About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
Read More
September 12, 2016
Big news!
We will not die intestate. JuggerBaby will not have to relive the plot of A Little Princess.
Best case scenario, we won’t need to execute any of this for so many years that this day will be a faint memory. But if we’re not so lucky, we’ll be as prepared as we possibly could be.
Our estate is relatively simple so it was a little embarrassing to take as long as we did (rather, that I did, since this was my project) and I didn’t expect to be anything but impatient and exultant in wrapping this up. It’s taken a record 10 and a half months to get these documents in order. But as usual, simple doesn’t mean easy.
It was held up by two things. One was sensible – we had to complete the refinance so we could easily retitle that property.
The other just feels, for lack of a better work, absurd. I’ve spent most of 2016 down with one plague or another. Right this moment I’m weakly trying to fight off the latest one to creep its way into my respiratory system. Begone, ye foul germs! It seemed less than civilized to go to fancy law offices, a dribbly, germy zombie, signing legal documents I couldn’t make heads or tails of.
Going into this whole thing, PiC had a natural reluctance to get into the nitty gritty that I disregarded on the principle that, yes, it’s depressing and terrible to think about but NOT doing it is worse! I was completely rational when sharing our thinking and process over a year ago, laying out the steps we were taking in my In Case of Emergency series kickoff. Of course I did. And of course, when the paperwork was sent over for review, the weight of the decisions we were signing to fell like an anvil in my gut.
As it turns out, when you’re planning for the future like this, you’re imagining the events that you’d want to transpire after your death. Then the inch-and-a-half tall stack of text is in front of you, you’re staring at a check box next to “do everything possible to prolong life” and another one next to “Do Not Resuscitate,” and your family’s possible future where either question is a reality flashes, slow motion, in front of you. It’s not a stretch to imagine, either, we’ve already gone through this with family members. We know how it feels to make the decision to keep trying or pull the plug. Suddenly everything feels awful and real.
We had a tough conversation over those documents, where we mutually avoided talking in detail about our long-gone parents, having to make that decision, and the idea of leaving JuggerBaby way too early.
The surprising part? Something had shifted in me. For most of my life, I didn’t care if anything happened to me because I didn’t have a deep emotional attachment to anything or anyone. I had responsibilities and a duty to take care of my family but while that was strong enough to anchor me in working, earning, and paying off debt, it was no replacement for having a compelling reason to live. It’s not to say I didn’t want to live, I just wasn’t worried about not living either, if that makes any sense.
Now, I do not want to imagine leaving my family to fend for themselves without me. I have a lifetime of guidance to give, and money management to share, and hopes for a future with my partner. But like we’ve always said, failure to plan for the events of your death are both futile and selfish. If either one of us were horribly injured or died, it would be terrible. But not having our financial affairs in order, not knowing what the other person wanted, and having to untangle all of that while grieving? MUCH worse. It’s also irrational to act as if planning for your death means that you want or you’re tempting fate, I think, but I’ve heard a lot of people use that excuse. Pardon me, but we ARE going to die someday. The least we can do for our loved ones is spare them some turmoil to go along with the pain of loss.
So. Now then. As I said, we talked, we emoted, we had feelings. And then we went to the lawyer’s office and signed everything officially with a notary witness. IT IS DONE.
Next steps: they will send us a binder for our records. We will begin moving our assets into the trust because an unfunded trust is an empty shell. That’s a story for another day! For now, I’m going to toast a glass of watered down juice (for the purposes of avoiding heartburn because my body is 89 years old) to completing the last huge To Do on my list from 2015!
:: Have you completed a will and/or a trust? Have you ever received, or expect to receive, a distribution of assets from either a will or a trust?
September 5, 2016
ON MONEY
I use Swagbucks. Here’s a handy tutorial if you’d like to join and earn.
Spending
Credit card churn, Card #2 of 2016: After $1,000 of paying bills, I’ve crossed the threshold for the required minimum spending to earn 35K Alaska miles. I don’t have a specific use in mind for these miles but I suspect they’ll come in useful in a year or two. The first card was also an Alaska card, in my name, but only earned 25K bonus miles. Humph.
Open ended travel planning: 3 free RT domestic travel tickets costs 75K miles and $36 (we paid $75 for each card, so the actual total is $186). Our current total of 60K miles is still 15K miles short. It doesn’t look like Alaska does discounted mile redemptions like United does, so to shore that up, I’ll sign up for dining miles programs so that any spending we do also earn miles on top of any credit card award points. Then we’ll be set for a trip that costs more than $500.
(more…)
August 31, 2016
A ramble on friendship, prompted by links
Like this woman, I once believed I didn’t get along with other women. I didn’t have a best friend, and it seemed like everyone had one of those, but I couldn’t ever quite get the hang of it.
In middle school, my personality and interests weren’t aligned with other girls’. Animals, yes. Stickers and stationery, JOY! Sparring and wrestling? Comics? Fighting bullies? No, nyet, and nope. My weirdness they could overlook but fighting bullies, physically, scared the girls. They made no bones about how they didn’t want me mad at them because apparently they didn’t trust me not to beat them up. I was barbaric for fighting back by polite society’s standards. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t bother me.
Maybe I was barbaric but at 8 years old, it never occurred to me to do anything but punch the boy when he laid hands on and shoved me. Does there exist another, equally effective and satisfying, response? Because not one of those bullying boys, and it was always a boy, came back for seconds, I’ll tell you that much.
I craved a close friendship, a best friendship that was second best to having a sister (possibly even better than a sister). But I didn’t understand social conventions, the girls didn’t know that non-conforming was ok, and thus, no friendship blossomed.
Male schoolmates thought of me “like a guy”, their way of reconciling a girl who wouldn’t take their crap. For a minute, it made sense that I felt like I wasn’t like other women and maybe that’s why I got along with boys better. That was simple truth – for that period of my life. Some years on, it struck me that the “not like other girls/women” compliment wasn’t at all a compliment to me. It was a poorly disguised way to put women down. It implies that being like other women is a bad thing, that women are inferior and to be better than them is a good thing. That’s insulting and stupid. We’re not a single monolith but neither are men and you don’t hear women complimenting men by saying “you’re not like other men”, suggesting that men as a group are inferior and being unlike them is the best possible outcome. Or maybe you do, I don’t.
Children vs childfree
A blogger friend I’ve gotten to know over the years was shocked to find that at least half, maybe more, of my close friends are childfree. Whether by choice or not, they are childfree. Her surprise was a surprise to me. It’s completely normal to me to hear a friend state that they never want to have kids, or maybe more confidingly, they did want them but couldn’t, so have moved on to enjoy their child-free lives.
In so few cases has the choice to have kids, or not to have them, changed a friendship for us that I was surprised by this AAM reader’s question: Has any childfree person successfully maintained a friendship with someone after they had kids or vice versa?
It seems that this is the adult version of othering women.
Of course having a kid will alter your reality when you become a parent. But so will many other things. So why wouldn’t you treat having a child, or treat a friend having a child, as another life adventure that’s happening and react accordingly?
Parents don’t get a pass on participating in friendships that they would like to maintain any more than workaholics get a pass on doing so. Speaking as an almost former workaholic, I think that’s fair. Speaking as a parent, I think that’s fair.
You get to choose how to adjust the friendship so you don’t knock yourself sideways accommodating it, and you have to have respect for each other’s life choices, but unless you loathe the very idea and presence of kids, kids don’t have to be the reason you break up with your friends.
Growing up
I’m still mostly the same person but I’m a little wiser, quite a lot older. More patient, mellow, comfortable in my me.
I still don’t fit in with any crowd, male or female, but I do have deep and fulfilling relationships. It turns out that you don’t need to click into place with other puzzle pieces. I used to think that was my irredeemable flaw that I’d never overcome: I just couldn’t FIT.
I saw Mom in myself. We struggled to create and cultivate friendships. We struggled with having faith in those relationships. We struggled to extend a hand of friendship to others, not knowing if they were in the market for a friend or an accessory. I wondered if I just had to find more people like me. I wondered if there were other people like me. My flawed assumption was that my classmates were a representative sample of the female population and that I’d always fly solo.
Now, my clan of kindred spirits is composed of singular women and men who seem to be nothing like me.
They are avid beer lovers and teetolars, dog lovers and cat people. They are reptile people and mammals-only people. Some are stars in their careers, some are building their career foundations, or finding themselves. Some are super stylish, or wizards with makeup wands (I am not and NOT). They’re librarians, goatherders, craftspeople, lawyers, romance novelists, consummate professionals, teachers, horror authors, doctors, feminists, activists, small business owners, journalists, bringers of proper hugs, hilarious stories, goofs. They’re passionate about money, stories, ancient textiles, traveling the world, helping women learn about finances, investing, creating youth initiatives, rescuing dogs, going to concerts, drinking all the coffee in all the world (or the wine). They’re loud and brash, quiet, thoughtful, intellectually without peer. They’re raising half a dozen kids, or a few, or one, or eschew human critters in favor of four legged critters. They remember JuggerBaby’s birthday, they dote on JuggerBaby stories, and gush over JuggerBaby pictures. They text, they DM, they email, they call.
I’d go on but I can’t feel my fingers anymore. Some of you will recognize yourselves in this list, some of this list have no idea this blog exists. But to the many of you, the multitude of who share with me a little of your lives, I’m lucky to have you.
I had to learn to be comfortable with myself, and learn that relationships with people will ebb and flow. They will almost always thrive when based on mutual respect, not need, friendships happened. I learned that some people are friends for the moment, and that’s fine. Some people are friends for all the moments, and they became family.
Someone once noted, for a misanthrope, I sure do have a lot of friends.
To which I reply, “pshaw.” I’m lucky to know good people. And maybe that’s all it is and it’s folly to claim all these interesting, eccentric, awesome people as friends. Not a one of them match me. They outmatch me. That small doubting voice, that one I inherited from Mom, points this out. I know why they’re great but how do I fit with them?
I don’t.
And yet that’s the beauty of it. We don’t match. We don’t need to look or be similar to be a good fit. What we do have is a shared sense of responsibility, a willingness to learn and make things better, to leave the world a better place for having had us in it. We don’t have a prescribed way to enjoy each other’s company: we talk, we text, we email, we tweet. Whatever works is what we do.
Even if they don’t feel as fondly toward me as I do them, or vice versa, there is fondness. It doesn’t have to be this perfectly calculated level of friendship to work.
At this stage of life, I appreciate what that’s worth. My nearest and dearest are far-flung and scattered and that’s ok.
Since we’ve become parents, we’ve found ourselves making the acquaintance of other parents in passing but we can’t and won’t force those relationships solely on the basis of their having reproduced. It’s nice to have friends in the same life stage, but those friendships, if they’re a good fit, will grow naturally, or not.
:: Do you have a best friend or many best friends? Who are you grateful to have in your life? Why?
August 29, 2016
Background: 2 years ago November, J. Money and I had a quick chat that spawned this post on earning side money and then I started tracking our earnings publicly because it’s always more fun that way. PiC is our resident Craigslister and I’m the resident Try Anything Once-er.
One of my challenges in the Great Wardrobe Curation has been getting rid of clothes that need to exit stage left. They normally still have plenty of wear in them, don’t fit quite right but aren’t worth the cost of tailoring, or that I can’t tolerate wearing any longer, like heels. It doesn’t make sense to keep them and getting both space and money back would be double the fun.
With plenty of encouragement from Penny to give it a try, even with my decidedly unfancy wardrobe, and armed with her quick tutorial, I quickly made up an account on Poshmark and listed a handful of shoes. One pair of heels I’ll hold on to, for faking professionalism until I get better flats, but most of them can go.
At first it didn’t seem like it was meant to be. It took 4 hours to download the app. First, I never remember my Apple ID so downloading isn’t the breeze that it was from my Android. I mean, sure, security but sometimes you just want to be able to get your darn free app! Then it wanted 3 hours to think about downloading. Awesome.
Once the app was running, it was pretty simple to start listing things. They encourage you to list 10-12 items to start but in reality there was no requirement to do that so it seemed like the perfect way to tiptoe into selling a few things at a time. I just can’t commit to a huge overhaul in one go.
I created an account (I loathe creating usernames) and started snapping pictures. It only took 20 minutes to list four items, and most of that time was spent looking up the information and coming up with useful descriptions.
It was easiest to start with shoes since I hadn’t a clue what I was doing. There was immediate beginner’s luck with a rash of sales, and three sales and three weeks later, I’m still waiting for more real nibbles.
What I learned
Most people want to negotiate so set your prices a little higher than you’re willing to sell for. That way you can compromise more.
You don’t need to bargain in the comments, your potential buyers have the ability to make an offer which you can ignore (it expires in 24 hours), counteroffer, or decline. If you decline outright, Poshmark will send you an email suggesting that you counteroffer so that there’s dialogue. Declining the offer means that attempt at a sale is over.
USPS ships you free shipping envelopes and boxes, as Penny had pointed out in her very helpful post. They’re really slow, though, and only ship in packages of 10 items each, so if you’re not dropping by the post office to pick up a box or two, it’s a bit of a commitment.
I’m incredibly impatient. I sold three items in the first 4 days of selling using existing packaging and then it’s been all quiet. After the first sales, I ordered a few basic shipping supplies from USPS and now I have STUFF sitting around the house, waiting to be used. I knew I should have waited!
You’re encouraged to package your sold items nicely. This means wrapping things in tissue paper, and adding a note for your buyer. As an inveterate recycler, I dug into my abundant stash of used tissue paper, sealed them up with thank you labels from one of my last labeling projects, and shipped in repurposed Amazon boxes while waiting for the USPS shipping materials. All were accepted by the buyers quickly and happily.
Speaking of acceptance, the buyers have 3 days after the package delivery to officially accept your shipped product or to file a report if they feel it didn’t match the selling description. You should be really specific about your items to make sure that your buyers know what they’re getting. I take pictures of any possible flaws for the item profile to be sure.
As a seller, you’re given a week to ship, but they like you to ship sooner. I didn’t have a problem with shipping within 2 days since I’m selling such low volume.
Total earned: $37
I won’t say this is a flop, it’s only been a few weeks, even if it feels longer. The early success certainly raised my expectations unrealistically – I always knew that I didn’t have a ton of saleable items but it was worth the try. Other than the Poshmark fee which I wouldn’t have paid if I didn’t make money myself, and some time obsessing over pictures and listings, I didn’t lose anything.
:: Are any of you successful Poshers? What am I (likely) doing wrong? How long would you list items for before giving up and donating?
August 22, 2016
Our travel cost breakdown
Food and lodgings, $200
Gas, $150
Parking, trolley: $100
Gifts and things, $150
Total: $550
I normally love San Diego Comic Con. Perfect weather, all geek all the time, lots of fresh air and walking and being surrounded by people who are just there to enjoy the goodness.
These days, it’s so much more fraught to prepare for. The lottery system for the badges. The lottery system for the hotels. The lottery system for the parking passes. Everything depends on luck and that has my insides clenched with worry that we’ll miss something this time. This year I did miss something. We didn’t get a slot in the lottery and forgot to secure parking passes after the lottery was over. I panicked, then a friend saved me with her extra passes. (They were pricey but uber convenient for our JuggerBaby needs.)
I found myself dreading the week, rather than anticipating it. I wondered if it was a mistake to go. By the time we were a week out, already having spent far too much time working and hosting guests, a probable panic attack set in and if I could have, I’d have cancelled the whole thing.
Thankfully, by the time we reached San Diego, most of that feeling had dissipated.
On food.
We have a tradition of staying with family friends – friends who have become family, over the years – and San Diego just wouldn’t be the same without staying with them. They’re not just good company, Mama S is an amazing cook and does a fantastic family dinner every night. I could eat that baked pasta and garlic bread for a week straight. I could eat the pancit and lumpia for a month. It’s probably a good thing that it’s not an option…
We packed our lunches and snacks, as always, to avoid the atrocious and overpriced convention center food and enjoyed leftovers for breakfast. Best week of eating all year long.
On having fun.
SDCC is just too big. It overflows from the convention center out to all the nearby hotels and their ballrooms. The whole area out front is usually packed with promotional booths for tv shows, with prizes and treats. This year it was an enormous Superman statue, the Batmobile, and a Kristen Bell show, with an ice cream parlor theme. The crowds and the lines and the noise and all of it don’t bother me. It should. I normally hate all of that. But for this? It’s just right.
The downside is that I logged far more steps than is healthy for me. We had to walk three miles to get to the Marriott to get our badges on Wednesday whereupon they insisted that JuggerBaby had to physically be with me to pick up zir badge. So that was a wasted trip and then we had to go back with zir on a busy Thursday, wasting precious time between naps.
We took it almost as easy this year as we did when I was pregnant, but this time we shared the extra load. JuggerBaby rode piggyback in our Craigslist-purchased ErgoBaby ($50!) with me in the mornings when I was fresh, PiC backpacked zir in the afternoons. We walked the floor together discovering all kinds of new cute things, and visiting old favorites. It was a weird year, we bought more art then anything else and that’s never happened before.
I caught a couple of panels while PiC and JuggerBaby went exploring on their own. That always feels a bit luxurious because, though PiC is happy to give me a break, I always have a tinge of guilt that he’s doing all the heavy lifting whether I’m there or not so we tend to stick together more than not.
:: Do you have an annual vacation destination? What would it be if you didn’t?
August 17, 2016
Baby games
We’re in that life stage where JuggerBaby loves being chased. So much so that even if you’re just walking behind zir, or look like you might be considering following, ze runs off with a shriek and a cackle. Then comes back to peek – are you coming? Are you coming?
*eye contact*
*shriek – giggles – laughter – runs away*
It’s actually a useful game where I don’t have to move very much, I just have to hear zir coming and go “Boo!” around a corner.
It’s a little harder on Seamus who has no idea why his sibling is fleeing ahead of him, noisily, then coming back to prod him into chasing zir “again”. He’s also very confused by the game of “I have the remote and you can’t have it.” His sighs plainly ask me, “but why would I want it?”
Negotiations
If/then statements are now an almost effective tool with an almost reasonable child. When ze is tugging on my hand to Get Ye To The Kitchen, I can persuade zir to come with me first if I suggest that FIRST we will change zir diaper, THEN ze can eat all the crackers ze can hold. Or FIRST, take a nap, and then we will read that extra compelling book.
It’s not always successful and I still have to physically wrestle zir to the ground on some particularly intractable occasions but it’s working more often than not so I’m calling that a win. Ish.
Tantrums
This child is already showing symptoms of the Terrible Twos.
In general JuggerBaby is a genial child. Out for a bit of fun, overly forward in the willingness to snatch things ze wants out of anyone’s hands, ze often shrugs and moves on to the next opportunity when told No.
When ze grabs my iPad and signals “more” (meaning “make it work!”) and I pretend that it does nothing more than make a clicky noise, ze will move on.
When ze grabs for a handful of Seamus’s tail and is roundly scolded, ze stops with a grin.
Or when thwarted yet again from zir fifth attempt to dash past me into the street, ze might fling zirself at my legs, arms octopusing around me as ze goes for the gusto. One of these days, ze is going to take a chunk out of my legs and that’s going to be bad times at the AGSL Corral.
Once in a while, though, when we say no, ze falls to the ground as though we cut zir little puppet strings, sobbing actual tears, face scrunched into a little angry red square.
It’s WEIRD. Tears stopped being a form of communication months ago. Ze has since learned to be stubborn, to brazen zir way through to a yes, to rage hir way there or to charm it out of us. But crying as a form of protest is just a bit ridiculous when ze has so many other effective tools in zir arsenal. So we tell zir to do what ze needs to do and leave zir to zir feelings until it’s cried out and miraculously all better or we start reading a favorite book and suddenly the tears are forgotten.
Speaking of emotions, ze thinks it’s really funny to bite me now, for fun, not just when ze is tired. So funny that ze broke skin and I now have a scar on my shoulder to show off because my child is a tiny many-toothed monster. Grrr.
Also like a ferocious kitten, ze has been leaping on me from behind things, grabbing an ankle to pin me, and going for a bite. Sometimes it’s a fake bite but who wants to stick around to find out which it is?? Not I, said the thrice-bitten tasty morsel.
Then, just when you’re about to pitch the child out on zir ear and toss a knapsack of provisions after zir, ze learns things like blowing kisses and hollers “mama!” And blows a dozen kisses at you. Then holds out zir hands for a hug which ze Does Not Do. *melt* Alright. You can stay for one more day. But tomorrow, you’re out!
Lean into the nonsense
At dinner, our one sit down meal together of the day, ze has a short attention span and if ze had late snacks, not much appetite. We don’t care if ze eats a full meal at dinner because that Buddha belly of zirs very plainly shows ze isn’t going to waste away for lack of half a meal. But what we do care about is zir level of civility during the meal. And that wanes dramatically when ze isn’t hungry and occupied with eating everything in sight.
We used to think that ze would do better if we treated zir like an adult: you tend to your meal and we’ll eat ours. For a while, that was true. Lack of attention was better – no one to show off for. But since ze has gotten used to company at daycare, ze wants more interaction, and was acting out more to get it.
My new strategy is simple. When bored, ze acts like a little punk: throwing food, throwing water, throwing bowls, spoons, forks. If ze is even just minimally snacking and/or playing, we all survive to fight another day. So if zir attention is wavering, it’s time to engage.
When ze is dramatically slumping over, I mimic zir. If ze is dancing, I dance. If ze is waving hands around, I offer a high five or a fistbump. It’s silly but the sillier, the better, because a laughing toddler is much better than a plotting toddler. If we’re “playing”, then even if ze isn’t eating or hungry, ze remains a tolerable dining companion and will even offer to have a few bites of our food. In solidarity.
I’ve also learned to plan to have a second dinner or a dessert after because ze eats a LOT of our food!
Comparisons
I know it’s a natural impulse to compare yourself to others but I find my tolerance for it in parents regarding their children is nearly non-existent. We joked about making sure JuggerBaby reached certain milestones by a certain age because expectations! But in reality we are NOT playing that game. Fat lot of good it’s going to do us here in the ultra competitive Bay Area?
A friend’s kid seems like a genius. He hasn’t started school yet but he’s a literate polymath. He speaks, reads and writes in at least 6 languages that I know of and will likely pick up a few more because he loves it. That’s awesome and we are happy to entertain his showing off new language skills because he’s a kid and he’s so proud of them. Meanwhile other parents are reacting to his accomplishments with weird jealousy and guilt. Like oh, HE knows this, now I have to catch up. And my friend hears this so often she actually feels guilty about how smart he is. I hate that for her. I get why she feels that way – he’s still a kid despite all the intellect and acts like it, he shouldn’t be set apart the way the other parents are naturally doing, so she is catching herself downplaying it with the obvious: he’s awesome at this thing. He’s not awesome at other things that kids are normally into. She’s sensible and cognizant that balance is good for him, too much of the academic can leave him lacking in other necessary life experiences if he never pulls his nose out of a book, but I hate that the competitiveness of other parents means there’s this whole dialogue of “but he’s not perfect!”
If you’re a parent, that goes without saying, doesn’t it?
Why is it such a reflex to blurt out things like “my kid is so behind” and “we better go home and make them study now” over things that aren’t age appropriate? I figure the kid is oblivious right now but it’s a stinky impulse.
Wash your mouth out with … wait, no
Some things, JuggerBaby will never learn. Every bath, ze rearranges everything in the tub, plays with zir toys, and as soon as I’m distracted, grabs a handful of soap to eat.
Ze hates the taste, makes a horrible face every time, but it’s like ze has baby-amnesia and can never remember the 58 other times ze tasted that exact same bar of soap and had the exact same reaction.
Comprehension and communication
You’d think we’d be used to it by now but we’re not. I can ask JuggerBaby a yes/no question and get an actual answer now. Ze gets to choose from a small selection of breakfast foods, for example, and when I ask “do you want some yogurt?” I might get a firm headshake NO. Then ze points at the scrambled eggs. “Eggs? You would like some eggs?” “DA!”
“Do you want some toast?” “DA!”
“Do you want some strawberry bread?” “DA!”
“Do you want your water?” *headshake*
Ze hasn’t said no aloud yet but ze is quite firm when that’s the answer. Ze shakes zir head, puts zir hands up to signal “all done”, pushes things away. There is no convincing this child if ze didn’t want to be convinced. Luckily, ze is relatively open to trying most things at least once. Of course, it could all be stuffed in zir mouth to be dribbled back out slowly, so buyer beware.
:: How much soap can a baby eat before ze foams at the mouth? Did your food preferences as a child stay your food preferences as an adult? Do you have trouble with comparing yourself or your family to others?
August 15, 2016
I asked how you manage your money if you have to compromise with another human. It’s only fair to share how we’re managing ours!
It’s taken years, but PiC and I have a pretty good system for us these days.
Once upon a time, my money was my money, and then it wasn’t. The last time it’s been totally separate was when I was 12. Since then, my own money has been intermixed with family issues at various times for various reasons. After years of hard lessons with my family, I had to learn to trust, and take risks based on that trust again when PiC and I started to cohabitate, and that’s where our money started to intertwine.
It took at least a year after we got married for it to truly sink in that our money was irretrievably connected, however we chose to handle it. I was evaluating our life insurance 4 days after we got married but viscerally, it’s a lot hard to remold “me” into “we”. Over the course of that year, it was a tentative subject and we weren’t ready to say much, but we were slowly aligning ourselves with each other without words, just through actions.
It’s never painless, not when you’re talking about unseating a decade of habits. Our foibles would occasionally pop up and give us some trouble. It was at this point that we began to learn the art of compromising with each other, and realized that neither of us did well with a shared budget and separate finances. It’s taken a few more years and a lot of adjustments but we’ve got a working system now.
Ours to have and hold
Budgeting the money
Pretax contributions come out first: taxes, retirement contributions, health, dental and vision, pre-tax FSA account, disability and life insurance benefits. Those all come out of PiC’s paycheck because his benefits are way better than what my work offers.
25% of our take-home pay is automatically deposited to our joint savings account, this comes out of both checks. We added up all our bills and made sure that it didn’t exceed the remaining 75% which is dropped into our joint checking account. All the bills are paid out of that account: mortgage, HOA fees, rent, daycare, credit cards.
Spending the money
All routine costs that can be are charged to credit cards that bring in the best rewards and that’s paid by the joint checking account: gas, groceries, utilities, travel, dining out, medical and vet bills.
We kept our own checking accounts and credit cards. I pay most of the bills out of the joint account, he pays a couple of the utility bills and his own credit cards. I do all the accounting, oversee our retirement accounts and, since my eye is on early retirement, I actively manage our brokerage account and our real estate property. We use Mint for bills reminders but usually have paid it by the time Mint sends the weekly update.
Pretty simple all around.
Communication is key
Twice a month, I ask PiC what he’s going to pay in the next week. I don’t see all his credit card bills so that helps me keep a bead on the expected withdrawals. Our mortgage, rent, and association fees are automated monthly payments so asking regularly and a quick eyeball of the account tells me if I am going to run short. That really only happens when a big unbudgeted four digit check is cut, but I’ve been burned by keeping too low a balance in the checking account before. Never again!
We also created a shared email account so all our financial accounts go there. That way if either one of us is out of the picture, access to important financials isn’t restricted to someone’s email.
Bonus money
I do some credit card churning on the side to earn travel money, that’s how we paid for our travel to Hawaii and Washington without breaking the budget. I keep that simple too, one or two cards per calendar year for specific trips. This year I’ve already done our second card, but I’m considering a third before the end of the year.
I alternate between cards under each of our names and don’t bother with any sign-up bonus less than $250 value in travel money or miles.
I used to be cautious about keeping old credit lines open, which I still do, but I’ve spent enough years being responsible and carrying no debt that our credit histories are in great shape. I’ve shown that I can carry an auto loan and pay it on time for many years. I’ve got many years of credit card use, always paid in full and on time. Same goes for the mortgages – always paid on time.
This means our credit scores are always in the high 700s or low 800s no matter how much churning I do, so I stopped worrying about preserving it years ago. This is good for anywhere from $500-2000 worth of travel value. Not bad for several days of work.
:: Do you simplify your money management (fewer accounts, less active management) or go for the more complex (maxing rewards sources, bonuses, etc)?