I am married, with a daughter and another baby on the way. I just wanted to give everyone a little overview of how we handle money issues around the house. It also answers the question of why I started this blog in the first place.
My wife is not lazy, she is just lazy when it comes to me asking her to do things. Take for example this past week when I asked her to sign some papers and mail them. It was for her student loan consolidation that I had asked her to do, but I ended up doing myself. I did everything for the consolidation, all she had to do was sign her name once, date it, and then mail the papers. I had to shove the paper in her face for her to sign, then I ended up mailing the consolidation in. (Just a note, these loans were private student loans, which everyone should stay away from, but I will talk about that in its own post). She takes this attitude with everything financial and her credit history reflects it.
Anytime I bring up money with the wife, she thinks I am starting an argument, gets mad at me, and leaves the room. My mother had always been the person who took care of the finances for the family. I was hoping that when I got married that my wife would take over the finances as well. Boy was I in for a surprise. That is why I started this site. I wanted to keep myself in line money wise. I have always been the person to start something and never finish it, or never stick with it (like a budget or a diet). You will probably see a lot of places where I state that I will discuss items later (there are probably 3 or so in this post), and hopefully keeping my readers happy will force me to follow through. I even bought a whiteboard to write down all the ideas I already have for this site.
Another thing about my wife is that she loves to spend money (and I do too, I won’t lie). When she sees something she wants, she buys it. I don’t really mind her buying things, but I just wish she would get it as cheap as possible. I search the deal sites everyday looking for the best deals for things we need. We are looking into getting a new LCD TV. Do you think I am going to go out and buy one from any old place? NO! I am going to search for the best deal possible, and jump on it. We both spend way too much money on things we do not need. We definitely need to have a budget and set some goals.
My wife is also pregnant (which I stated earlier), so she has cut back on her job. She used to work about 10-20 hours a week and go to school. Now she works maybe 5 hours a week, and no school. I don’t mind this as she is saving us $120 a week in daycare expenses (which were killing us, but it was a good daycare). This savings of $120 a week will kick in in the next couple weeks, and I will be posting how I plan to use the saved money. This will help us clean up some of our student loan debt, which is roughly about $20,000 each.
This all being said, I am the sole provider for this family, and we are living paycheck to paycheck. This drives me crazy as I know a lot of the things we spend money on could be used in better ways. I have also started looking for different ways to make some more money online. Free money, survey sites, and promotions have helped a great deal, but I was really hoping to start making some money from a website. I hope this site keeps me in line and hopefully helps everyone out as well.
I wanted to write this to let everyone know that I am not some rich hot-shot. I am family man trying to support his family. I will be learning all about money while I go and sharing what I find. Hopefully it will be a fun and prosperous experience.