Episode 1 - Mistakes Made & Lessons Learned. The Story of Us

This episode is going to be a bit personal, to help you know the mistakes I’ve (we’ve) made and the lessons we’ve learned.

Some of our story has a lot to do with messed up LIVES and NOT just messed up finances.

We met and I decided he was the boy for me within a few weeks. Mort? Not so much. His heart was still with a woman whom he had dated and loved, who had rejected him.

Months into the relationship, he let me know he still felt torn, caring for her and beginning to care for me.

But I had known many guys and hadn’t met anyone as thoughtful and kind as this rascal. I was smitten.

Financially we were very separate. He worked as an engineer, had money saved. But mostly he shared living expenses with four other guys, renting a large home and having very small fixed expenses. He used his money to buy things: imported stereo equipment and cars generally.

I worked at minimum wage jobs, lived with a family who allowed me to pay very low rent, didn’t have much money for gas or tolls when I visited him, had a small Christmas Club savings account, and mostly spent money on food and clothes.

When I got pregnant 9 months after we first met and we were married in three weeks.

I am not alone falling in love, getting married or moving in together, NEVER having spoken about financial values or goals. But since money is one of the biggest things couples argue about, in hindsight, if you’re WISE, if you want to avoid more trouble than you need to have in your relationship, you’ll talk about money and your attitudes and goals concerning money.  MISTAKE #1: DON’T BE like Mort and Marion and ignore important topics because they aren’t romantic.

LESSON #1: DO discuss money with your partner early and often.

Newly married and with very little monthly fixed expense, and with few cool items that sales folks couldn’t wait to sell us, we sat unaware of how much we needed a bound copy of the Encyclopedia, a water softening unit of a very heavy, but amazing vacuum cleaner. MISTAKE #2: Gradually, and without having a plan for our money, our ‘budget’ – which if by budget we mean ‘savings and spending plan’ -which we didn’t have became overtaken by fixed expenses for all these unnecessary items that we bought on credit.

LESSON #2- Have a plan for your spending and saving. TALK FIRST before you add an ongoing expense to your family commitment.

I came from a broken and violent home. He came from a loving and peaceful home. Neither one of really know HOW to go about the work of being married.

I didn’t realize that you would be THAT angry with someone you actually LOVED. And that having disagreements is normal. That you could love someone with all your heart and still have diametrically opposed ideas. We didn’t communicate well. I kept talking, trying to get him to understand. He didn’t know how to say what the problem was and so he’d shut down and ignore me.

When we’d argue, and he would walk away or leave the house, or say something that hurt me, I would salve my broken heart with shopping. I would buy stuff. And since I didn’t know what the financial situation was, I would charge it on a credit card.

A woman once complimented me on a hand-knit sweater I wore. I said, ‘Thank you! My husband insisted I buy it.’

With growing credit card debt from us both, he would be more and more angry. Which would prompt arguments with hurtful words – and more shopping.  Which leads me to MISTAKE #3: DON’T BE like Marion and use shopping to deal with hurt and frustration.

LESSON #3 – Direct your money with a PLAN and not on emotional whims.

Eventually, and gratefully, because this relationship was much more off the rails in many other ways than needs to be shared in this podcast, someone came to the door and told me that Jesus loved me- and Mort, and asked if I wanted to go in a new direction with my life. And I did. And Mort came, too.

Changes came slowly, emotions were still the default response to frustration. Communication was not fixed with prayer.

Now we erred in other ways with money. If giving back to God 10% was good, then surely giving back 20 or 30% was even better. After all, we’ll be in Heaven soon, and we won’t need to worry about credit card bills unpaid, or debts to local merchants piling up or any of those silly earthly concerns. MISTAKE #4 Always generous towards others, we had a heart to give it all away. Obviously, we thought, God will take care of us.

LESSON # 4 – Tithing is the right thing to do. Don’t go into debt to do it.

Eventually, we bought a house. I HAD to have everything I wanted. We maxed out what the bank would let us borrow. We had two small kids and we couldn’t easily buy new clothes for them or shoes because by now we have a lot of our fixed income going to debt repayment. BECAUSE we didn’t have much available cash, oh, and we had NO budget, or an idea of how the money should be controlled, we used credit cards to buy groceries, kids things, whatever was needed. We TRIED to be careful. We thought we were only spending money on credit because it was sort of an emergency. A new neighbor told me how they were making extra payments on their mortgage early on so that they could have it paid off many years less than the mortgage required. I couldn’t understand this. I didn’t understand how she learned that, how she afforded that and why we were getting further and further behind.

I didn’t just hope the problem of the debt and worry would go away. I bought books on budgeting. But they were difficult for me to understand. One book want the reader to write out the pay, take out the taxes and write down each one, to see the net. Why? Tell me how to deal with the net income, I yelled into the living room. Then write down all your expenses and what’s left is for savings and food. There WASN’T ANYTHING LEFT. That’s why I need to learn to budget. There were no instructions for climbing out of this deep hole and getting back on solid ground.

Then we tried schemes, ways to make ‘millions’ using ‘other people’s money.’ Spent money – on credit – to get the whole system. That system might have worked for someone, but it had little bearing on our capabilities.

Mistake #5 Getting further and further away from financial safety.

Lesson #5 – Gotta stop the madness. Don’t KEEP using credit. Get help now.

My husband was working a great job. But the commute time had doubled and his was getting more and more sick. Headaches, frustration, early morning, late evenings. The kids and never saw him and he was spent. We decided to move. We couldn’t afford to be closer to work. So we chose to move 500 miles away. Start over. Pay off debt and be freer.

But we quickly realized that we didn’t have enough down payment for the new house. So we borrowed more assuming that work would always be there and the payments, though making things very tight, would be fine.

Until they weren’t because he was laid off in an economic slowdown.

Mistake #6 – More debt and big assumptions

Lesson- Stop assuming that things will be the way they are in the moment you borrow.

We have these two adorable sons, who are curious and creative. And I have strong opinions on too much TV viewing and being active and having good quality toys. And my husband loves puzzles. So it’s no leap for us to spend money on high-quality toys for the kids. Playmobil, Lego, all the kinds of toys that will keep them really playing.

In my world of a difficult childhood, making sure my kids had WHATEVER THEY NEEDED, by my crazed definition, was VITAL. It salved my broken heart. It fixed my childhood traumas by giving them pleasure.

Mistake # 7 going into debt out of a crazy emotional needs

Lesson- stop trying to fix your past by BUYING things, no matter how well you rationalize it in your mind or to your spouse.

These are just a few of the bad decisions that I have made. In some cases, just in these examples, I made poor choices repeatedly.

Your lesson is don’t be me. Be smarter than me. Be pragmatic. Stop doing the things you know you need to stop doing before your back is up against the wall and you are FORCED into stopping, because of bankruptcy or job loss or some other difficulty.

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