Broke Newlywed

vegas110615 · June 2015

Hi all- just back from the best wedding and honeymoon ever but we are Broke! Anyone else in the same boat as us?? Make me feel better.:(( :)It's 9 days until our next payday. The countdown is On! Looking forward to getting our debt cleared down so we can start really planning for our future. :-c

bmo88 · June 2015

It can get better! We have been together for 12 years (married for 2) and we were broke for our first 10 years. Finally we make a very good income. Be thankful for being broke now though and learn good financial habits! If you don't learn good habits now, you will always end up broke, no matter how much money you make.

We have almost quadrupled our income in the past 3 years but still live off a similar income level as before. I am so happy we were broke before having money, it made us more money savvy and appreciative.

lifeonthehill · June 2015

We were dating and living in our first apartment when we were broke. Plain pasta and some butter for all of our meals.

It will get better and you will learn a lot!

vlagrl29 · June 2015

It totally gets better. We were broke until about a year after we had our DD - got pregnant 9 months after our wedding. I was laid off 2 months after we got married and started my own business the next month. It feels so good now having extra cash to put in savings and retirement now.

CuriousKiddosMama · June 2015

It will get better. If you want to post your budget here we can give you some ideas. But otherwise just make sure you are agreeing on and sticking. To your budget. If you can do that, you can plan to pay off your debt every month and get rid of this feeling.

hoffse · June 2015

It will get better if you make concerted steps toward it getting better.

Did you receive any cash as a wedding gift (that you haven't spent already)? That would be the first thing I would bank.

I loved our wedding, but to date it was the worst financial decision we have ever made. We came in well under budget, but spending all that money for a party was - in retrospect - pretty ridiculous for a couple of 20-somethings. That money would have been better served as a downpayment for a house or put toward our emergency fund. We did have a small honeymoon, but I'm grateful we had the sense not to go all-out for it. We took a big one-year trip instead, and our finances were in better shape by then (plus we weren't exhausted so we actually enjoyed it).

Starting your married life broke is a real challenge. It will get better, but my best advice is to adjust out of wedding mode as quickly as possible (by "wedding mode" I mean that mindset where you spend, spend, spend) and start taking a hard look at your joint budget if you haven't already.

brij2006 · June 2015

It's okay, and you can change it.

I highly recommend checking out Dave Ramseys' "Total Money Makeover" to help guide you on what to do with money.

It's what I wish someone would have told my H and I about right after we got married.

blondie42107 · June 2015

H and I paid for the majority of our wedding. We did bank most of our monetary gifts. I think we had so many new things in a short amount of time - college graduation, student loans started, got married, bought a house - all in about one year.

We survived and it wasn't awful but we'd do things a little different looking back.

Make a budget!

TNChick · June 2015

It will get better, but you have to decide to make it better. My H and I started out broke, but that year in the crappy apartment was very motivating! We both worked our tails off at our jobs (and I went back to school), and that hard work has paid off. Be conscious of your decisions and create small attainable goals to work toward.

short+sassy · June 2015

Congratulations on tying the knot! Did you all buckle down and do a lot of saving/sacrificing to pay for the wedding (or some of it)? If so, continue those good habits...except now it can go toward paying off debt/building a nest egg.

If you haven't already, sit down with your H and put together a budget. List all your net incomes and then you list of bills/expenses. That should give you an idea of how ahead/behind you all be getting each month. See what expenses you can cut down on.

Like @CuriousKiddosMama said, if you want to post your budget/debt/financial goals, the folks here are a gold mine of ideas in how to achieve a better financial path.

vegas110615 · June 2015

Thanks so much for your advice ladies

I definitely agree that the best idea is to get out of ''wedding mode''. I'm looking forward to us having some concrete savings behind us. We saved like troopers in the year and a half leading up to the wedding so I definitely plan on continuing that to clear down the credit card debt. Just need to look at it as our first challenge in married life! Thanks again. :-c

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