Marriage & Money

Now, Zach and I are pretty new to this thing called marriage but if there is one thing I have learned in a little over a year is that we spend money differently. More than getting used to living together, we found the challenge of budgeting a bit difficult. I think what surprised me more than anything was that talking about money/budgets effected us both differently which in turn effected our marriage. However, it's an area of our marriage we have to talk about continuously.

The first real shock of marriage for me, was being accountable to someone else! I can remember the first time after we got back from our honeymoon that I was going to go spend money apart from Zach. Even though Zach and I had set a spending limit that we each could spend without having to discuss with the other, it was strange to think I was spending some of OUR hard earned money. No longer was it just mine or his, it was ours. I think in this respect it has brought us a lot closer together because we feel like a team. We are working together to achieve certain goals; buying furniture, saving for a house, going on vacations, saving for our retirement, saving to have kids, and everything else in between!

It's so nice that when we did come together to discuss our budget we were on the same page (for the most part. loll!). We agreed with the ratio of 10,10,80. Give 10% to the church, save 10%, and live off of 80%. Not to mention our ambitious goal of only living off of one paycheck and saving the other completely (except for 10% to be given to the church). Last year, money was too tight to really save one entire paycheck, but it is still a goal we are working towards. Which we both find exciting!

I think the reason Zach and I feel a need to set ambitious goals is because we really want to be good stewards of what we have been given. Zach and I have been very blessed to say the least. We were fortunate enough that neither one of us had to take out student loans for our college education, neither one of us has ever had car payments, and neither one of us have any debt! We would like to continue this into our future, one of us perhaps a bit more intense about it then the other. Who could that be? :)

However, just because we share the same goals does not mean that we go about achieving them the same way. Again, we both spend money differently, and that effected the process of our first major purchase in our marriage.....

*To be continued next week*

Note- Every marriage is different and at the end of the day you have to do what works for you. The story above is what works for Zach and I.