need pads, rotors and some calibrator. Sounds expensive to me. I tell him to just put it back together and we'll do it in two weeks. He tells me that he can do that but I can't drive because I have no breaks.
So I ask how much it will cost. (I need to figure out if it's worthy of not having a car for two weeks.) He says he doesn't know. I ask him to get me pricing, I can't make a decision without pricing. He asks, why don't we have money. I say because we have bills to pay. He asks what needs paid. I say let me wake up first. (The man woke me up and expects me to have an intelligent conversation! LOL)
He calls to price parts and it's 170 for everything with the most expensive, better pads. I say okay, since it's under 200, fine.
Even though that's settled, I think it's important for him to understand the finances. I get a calendar to answer his earlier question about what needs to be paid.
I show him that we won't have more money until next week. (I haven't received a check for 6 weeks, it will be 8 weeks when they come---2 months worth are coming all at once next week.) Not this coming week, next week, almost two weeks from now. His next check comes the same week.
Then I list off all of the bills that need to be paid this coming week. He's not upset or anything but looking at me like I'm from another planet. So I tell him that I'm writing up the family budget and I'm going to put it on the huge white board hanging in our kitchen so EVERYONE always knows where we stand.
I'm not hiding anything. Geeze. Sounds like we had a fight. We didn't. It's not really a big deal. I just hate when people expect there to be money when there isn't money. (This isn't my first relationship being the one who handles the money so I've been there, done that a few times.)
Through our 20 years together, we've tried all sorts of arrangements. We started out with separate accounts and responsibilities for the first year. Then we went with joint accounts and he paid the bills for about 2 years but got stressed out. For the rest of our marriage, I've handled the bills, except for the year or two where we sat down and did bills together each month. It seems to work best when I handle the bills. Mind you, he's the most responsible financially---it's not like he makes a mess of it or anything. He just gets stressed out so it's better for all involved if I do it.
I guess I'm ranting because I realize we need to change things again. It was easy for him to be in the dark all of those years because there was plenty of money for him whenever he wanted it. But money is going to be tighter now. I figure the best solution is to put the family budget in plain sight.
How do you guys handle finances in your marriage? I'm looking for ideas. Hubby is great about any arrangement. It's just time for a new deal because our finances are going to be tighter than usual in a few months when my unemployment runs out and I'm still in school. We make plenty to get by on his income, but we will have to stick to a strict budget while I'm still in school..
Hopes- I am in the same situation. I have always handled the finances (again, not just DH, but with all men). It is mostly because I am just better at it. DH is not much of a planner. He sees that there is money in the bank and thinks that we are ok. He can't see that we have a bunch of bills coming out of that money in the next couple of weeks. I have tried showing him. I have tried letting him handle the money (he gets too stressed). None of it seems to click with him. I created a calendar. It is an actual calendar so it is more visual for him. I put on the calendar the days and amounts of each bill (estimated for things like power). I also put our pay checks on it. Under each entry, I put a subtotal of what our account will be after each bill comes out. That way he can see that even though we get paid on Friday and we will have (using example numbers here) $2,000 in the account, we have $1500 coming out this week and then we get paid again, but the following week, that extra $500 will be used for those bills. Which will bring us down to $0 even after we get another check.
I don't know if this makes any sense. The important key is to have a subtotal under every day so that they can see that even though we have extra this week, we will be using it next week. If you want, I can try to make a sample dummy calendar to show you.
It is hard and very stressful to be the money manager. Especially when DH is out of the loop on it.
All of the empty nest talk is making me sad! I have a long ways to go before we get there, but my heart goes out to all of you undergoing the bittersweet grown-up kids stage!
I am also envious of anyone with sun right now - we have 9 days of thunderstorms in the forecast - two days in and I'm already going stir-crazy!
Zim: I envy your adventures!! Your next one in the works sounds fun!
Hopes: DH and I started off each managing our own finances and having one account for pooled household expenses, which I managed. After a few moves and lack of sufficient income to support separate accounts, we pooled both incomes with DH handling the auto bill pay accounts and me handling the old-fashioned mail-it-in accounts, with weekly check-ins on finances and consultation before any purchase greater than $100 was made (o we could check on what bills were upcoming and time the purchase properly). Since I left work, I am mostly in charge of all accounts, although we use the same system of weekly check-ins on finances and consultation before any extraneous purchases (including eating out for lunch at work, activities for DS, etc.) since money has been super tight on one income. We both check in on the accounts daily, including if we need to transfer from one account to another. We have been very fortunate this year, as DH earned an awesome (and well-deserved!) promotion that loosens things up for us quite a bit, but we've retained the same system which seems to be working well under the new conditions.
I like the consultation/check-in system because it forces us to operate as a team and forces us both to be aware of our financial condition at all times. It would scare me if I wasn't aware and annoy me if he wasn't! Although, I could see the consultation system feeling nit-picky if that's not someone's style. Not sure that that helps at all. Good luck in working out a new system for you guys - I couldn't agree more that in tight times, new systems are needed. And also, good luck with your brakes - damn cars!!
Hopes- I am in the same situation. I have always handled the finances (again, not just DH, but with all men). It is mostly because I am just better at it. DH is not much of a planner. He sees that there is money in the bank and thinks that we are ok. He can't see that we have a bunch of bills coming out of that money in the next couple of weeks. I have tried showing him. I have tried letting him handle the money (he gets too stressed). None of it seems to click with him. I created a calendar. It is an actual calendar so it is more visual for him. I put on the calendar the days and amounts of each bill (estimated for things like power). I also put our pay checks on it. Under each entry, I put a subtotal of what our account will be after each bill comes out. That way he can see that even though we get paid on Friday and we will have (using example numbers here) $2,000 in the account, we have $1500 coming out this week and then we get paid again, but the following week, that extra $500 will be used for those bills. Which will bring us down to $0 even after we get another check.
I don't know if this makes any sense. The important key is to have a subtotal under every day so that they can see that even though we have extra this week, we will be using it next week. If you want, I can try to make a sample dummy calendar to show you.
It is hard and very stressful to be the money manager. Especially when DH is out of the loop on it.
Thanks for sharing your ideas, num1. I like the calendar idea. I'm planning to do a full budget spreadsheet like a check register with a running balance in the right far hand column. Maybe I'll do both---my budget spreadsheet and the calendar too.
Fortunately, the budget negotiations, which are usually the big hurdle, shouldn't be a problem. In the past, hubby always wanted to cut back on the expenses that mattered the most to others. (We all have different things that are most important to us---TV for him, cel phone for me, internet for DS, etc.) He has acknowledged that everyone needs to cut back, even him. Our BIGGEST expense is our daily spending. We're very wasteful. He's starting to realize that.
Hopes: DH and I started off each managing our own finances and having one account for pooled household expenses, which I managed. After a few moves and lack of sufficient income to support separate accounts, we pooled both incomes with DH handling the auto bill pay accounts and me handling the old-fashioned mail-it-in accounts, with weekly check-ins on finances and consultation before any purchase greater than $100 was made (o we could check on what bills were upcoming and time the purchase properly). Since I left work, I am mostly in charge of all accounts, although we use the same system of weekly check-ins on finances and consultation before any extraneous purchases (including eating out for lunch at work, activities for DS, etc.) since money has been super tight on one income. We both check in on the accounts daily, including if we need to transfer from one account to another. We have been very fortunate this year, as DH earned an awesome (and well-deserved!) promotion that loosens things up for us quite a bit, but we've retained the same system which seems to be working well under the new conditions.
I like the consultation/check-in system because it forces us to operate as a team and forces us both to be aware of our financial condition at all times. It would scare me if I wasn't aware and annoy me if he wasn't! Although, I could see the consultation system feeling nit-picky if that's not someone's style. Not sure that that helps at all. Good luck in working out a new system for you guys - I couldn't agree more that in tight times, new systems are needed. And also, good luck with your brakes - damn cars!!
Thanks for sharing! You're right, we need to have regularly scheduled meetings during lean times. I think I'll add something similar to when we used to pay bills together----we'll sit down at the table once a week, every Sunday, and go over the past week and the upcoming week.
My budget is very detailed, right down to hubby's weekly golfing, which doesn't cost much so he doesn't need to stop golfing. (He finally has time to golf for the first time in many years so I don't want to take that away from him.)
Also, I was thinking to going back to an old fashioned allowance system, where we both have X amount of money each week, and if we spend it we know that's it until the following week.
I guess I need to incorporate many different systems and styles so we can stay on top of things. I won't be able to go back to work until next summer, but my unemployment runs out in October.
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