Sometimes my life just makes me laugh. Yesterday night JD breezes into the apartment after work and asks a question that has clearly been on his mind for the full walk home (about 1.5 blocks): do you think it's reasonable if we plan to pay back X amount of dollars towards my student loans next year?
Me, desperately trying to find a healthy, low-sugar snack looks up and snaps: "Well, the truth is I don't actually know how much you make, or will make next year. And I don't think you know how much I make, so beats me." And then we both look at each other and crack up.
It turns out despite all our wishes to be mature and financially responsible and such, we're not quite there. Yes, I had a ballpark idea of what he makes, but I'd never asked for an exact amount, let alone calculated post-tax income. And I know he has a lot of student debt, but I'd never really calculated the repayment rate. And he was off by quite a bit on my income. I'd like to chalk our ignorance up to idealism, but honestly, when do you ask someone (even someone you've been in a committed relationship with for 5 years) exactly how much money they make?
We lived exceedingly well for the three years we were both full-time graduate students: fancy dinners for special occasions, theater tickets several times a year, lengthy and exotic vacations but we both had roommates, we own not a single piece of furniture that we purchased new, a 17 year old car, shared cell phone plan, the little signs of not having a steady income. And I don't actually see us changing any of that in the next few years: we're sticking with our 320 square foot apartment, we're getting rid of the 17 year old car so we don't have to pay car insurance, we have no cable or monthly expenses except for our utilities bill and netflix. I've just never felt like we needed to set a formal budget because we are both quite conservative with our speeding and we really have no regular big expenses (We are after all the couple who will be sharing 3 different hotel rooms with the single guys at weddings this fall just to save a little money. That's JD, me, the bump and 2 single guys in a hotel room - super romantic). The one thing we agreed upon after getting married is that neither of us would spend more than $100 shopping without consulting each other, and thus far that has worked very well.
It's just that suddenly JD started calculating the real costs of raising a child into our future budget, and he decided that if we don't pay back the debt in the next 2 years* that we will probably land up keeping part of it for the next 10-15 years since the cost of the child keep going up. Which is a rather scary thought. Especially because we have no idea what unplanned expenses might hit is in the next 2 years - a short NICU stay or even a minor illness could land up costing us a large part of my income. It's nice to know that we have the ability to pay back the debt so quickly, even if it would mean really restricting our discretionary spending for the next couple of years. And I'm sure I'll be able to adjust, it's just a bit challenging at this particular moment when I've outgrown all the clothes I already own and there are any number of practical, useful items I would like to buy before the end of December. So I'm working on adjusting.
* And yes, 2 years is a random signifier for the time when we will probably either land up back at the IF center or on the adoption path.
2 comments:
I had to laugh when I read this because we've been married for almost three years and I had no idea how much my husband makes until just last week. I saw his earnings statement for the first time last week! I also had no idea how much we had in investments (other than what I already had). Sadly, I'm the one who handles the day-to-day bills and I didn't even know this crucial bit of information. We still operate like we're single when it comes to many of our finances--I guess old habits are hard to break--but we don't have issues so why change? Umm, it's still probably good to know what each other's salaries are, though!
It's tricky dealing with finances when you're first married. Every couple has to work out their own system that works for them, but how? My wakeup moment came when I asked the Mister what the interest rates on his credit cards were, and he had no idea. Turned out they were about 28%!! I took over managing our money at that point ...
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