Shelle Edit: I love NOTHING better than for people who have written on here to do follow up posts about how things are going now. What differences they made in their relationship. What things have changed. What can we learn. Thank Alex for doing just that!
Money. I hate money. Money causes so many problems and yet we, as a society, desperately need money. We need it for food, transportation, gas for that transportation, clothes, shelter, everything within that shelter that makes it a Home, and don’t forget all the things we want but don’t necessarily need.
In July 2010, I wrote a guest posts for In the Real World; Venus vs. Mars about money, the issues they can cause and taking responsibility for our debt. I wrote about how it took all of three months to get thousands of dollars into debt and several more months before I knew what was going on (and we had fallen even more in debt), which meant we were now coming to a point of very little hope. It took us just over a year to pull ourselves out of that debt, but we did it and we can say that we are debt free.
Debt is a vicious cycle, especially when it comes to bills such as phone, cable, electricity, etc. When you’re already three months behind on all your bills, things start to get shut off. You start to catch up on one bill, only to have another fall even farther behind. It’s hard to pull yourself out of the loop. But it’s entirely possible. It takes time, effort, determination, honesty, openness, embarrassment, and a whole lot of planning.
It’s been 24 weeks since that post in July 2010 (I’m writing this on January 6th 2011). A lot has happened in those 24 weeks.
A few months prior to writing the post, we found out our best friends were getting married in the Dominican Republic. It was going to cost us $3,500 CAD for the two of us to go. We officially paid off our trip before December 28th 2010. We never left ourselves short each week, though there were a couple of weeks where we were tight.
One of the agreements that my husband had with his boss was that their company would pay for our car. They’ve done this since 2006. Things are still really hard at his work and they were unable to continue paying for our car. We’ve suffered a $500/month pay cut. But guess what? Because of our debt free situation, because of our budgeting and planning, we’re able to pay for our own car! We wouldn’t have been able to do this before and it’s a huge accomplishment. Do I hope my husband’s work picks up and they can go back to paying our car payments? Well yeah! I’d love to have that $160/biweekly (we now own a car and not a van – much cheaper) for our savings account!
We’ve also found that being honest with family and friends (you know, the real friends that you have) has helped a lot. They all know that we don’t have a ton of extra money kicking around and are all understanding. My best friend comes here instead of me going there (we live an hour apart). My family has chipped in for gas money when they’ve wanted us there or have covered dinner for us if we come during the evening. Or, better yet, they’ve come here to visit (again, we live an hour apart).
I’ve even found that we’ve been able to treat ourselves to some things. I was able to get another tattoo done and have almost completed my back artwork. And by signing up for WagJag.com, we’ve been able to have a family trip to see some amazing reptiles for a whole hell of a lot cheaper (normal cost would be $80 and we only spent $35!).
This road hasn’t always been easy though. There has been a few times where dinner consisted of sandwiches or cereal. Those are usually the weeks where it seems like everything is due the same time. But this is reality. We’re not living in a dream world anymore.
We still stick to our budget, which I write up three months in advance consisting of every single bill, expenses (ie: Hair cuts, presents for birthdays/showers, etc) and money to put aside into the savings account. We’ve made Life work without a ton of money. Christmas was great despite not being rich! Racer and Diva received two presents each under the tree, two joint presents (games/puzzles) and stocking stuffers. They loved it and weren’t overwhelmed. They also didn’t receive a ton of things they didn’t need and things that would just take up space. Diva’s birthday was just a week after Christmas, and again, she received three presents from us, one of which I won on a Blog Giveaway and she couldn’t have been happier!
I contacted Shelle with the idea of a follow up post to my first one not to brag about getting out of debt and doing well right now. I wanted to write a follow up because I wanted other families who are in debt to know that (a) you CAN get out of debt, (b) you’re not alone, and (c) when you are out of debt, you still need to plan, budget and be realistic.
Remember: Microsoft Excel is your friend when it comes to budgeting. It has saved me and helped me in so many ways. Be honest, open and keep the lines of communication open. Sometimes my husband gets annoyed by my weekly reminders about our budget but he tells me quite often that he appreciates it and he knows that without me stepping in, we’d have been beyond repair financially and emotionally. It’s without a doubt, our marriage would have ended.
And for those of you who remember and are curious; yes I do still believe that because I do not bring any money into our home, it’s none of my business what my husband makes or the state of our finances. However, I know my husband and without my help, we’d end up right back where we were before I stepped in and took control of our money.
Alex
This Thing Called Our Life
This Thing Called Adoption
Showing posts with label Alex. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alex. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, July 19, 2010
Taking responsibility for our Debt
Author’s note: When Shelle first put up the list of topics that she wanted guest contributors for, I thought about taking a chance with them. See, I love writing. I have my own blog; My Life, My Glory. I’ve been blogging for four years. But the thing is, I mainly write for me, myself and I. I don’t write in my blog for everyone else. So I talked myself out of contacting Shelle with my thoughts on one of the topics. What changed my mind? I thought that maybe, just maybe, I might be able to help one person or make one person realize that she or he is not alone. Doing just that makes it worth something.
I have been a wife for four years, a mother for six years and a SAHM for four years. You need to know that I am a little old fashion when it comes to one thing; I believed because I was a SAHM and not bringing in any money in to the home, it was absolutely none of my business what my husband made, how the bills got paid, etc. (Haha, yes, it’s 2010, I know this). This doesn’t mean that’s how I felt about other SAHPs.
Before the economy went down the crapper, we didn’t care much about watching what we spent and when we spent it. My husband is the VP of the company. He makes a great income. He had some debt, but nothing that was extreme and nothing that wasn’t difficult to pay off. Shortly before Christmas 2007, my husband was up for a raise. We were offered a choice; we could either accept the raise on my husband’s paycheque or we could have the company pay some of our bills so that we could pay off the debt we had without pulling us tight in the wallet. Everything went great. We paid off our debts. We had hundreds of extra dollars each week because our bills were taken care of.
The problem starts when the money controller of the company stopped paying our bills without informing us. Apparently, the original plan had been for the company to pay our bills until the debt was caught up. Once the debt was caught up, they would stop paying the bills and would put the raise on our paycheque. This was not what was explained to us. This continued for three months. We were now behind, by three months on all our bills except our mortgage and car payment. Unfortunately, this is also the time when things were getting really bad in the USA. My husband’s company deals mainly with American buyers, despite us being in Canada. So if there were no buyers for the machines that our company made, there was no money coming in. At this point, I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t know that bills hadn’t gotten paid. I didn’t know that my husband was struggling to catch up on bills. I didn’t think to open the letters coming from the insurance company, the electricity company, the gas company, the telephone company or the cable company. Maybe that was my fault in all of this. I didn’t think. I trusted my husband, trusted that he could and would provide for us.
October 2008 rolled around. I was tired of the constant phone calls (even if I did answer them, they couldn’t talk to me because my name wasn’t on the records), tired of signing for letters that arrived in the mail. I finally opened one. I was shocked. I opened the next and the next. I finished opening all of the bills and was in tears. We were so severely in debt that there was little hope. I was furious with my husband for keeping this from me. I was furious that he would allow this to happen (at this point, I didn’t know what had happened). My anger turned into something else though. I began to think about how my husband was perfectly fine financially before me and my son came along. How he only had a credit card debt before we got married and had a second child. I began to feel like this was entirely my fault; that he would have been better off without me coming into his life. I packed a suit case for me and our children. I was going to leave. I know, drastic, but I felt that this was happening because of me and that he didn’t trust me enough to talk to me about it.
I stayed. I stayed and we fought it out. We had never fought before. Oh, we had arguments and disagreements, but we never fought before. We had a full blown screaming match that ended in tears for both of us. I found out everything that happened. I found out that because the economy in the USA hit a low, that people all over the country and even in our country were struggling, his company wasn’t able to give us the raise he was promised, that he earned, that had been given to him and then taken away. So not only had the company stopped paying our bills, but he had to take a huge pay cut on top of owing thousands of dollars.
Something changed. Something inside me changed. Neither of us apologized to the other. I don’t think we needed to. We both knew that we were sorry. I sat down the next day and went through every single bill. I wrote down what we owed to each company, and began to make a budget. I found out approximately $2,000 dollars of the debt wasn’t even ours, but belonged to my FIL and was in my husband’s name!
Fast forward to now, July 2010. My husband is debt free. All of our bills have been paid off. We were lucky. My husband was able to make payment plans with the companies. It took us over a year to get there, but we did. I have a credit card debt that is being paid off, slowly but surely. In March 2011 it will be completely paid off and that is my debt.
So where is the positive in all this?
1. My husband & I are more open about our finances. He now tells me everything, even if I don’t want to know. He tells me NO when I want something but we can’t afford it (yes, this is a positive because before he would say yes and put a bill on hold). He will sit down with me and talk to me if there is a problem, a potential problem or if he wants to make changes in our services.
2. I have taken over the budgeting. I got over my silly beliefs and became involved. I created an Excel spread sheet with every single bill, every single paycheque and every single extra that we ever want to do. I took the step, one I didn’t believe was my right, and took charge of our finances. If I don’t keep on top of things and remind my husband when due dates are, they can and will get forgotten. If they do, it will be OUR fault this time, and not his company’s.
3. Things got really bad. I almost left my husband. I was ready to walk away from him, from our life that we had built and were still building. I stayed and we worked on, compromised on and fixed things.
4. We have a savings plan now, which is something we didn’t have before. Our close friends are getting married in the Dominican Republic in March 2011. We’re able to actually go. I can look at our budget, figure out how much we need to save each paycheque and do it. If we want to go out for dinner, we can. If we want to buy something for the kids, we can. If we want to take a day trip to a zoo, safari, amusement park, we can.
5. We downsized on things we simply don’t need. We dropped down to basic cable and to a basic internet services. We fixed our phone plans so they made more sense. We stopped treating our family and friends to things and “went dutch” more often than not.
6. And the biggest one in my opinion? My husband is officially debt free. I know that some people can say that, but there aren’t that many who can.
How has the economy affected the financial dynamic in your relationship?
* Alex
My life, My Glory
I have been a wife for four years, a mother for six years and a SAHM for four years. You need to know that I am a little old fashion when it comes to one thing; I believed because I was a SAHM and not bringing in any money in to the home, it was absolutely none of my business what my husband made, how the bills got paid, etc. (Haha, yes, it’s 2010, I know this). This doesn’t mean that’s how I felt about other SAHPs.
Before the economy went down the crapper, we didn’t care much about watching what we spent and when we spent it. My husband is the VP of the company. He makes a great income. He had some debt, but nothing that was extreme and nothing that wasn’t difficult to pay off. Shortly before Christmas 2007, my husband was up for a raise. We were offered a choice; we could either accept the raise on my husband’s paycheque or we could have the company pay some of our bills so that we could pay off the debt we had without pulling us tight in the wallet. Everything went great. We paid off our debts. We had hundreds of extra dollars each week because our bills were taken care of.
The problem starts when the money controller of the company stopped paying our bills without informing us. Apparently, the original plan had been for the company to pay our bills until the debt was caught up. Once the debt was caught up, they would stop paying the bills and would put the raise on our paycheque. This was not what was explained to us. This continued for three months. We were now behind, by three months on all our bills except our mortgage and car payment. Unfortunately, this is also the time when things were getting really bad in the USA. My husband’s company deals mainly with American buyers, despite us being in Canada. So if there were no buyers for the machines that our company made, there was no money coming in. At this point, I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t know that bills hadn’t gotten paid. I didn’t know that my husband was struggling to catch up on bills. I didn’t think to open the letters coming from the insurance company, the electricity company, the gas company, the telephone company or the cable company. Maybe that was my fault in all of this. I didn’t think. I trusted my husband, trusted that he could and would provide for us.
October 2008 rolled around. I was tired of the constant phone calls (even if I did answer them, they couldn’t talk to me because my name wasn’t on the records), tired of signing for letters that arrived in the mail. I finally opened one. I was shocked. I opened the next and the next. I finished opening all of the bills and was in tears. We were so severely in debt that there was little hope. I was furious with my husband for keeping this from me. I was furious that he would allow this to happen (at this point, I didn’t know what had happened). My anger turned into something else though. I began to think about how my husband was perfectly fine financially before me and my son came along. How he only had a credit card debt before we got married and had a second child. I began to feel like this was entirely my fault; that he would have been better off without me coming into his life. I packed a suit case for me and our children. I was going to leave. I know, drastic, but I felt that this was happening because of me and that he didn’t trust me enough to talk to me about it.
I stayed. I stayed and we fought it out. We had never fought before. Oh, we had arguments and disagreements, but we never fought before. We had a full blown screaming match that ended in tears for both of us. I found out everything that happened. I found out that because the economy in the USA hit a low, that people all over the country and even in our country were struggling, his company wasn’t able to give us the raise he was promised, that he earned, that had been given to him and then taken away. So not only had the company stopped paying our bills, but he had to take a huge pay cut on top of owing thousands of dollars.
Something changed. Something inside me changed. Neither of us apologized to the other. I don’t think we needed to. We both knew that we were sorry. I sat down the next day and went through every single bill. I wrote down what we owed to each company, and began to make a budget. I found out approximately $2,000 dollars of the debt wasn’t even ours, but belonged to my FIL and was in my husband’s name!
Fast forward to now, July 2010. My husband is debt free. All of our bills have been paid off. We were lucky. My husband was able to make payment plans with the companies. It took us over a year to get there, but we did. I have a credit card debt that is being paid off, slowly but surely. In March 2011 it will be completely paid off and that is my debt.
So where is the positive in all this?
1. My husband & I are more open about our finances. He now tells me everything, even if I don’t want to know. He tells me NO when I want something but we can’t afford it (yes, this is a positive because before he would say yes and put a bill on hold). He will sit down with me and talk to me if there is a problem, a potential problem or if he wants to make changes in our services.
2. I have taken over the budgeting. I got over my silly beliefs and became involved. I created an Excel spread sheet with every single bill, every single paycheque and every single extra that we ever want to do. I took the step, one I didn’t believe was my right, and took charge of our finances. If I don’t keep on top of things and remind my husband when due dates are, they can and will get forgotten. If they do, it will be OUR fault this time, and not his company’s.
3. Things got really bad. I almost left my husband. I was ready to walk away from him, from our life that we had built and were still building. I stayed and we worked on, compromised on and fixed things.
4. We have a savings plan now, which is something we didn’t have before. Our close friends are getting married in the Dominican Republic in March 2011. We’re able to actually go. I can look at our budget, figure out how much we need to save each paycheque and do it. If we want to go out for dinner, we can. If we want to buy something for the kids, we can. If we want to take a day trip to a zoo, safari, amusement park, we can.
5. We downsized on things we simply don’t need. We dropped down to basic cable and to a basic internet services. We fixed our phone plans so they made more sense. We stopped treating our family and friends to things and “went dutch” more often than not.
6. And the biggest one in my opinion? My husband is officially debt free. I know that some people can say that, but there aren’t that many who can.
How has the economy affected the financial dynamic in your relationship?
* Alex
My life, My Glory
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