We're getting towards the end of the year, that time of the season I like to call "suck me dry, whydoncha?" This time of the year, with the changing weather (read: I need new clothes like a duck needs water), the holidays (read: buy lots of useless stuff and get lots of useless stuff) and hopefully a vacation (read: boy, I need some time off), its time to look at my credit cards and figure out which haven't been maxed out quite yet. Unfortunately, since both kidlets also have their birthdays towards the end of the year, that year end money crunch is being elevated to a whole 'nother level.
Hubby and I have had quite a few money fights recently. It's strange: I know all the relationship experts have always said that money is one of the top 3 things that couples break up over. But I never really thought that would be Hubs and I - we're not extravagant, we've traditionally been good about keeping our debt down. The biggest difference was, I have always lived a little closer to paycheck to paycheck than Hubs, but that's partly because I've actually worked for over a decade and have always drawn a real paycheck, whereas Hubs was a student for well over a decade, and was basically a ward of the state (well, not really, only in sofar as his grants were all government funded).
The thing is, after law school and the fact that Hubs didn't work for about a year (during which I had one of my babies) has put us in financial doodoo (from our point of view). Which means that even though I am finally drawing a paycheck again (after, what, 5 years of not drawing a paycheck), Hubs is in a mad panick to get back on financial terra firma. But my school loans are outrageous, and I'm sorry, but I don't believe I can show up in work looking like a stuffed sausage (I'm not big, but far bigger than I was pre-pregnancy, which is the last time I bought any real work clothes) so that we can pay off my loans faster.
Anyways, after five months of Hubs flipping out after seeing my credit card bills, I've had enough. I told him that he could put me on a budget, but *wouldntja know it*, he refuses to. Because I also do all the shopping for the house, and he knows that he would not be able to deal w/ planning out what we need to pay for food, diapers, the kidlets clothes, etc, etc...
Where does all this come from? We're really choking pretty badly on the whole work/family thing and now we're having serious discussions about one of us not working. Unfortunately, I make more, but he loves his work more. So the real question is whether we can survive on his salary alone. At the moment, not really. That's mostly because of childcare costs, but even after eliminating that, it would be very very very tight. Like Calvins tight.
We'll see where this goes.
Comments