So my mom grew up in the old school of “find a man who will take care of you.” Now to be fair she wasn’t in the attitude of a man has to make all the money, has to do all the manual labor, has to run all the financials by himself, ect ect. But she always and still really stresses the need of any man I date needing to be a man with a good education and income.
I could care less about income. But as a result my mother has literally called the men I’ve dated, God fearing and sweet men, losers. Not all of them though, apparently if they have a job and a car they’re fine, but day it’s a part time then he’s gonna “have to do better.”
That just grates me like sand paper. But am I wrong? Or is she wrong? Or is there a grey in the middle I haven’t found yet?
Any other thoughts? I especially wanna know what guys think about that.
From my experience which is 8 years of marriage and now 29 years old is that what you will learn about money within marriage is hard to prepare for other than just having to experience it. The amount of bills and different directions where your money will be needed is often hard to imagine without experiencing it. Money is the number one reason spouses fight.
With today's technology, being financially responsible is easier than it once was. Balancing the check book was once very difficult for me but now due to online banking and banking apps makes financing soo much easier. Same with taxes, the online tax sites like Turbotax makes it easy for simple people.
You dont have to be smart but you dont need to be clueless or unwise either. Unfortunately even if you think your prepared, life has a grand way of knocking you in the gut as in a medical issue, storm damage, a child on the way, kid done clogged up the toilets, the AC unit is on its last leg, car needs new tires, global recessions etc etc. Much of it you just have to experience and make mistakes. Try not to repeat them.
We have over drafted like 3 times, had the internet shut off, our trash can taken away, medical debtors harass us, was once 2 payments behind on the house payment and threatened with losing the house, messed up with forgetting the auto payments, learned the hard way about how insurance works with fixing storm damage and ended up having to fork out 1200 dollars of our own money, had a $1000 limit on a credit card then wife maxed it out so it took forever to pay it back. Thankfully during the eight years we didn't experience anything extreme from the failures other than money being tight at times. Now for us we are having to build back up our credit score.
I think one can be smart but still be unwise. It truly takes wisdom, discipline and experience.
Dave Ramsey has some really good financial information from a Biblical worldview. If a person could adopt his method especially before marriage, it would save so much stress.
Try to prepare and do your homework on anything financially related so you can atleast try to limit the mistakes from ignorance or the loss of money than comes from people taking advantage of your ignorance.
Constantly keep on eye on your money and try to have a budget telling where your income goes because if you do not then you will over spend until your penny pinching until the next paycheck with no money in savings.
1
