Money Matters
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: Not sure how to handle these student loans anymore...
OP, you mentioned your faith and your giving.
What about giving a portion of that $100 to a mission/ministry that allows you to care for a child in another part of the world with basic needs like food, clean water, medical treatments, education, etc.?
Maybe by "adopting" a child you and your husband can observe together the need for basic essentials world-wide. Maybe this would refocus his understanding of the words "needs versus wants" and also help him see that maybe he doesn't "deserve " a boat when his "adopted child" and that child's siblings and friends are needing basic food and materials.
To me, speaking honestly, it sounds like your DH doesn't need a change of mental or cognitive thinking about money - he needs a heart change.
"Adopting" could be a practical action that would cause him to refocus and prioritize for when the two of you being TTC.
DH and I just discovered the program Gospel for Asia (100% of donations go to people in need). These people are in the lowest part of the caste system (officially and governmentally it has been dismantled, but the culture still follows it) and they often have no access to basic education, which causes them to not be able to get out of this caste.
Just an idea....
Another similarity I see is that my H simply is not motivated by paying down debt faster. Particularly with our SLs, his attitude is that it's going to take a while regardless so we might as well live our lives. Car payments he just views as a necessity of life.
When I wanted to get our budget straightened out I was initially drawn to becoming debt free very quickly, but I could not get him on the same page. That's basically how I ended up on "team savings and retirement," which does excite him. I'm ok with that, but we're of course in different situations.
I think to get him on board with TMM, going through FPU together (again?) is a great idea, as is meeting with a pastor or other trusted advisor. Also having H help with the budget could help. I've asked mine to give me a heads up if he has an extra purchase coming so I can just account for it instead of setting us up for failure.
First off to answer a few questions...
He does get a vote on the budget. I make it up in excel and show him the print out. I give him the finalized budget from this month with the actual and budgeted amounts, as well as next month's budget. He once in a while will tell me to fix something but he usually just says " that's fine ". I think he sees it as more of a guideline instead of a max line. Because if something comes up he has no problem going over or spending it anyway. Regardlees it comes out of extra debt money so pull it out of one month or the next doesnt matter to him. Sometimes he'll ask if we have something budgetted - which we might - but we also went way over in this other category (ahem his spending - so we really don't.)
And student loans can't be consolidated or refinanced or anything because they are all federal and in 3 different names. My parents loans have the highest interest rate and highest balance of all my debt... From 7.5% to 8.5%. My dads loan is 8.5% so unless i take it off deferal its gaining interest - but at the same time if i wait a year thats an extra 200 i can use to pay down cars faster but that interest rate is lower. My dads having a lot of health problems and is working no more then like 10 hours a week part time... so his is on hardship deferment but parent plus loans still earn interest on hardship deferment unlike stafford. I'm starting to lean more toward keeping it deferred for another year so we can pay our other debts with higher monthly payments off faster.
And You all make interesting points....
He admits that he's just not that motivated to pay off my loans because he just doesn't see a point. Hes just annoyed by them. He wants them gone but when your staring at 110k of student loans its hard to think a few hundred dollars will make any difference. The car is first but as much as we are physically paying more toward the car... we arent emotionally "focused" on it because we know we have a LONG way to go.
I think his problem is mostly emotional/ more of a heart problem. I am starting to think all of this needing to buy a boat or a truck is just a symptom of how unhappy he is with his career situation. From talking to him last night i think he's a bit depressed and he just wants to have something.... since he hates his job, he wants to atleast have a truck or a boat or something to make him feel better but none of those will solve the problem. The extra spending may also be a part of that because hes losing hope in the whole thing. Which i dont blame him, so am i. He needs a job that makes him happy but he is sort of stuck in a field he doesn't like... and he has no idea what he wants to do with his life but he also doesn't want to go back to school so idk.
In my case, I know I am a spend thrift where I can save up but them I over buy usually things that we need, but still go over budget. MW hates it when she has to have all of the cards and do the cash withdrawals for our envelopes.