Learning from Others: Part 1

As I said in my last post, learning from other married couples has been super helpful in our marriage so far.  While it is difficult, and I don't always want to admit people are right, they kind of are!

The first area we gained a lot of counsel in was the lovely subject of money.

To start, both of our parents were wise with money.  This gave us a common norm which at least allowed us to be liked minded.

Another aspect that greatly helped us were our financial standings going into marriage.  Neither one of us had school loans or any credit card debt.  Definitely a blessing!  My husband did have a car payment while we were dating, but was paid off before we were even engaged.  The choices for him were: save up for a down payment, buy an engagement ring, or pay off his car.  He is definitely more wise than me and chose to pay off his car first so we would have less stress in the long run.  We ended up still getting married quickly, and I got a beautiful ring which came with no financial strain!

So that is the beginning of what helped us.

#1- Being 100% debt free.

This of course came from our parents' model of staying debt free and also from our friends who worked to also be debt free.

The next two pieces of advice we can take no credit for, and have nothing to do with previous wise decision making.

#2- Live off of one income.

This is a tough one.  My husband works at a church, which implies a church income.  We aren't poor, we aren't starving, but we also aren't living without some sacrifices.  Our vision behind this one came from a handful of friends who were already married and tried this out.  Some did this for the first year of marriage and saved the other spouse's income.  In the second year of marriage, they then felt incredibly blessed to have such freedom in finances and they had a pretty nice down payment for a house!

Our vision was slightly different.  Since we are looking to start a family early, we knew getting locked into a hefty mortgage or higher standard of living would fail miserably once my income was taken away.  I want to stay home with our kids, so learning to live off of one income makes it normal for our marriage.  In the mean time, we are saving a lot more with the money I bring in, and we are learning be to disciplined.  Hooray!

#3- Live below your means.

This is the culmination of the first two.  Again, this was not our idea :)  We trained under a family during our engagement and this was a reoccurring theme.  We learned by living below your means you  are significantly less likely to enter into debt.  A sudden car problem, medical bill, or leaky faucet won't tip the scale.  We decided what this meant for us by creating a budget and seeing what we could afford.  Next, we made decisions which would keep us under that budgeted amount.  Yes, we could afford a nicer apartment, but we love our's and we can always afford the rent.

So how are we doing with it?

We are still debt free and living off of one income.  We are currently struggling to keep our grocery bill below our budgeted amount, but that is why I am learning to coupon and shop wisely!  We have not had any fights over money, though I do get a little stressed sometimes :)  I am the more frugal out of the two of us, so I can get a little high strung over nothing

That is at least where we are so far!

What decisions have you made with money that set you up for greater success later?

Other posts in this series:
Learning to Learn From Other People
Learning from Others: Part 2
Learning from Others: Part 3