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Thoughts from Hudy's money post
So J and I have been talking about a budget and long term goals, etc . . . and unfortunately, most of our long-term goals are paying down student loan debt. Obviously, when you get married, you both bring a lot of "stuff" into the relationship - good or bad.
I have a reasonable amount of SL debt, but all in low-interest fixed rate loans. I went to a fairly inexpensive private college and I received a decent amount of scholarship money and finanical aid. J has . . . a lot. He transfered a mini-ivy after his first year and took on a lot of private debt, with adjustable rates. (Don't even get me started on I think the college is an elitest institution who has plenty of money to help kids like J, who didn't come from a loaded NYC family like everyone else that goes there, but just doesn't) The rates are low now because interest rates are down, but when the economy recovers, the monthly payment is definitely going to rise a lot.
Between our wedding money and the fact that we save a lot each month, we have a decent amount of money saved up and if we used it towards paying off J's student loan debt, we'd make a big dent. We were talking about doing that last night and then that transitioned into our budget talk and how I want to put more money away so we can travel more. J agreed . . . to a point. I want to visit my best friend in Korea (I was supposed to visit her when she was in South America last year but her mom got very ill and she had to come home). I also want to go away on a trip just J and I. We have a very inexpensive place in the USVI we went before and I want to go back because it may be sold in the next year or so. We REALLY need to detox from this past year. He feels like it has to be one or the other because we should be saving up for retirement and other savings goals.
I don't want to feel guilty because I took away our one trip of the year. And I guess I'm feeling resentful that I helped save up all this money and it's going into a black hole of SL debt that I didn't even create. I realize these feelings are selfish - J worked 6 days week for half of this year to support us when I was in too much pain to work full time. But I guess I feel like that since I'm contributing so much to him escaping this private debt, I should be able to take a little of the money (a thousand or so) we saved together to go towards these two trips. Traveling is a major life priority for me. Especailly while we're young. If we're going to put off having kids until we're in our 30's, I want to be doing it for a reason. To J, saving for even more money for retirement is.
I realize this is going to sound silly to some. We're incredibly lucky we were able to escape our early 20's without any credit card debt or major car loans. I just threw a lot of information out there, but what I'm really curious about is how you handle your family finances . . . What kind of finianical baggage did each of you bring to the relationship and how do you deal with that?
Re: Thoughts from Hudy's money post
I brought $40,000 worth of student loans into our marriage. As you can from my ticker, I'm very close to finally paying them off. Granted, I had help from DH's parents. His father gifts each of his children, their spouse, and any grandkids the max allowable gift amount the IRS sets each year. It's supposed to go into our retirement accounts, but I've always used half towards my student loans.
That being said, I have never asked DH to help pay off my loans. He brought enough in savings into our marriage that he could have, and he offered once. It's very important to me to pay these off with my money (of course I'm being a bit hypocritical because of the money from FIL, but I never asked for it. Truth of the matter is that gifting us each year will save DH and BIL from massive inheritance taxes in the future.)
Personally, I would probably feel a little bitter towards DH if I was in your situation. I admire you for taking away one of the trips. Can your H consolidate his loans? That would give him a fixed interest rate, and usually you can get a tiny bit of a reduction in interest rate if you set up automatic withdrawals.
Maybe you can re-work your budget to save for a long-weekend type of trip, or just plan on saving for a big trip in 2011. There's no reason you can't pay off loans, save for retirement, and save for a trip. It just might not be the kind of trip you were thinking of, which is the same thing that's happened to us. We've realized that it's just not practical right now to save for a trip to the Galapagos or Australia when we'd like to buy a house, have a baby, and have fully-funded retirement accounts. Hopefully we'll be able to retire at a young enough age where we can still do those big trips.
We have a pretty loose budget right now. We each keep seperate accounts that we pay our own debts down from, and then a joint account that we put money into for the house.
DH has a very very small 401K and we seriously have no plans for retirement savings yet. I am working on building my own savings for a baby since my work doesnt offer maternity leave....but yeah.
I think we need to sit down and take a hard look at where our money is going.
DH only has a car loan and a very small CC that he could pay off now.
I on the other hand have a retarded amount of CC debt AND SL debt
It sucks. I hate it and wish I could go back in time and tell young Agent to stop spending all that money, caus eyou have to pay it all back 
I came into our marriage with some debt that I had been working on every so slowly to pay off (not SL, unfortunately... just debt)... It was super important to DH to get that down and we did-got his down, too... Right now, I started up a slight bit-so I'm working on that yet again, but nowhere near what it was. It's my doing, not DHs so I'm getting it down.
DH came with child support. I get this as I was a child of divorce... It took me a little to understand that he pays CS and yet also gives other monies to BM for the kids-I don't believe it's necessarily used for them for necessities like clothing, food like my mom did, but they go to a lot of places/trips and I think BM uses it for that.
Retirement and college funds for the skids are uber important to DH right now. It's hard to think about looking so far ahead, but it really isn't for us... I guess... I would love to go on trips LOVE it!... So, I plan to save my own stash for us for trips-even though DH def has the $ to pay for a trip for us.
We are cheap on certain things and other things... not.
It would be hard to NOT be resentful paying off someone else's loans, but the other person is prob feeling some guilt from that end of the spectrum for using $ towards their debt-esp SL's.
That sucks. I didn't really understand consolidating when I finished school, and I waited too long and got screwed when SL interest rates jumped in 2005. Oh well, I'm sure we're better off with our rates than our future children will be.
I can understand wanting to pay them off now. I will say that having student loans and paying them off each month has really boosted my credit score, so it's probably helped your husband's too. I totally understand just wanting to get the payments over with. Considering the amount of time I spend thinking about paying them off, I'm probably going to be a basket case when we have a mortgage.
Ah, money. I hate it. DH & I went to the same school, so we've got pretty much equal debt. I had a bunch of scholarships, but he got more financial aid. Then to add to that, he's got a car loan and I've got a credit card and 1 private loan (from my study abroad & the wedding). I am dreading our taxes this year, we're gonna be paying in so much! And our SLs just went up to the tier 2 payment amount (about $30 more per month each), which suuucks. Saving for retirement or any trips isn't even an option right now. I need to find a job that pays at least what I was making before asap and then first priority is taxes, then a car, then a house. It never ends! HOPEFULLY we can get a trip to the UK in the next 3 years before we TTC. I've been twice and FIL, stepMIL, and SILs went, so poor DH is the only one who hasn't!
We both consolidated our SLs with Sallie Mae, they've been super easy.
I didn't bring any debt into the marriage - nor savings, I only had a bit saved up and I used it for the wedding dress. DH brought quite some debt - SL and CC debt. And right after we got engaged we had to get a new car, so add a car loan.
He's the breadwinner, I make money occasionally but not a lot (from translations). But when I make money, I find that I feel compelled to keep it and use it on myself or on things I want to us, but it's always more smart to put it towards debt, debt I didn't create.
It's hard, but like you said, in the end we're a unit now and his debt is my debt, and it'll affect us both in the end. So I get past it and focus on the positive benefits of lowering our debt.
It's actually hard for both of us, because all our extra money goes to debt, and even though he works like crazy, he can't buy himself the things he would either. He makes sacrifices for us as well, and I sometimes forget that's the case. Granted, it's his debt, but it's still hard to see the money you worked for so hard vanish into payments.
This is kind of J's thinking. We put a bunch away for retirement now and pay off students loans and save up for a larger trip in 2011 while taking small weekend trips now. I COMPLETELY see the logic in all of this. However, my best friend and I are never going to live in the same country. She visits me, I want to go visit her. And I don't want to wait until we retire to do big trips (and by big I don't mean super expensive, I'll stay in a hostel or camp) because I'm afraid they'll never happen. I guess I want to find a balance between being financially responsible (saving for retirement) and doing still having "adventures" while we're young.
Ugh, I just need to make more money.
Like Kristy, I hate money. I hate the subject, the money itself...all of it. After my mother's death I acquired her financial burdens and was supposed to be reimbursed once her succession was settled. Well, my SOB of a wife murdering step-father never settled her succession and still lives in her house so the 2 million that my brother and I were entitled to has never been seen. Not even a penny. But lucky me, I still got to keep all of her debt.
At the time I paid rent, as well as her mortgage, taxes, and insurance. All of it went on a credit card because at 21, I had no other way to pay it. Almost 9 YEARS later, it will be paid off in 8 weeks. I can't tell you how much weight will be lifted off of my shoulders from that. I have no CCs and no SL due to a decent amount of scholarships and the fact that I had to drop out of school when my mom died. Again, lucky me.
D brought an a$$load of debt into the marriage. He has currently about 20K in CC debt and about 25K in SLs and a monster of a truck loan. We just pay it as we can but I do get very irritated that I have paid mine down so well and he thinks that any and all "extra" money should just be fun money. I would rather the dark cloud be removed from my head so that I can enjoy the extra things in life rather than having the guilt of knowing that even if I throw caution to the wind and take a trip, I still have to go home to the debt.
We don't see eye to eye on this and it bothers me terribly but right now, we dont own anything together and I suppose that is a good thing. If it weren't for me however, he wouldnt have any of the nice things he does. That kid can't budget if his life depended on it.
After having my debt paid off in 8 weeks I am still going to resent the fact that I will likely spend another ten years paying off his debt but I guess that comes with the package huh?
I know, the whole predicament is horrible because there's never a way to do both, or at least that's how I feel. Solution - work for a company where you rack up airline miles and hotel points! Obviously not a practical one for the majority of people (and I'm not really suggesting it to you), but I have a friend whose husband earns so many points that they only pay for food on their vacations. And they take big ones every year that require leaving the continent. I'm so jealous.
Ugh, I hear ya! I feel like I was so responsible throught my 20's only to get married in my 30's to someone who hadn't been, and now I get to be saddled with his debt. I hate it when I look at the monthly payments from his cc's and SLs drives me up the wall, we could be living so comfortably if we had that money!!!
I know. It kills me. I can't really be mad because his education will probably get him a better job later (his school definitely get him more interviews). But it just kills me that it's sucking up all our money. I feel like we'll never be able to own a home without burying ourselves in even more debt.
Well, when DH and I got married, I brought in no debt and he brought in $2000 of cc debt (he was making minimum payments). As soon as we got married and I realized this debt existed, I used my savings to pay it off. The rest of my savings and his savings started our joint account.
As far as spending our money goes, DH and I talk about everything. We even go shopping together and discuss little stuff. If we are out and he wants a dvd, he grabs it and asks should we get it -- I always say yes. Same goes for me -- I'll see a snack we love on sale and ask should we get it.
As far as big purchases, we generally agree. We both want to travel, but realize our travel plans are far to extensive for us to pay for now. So we save a little each month for the future trips and put the rest in our checking. My check autodeducts to retirement for us.
As far as your situation, I can understand you wanting to get to visit your friend and not wanting to miss your trip with J. Can he join you on your trip to see your friend and turn it into a visit to her and a big vacation? If not, I understand it bugging you not getting your trip since it's his debt, but I would save for retirement and take a joint trip and hold off on visiting your friend until you can do it and a vacation with J. Or if he's ok with a small vacation with you and you visiting your friend, do that. But I would be sure he's really ok with it.
Money is a biitch, for sure. . . I totally see both sides of things - I am ALL for spending money on experiences/memories rather than extra things, and I don't think you can put all of those experiences off until "someday", but at the same time, financial security is important to me. We skipped a planned trip to Mexico for a friend's wedding in September because we had just paid off the cc debt we ran up for the wedding, and we didn't have as much in savings as we wanted to because of some major car repairs. I'm sad that we didn't go, because my best friend who lives in NY was there, and I don't like to miss chances to see her, but now that we've had ANOTHER big financial setback due to our cat, I'm glad we didn't. It's a tough call. either way.
We are pretty lucky on the money front. Although we feel like we can never get ahead, due to the unexpected things that always come up in life, we are actually doing ok. We both came in to the relationship with no debt at all (I had scholarships, worked, and had grandparents who helped pay for part of school, and N had some major scholarships and also worked - we both went to public schools), but we also didn't really have savings, so we put half of our wedding expenses on a cc. We do both have good retirement savings accounts that were started quite a few years ago, but we don't even consider those when we're talking about our finances - we have automatic deductions from our paychecks that go to them, and we just leave them alone.
Right now, we're trying to figure out what is going to happen as far as jobs and money when we move to WA next year, but that is a whole 'nother kettle of fish!
I hate money. Our finances constantly weigh on me and bring me down. I feel like there's so many, "If only..." thoughts that go through my head. I hate having CC, SL, car, and mortgage payments. It's really hard when you don't make enough for your field/cost of living to support everything you have to pay off.
I brought SL debt into the marriage. In comparison to some people I know, my SL debt isn't that bad, but I still hate having to pay it every month and seeing that it'll be 2022 when I'm done. I used to be able to pay large sums toward it every month in excess of the amount due, but since buying a home and having other expenses, I just pay the minimum usually (which I HATE doing for anything...I always pay much more to make a dent in things). I'm lucky that I have a very low, fixed rate on my SLs, hence why I allow myself to get away with the lower payments since other CCs etc have higher APR%. DH had already paid his SL off. Then we acquired the mortgage debt (oh, it's so fun, let me tell you LOL). Then I got a car loan. And, since we put a decent number of things on 2 CCs for the wedding (1 joint CC, 1 personal (my) CC), we've been paying those down. On my personal CC I owe relatively a small amount, but I just don't have the liquid funds to pay it off.
I just really hate having these debts over our heads. We're keeping our fingers crossed that with a tax return for this year we can put a large chunk towards the biggest CC and the rest in savings. Then we'd only have my SL (I'm the one that pays those, DH doesn't contribute), my car loan (again, just me), and the mortgage.
It doesn't help that DH doesn't even like talking about finances. I've tried repeatedly to have financial planning discussions with him, and he's kind of like, "well, we're doing ok, so that's that." Ugh. I just want some sort of goal and direction.
DH brought in student loans (like 30K) but he also brought in a nice savings, e-fund and a condo. I had no debt, but didn't contribute very much, if anything, to the money pot because I spent all of mine on experiences. I would 100% do it again.
Who even knows if you guys will be retire. You could die when you're 30 of some random freak accident and never even get to enjoy that money. Sorry if that sounds morbid, but you have to live life.
I'm in a weird mood so I know this usually isn't as thoughtful as my normal advice, but isn't there some other way you can scale back something else and go on both trips? E.g. Set aside $100 per month for the trip by canceling cable for 10 months or something? If you want it that badly enough and are willing to sacrifice, I find it hard to believe you'd get vetoed on the S. Korea trip. Again, you only get one life.
This is a very good point. My grandfather saved most of his adult life to take a big trip to Europe in his retirement. He got colon cancer and died before he could travel. So sad.
This is exactly how I feel. I As morbid as it sounds, I could be gone before we get to retirement. It kills me to think I won't travel aboard again before I hit 30. I think if we scale back our retirement savings a little bit, we could have more travel money now. J said to me last night that he feels like it would be irresponsbile for us to travel as much as I want to on the pay we currently make. He said it feels like we don't deserve it. But I don't agree that you have to be rich to travel. I have plenty of friends who travel despite their modest incomes.
I also don't want to resent my family someday because I never got to explore before I settled down. I want to spend these next few years doing something more exciting than paying down debt and saving.
It's totally complicated, regardless of your situation. Thank you everyone for you input. It's interesting to see everyone's prespective.
It would be irresponsible to travel if you were staying at five-star (or even two-star!) resorts, going on shopping sprees or dining on lobster and caviar while you travel. But you're staying in a hostel for heaven's sake! For somebody like you that loves seeing the world and is intellectually curious, I think travel is not a privilege but a right (and many Europeans agree with me ... even the most modest families I have met through my travels make an effort to vacation abroad). Retirement? Whatever. Just euthanize me in Switzerland or whatever it's legal, honestly. Because pattering around golfing in Boca Raton and not working sounds worse than death to me. I'd much rather travel when I'm young, save throughout my life and if I get to retire, cool, but if not, I'll work until I die. I say this with 100% sincerity.
Another thing to consider is that so many people deny themselves and save for retirement but then STILL come up short. Only the very rich can afford to retire and sustain a lifestyle they want. All us other suckers have to work until we die. And that's okay with me, but again don't sacrifice travel unless you are 100% certain you will even be ABLE to retire one day and that goal is attainable. Do you guys even have any concrete goals? (If we put away X amount of money each month for Y years, we'll have enough to retire for XY years) If not, if this retirement goal is still an abstract dream, that's another reason to avoid sacrificing anything tangible for it.
I think you would resent your family if you knew you wanted to do more things but were guilted into staying in one place because of money. You never get your twenties back and if you're not starting a family soon, there's no reason to be so responsible if you're sacrificing so much. Life will pass you by.
Oi vey! I feel your pain, and coming in kind of late but thought I'd throw in my two cents...
I came in with a good amount of CC debt ($10-$12k) and SL (about $30-$40k) and DH had minimal to know CC debt but ~$80k in SL (at 10-15%-eesh).
We've paid off one two of my CC's and canceled one. I paid off and canceled one before we moved in together (the second CC pay-off was this month - woot!!). I've gone from 5 CC to 3, and we are using the one we just paid off for groceries/gas and pay it off each month to help boost my credit score. Our goal is to use some of our tax return to pay off one of my CC and one of DH's CC (he's amassed CC debt when things were really tight for us financially). His SL pymt is a killer $850/month, plus rent, utilities, his federal SL, and my SL (fed and private) plus the CC's and his car. Oy...we do what we can and pay a little extra over the min's to help chip at things a little quicker, but we also try and squeeze a little extra for small trips. We're going to Virginia next month when our niece is born, and will try to do weekend trips to Charlotte and Knoxville for my college reunion and to visit his family. Of course, these are spread out over the year, and will be changed as necessary. I love to travel, but I also know we will probably never get to travel out of the county, unless we go when we're retired, but there's so much here that I've gotten to see and DH hasn't seen a whole lot (his family didn't really do travel/vacations) and so I want to show him all the things I've seen before we go somewhere new. But I would totally love to save up for a trip to Italy or even just a cruise.
I agree with many PP, its good to be responsible, but you need to leave room for some fun/experience/memories. Otherwise you'll be digging yourself a grave. I have a heard time getting DH to understand this sometimes.