It takes two!

[jakeslim]

My girlfriend(long term) and myself have recently committed to face our debts together. We have a new outlook on paying bills and managing money. Here is what we are doing.

 

1)We both agreed to not buy ANYTHING we do not need. Car parts(me) or clothes(her)

until we are well on our way to debt freedom, 6-12 months.

 

2)We have made it a TEAM effort to make this happen. We talk about how good it feels to pay bills as they come in, utility, car, rent, credit cards...etc. We are having FUN with it!

 

3)We both are converting to eat/cook at home more often. This allows EXCELLENT flexibility to pay bills we normally would not have afforded. Pasta, 101 ways!

Most of us could have ribeye steaks intead of Mcdonalds if you ate at home..lol.

 

4)We encourage, discuss and champion our next round of bill paying(paychecks) and reward each other for the success were seeing through words!

 

It takes two!

[Gingerly]

Proud of ya!

 

It sounds like you two have a healthy, mature relationship.

[munci98]

I couldn't agree more. Relationships are tough when you don't see money the same way.

[jaslken]

honestly you can not have a relationship if you can nopt see eye to eye on money.

1st off the arguements

2nd the communication breaksdown

3rd wondering why you are even together in the first place and

4th contempt

 

well at least that is what happened to me and my EX!!!

[stormblade]

I wish things were as easy as that around my house.

 

It is a struggle for me and my wife to see eye to eye about money. We think about things in a very different way. My wife is Japanese and we live in Japan, trust me there are some serious cultural barriers to overcome when it comes to money.

 

But I have taken encouragement from reading many of the stories (like yours) on this board and it is helping me cope with the differences.

 

Slowly but surely we are communicating about money. I hope to buy a home for us to live in over here, but getting the wife to see that rent is a waste is not easy (no one in her family owns a house).

 

We pay over $2500/month in rent and it is killing me to essentially throw the money out the window.