Finances.. Or the Lack Thereof!

I am so excited about this weekend! Dave Ramsey is speaking at the RBC Center! They had a few tickets on Groupon yesterday for half price, so of course I snagged a couple for us!

Matthew and I are both young. I work full-time. Matthew is considered part-time but usually gets about 35 hours a week. We make above minimum wage, but not much more. And we are paid hourly and not salary. I bought a house last year, which has been great now that we are married. At times, I feel that it is a lot more expensive than renting, but I honestly know that in the long run it will be cheaper than renting. I also attend school full-time through a community college and part-time through a university. I have a large amount of loans! My dad owns my car and therefore pays for the insurance and for the gas. Matthew's grandpa paid for his car when it was purchased. We recently added his car to our insurance policy to receive the discount on the home insurance, but his grandpa is giving us the money to cover the cost of the car insurance. This really saves us a lot of money by not having to cover these costs!

We are basically living paycheck to paycheck. And I can't stand it! I love to save money and have a budget that I can stick to. But it's hard to have a budget when your pay is not consistent and your expenses come quite close to making all of your money disappear. And every time we get ahead, something comes up and then we are back where we started. We have no savings, so there is no emergency fund. All of our extra money is spent on eating out and shopping. We have been fixing up our house, so a lot of money has been going to those final touches.

In our marriage, I am the one who handles the finances. Matthew likes to spend. I like to save. And sometimes I like to spend. I have control of the money. Matthew does not realize how much things cost and how high our expenses are compared to our income. I of course worry constantly.

I'm excited to hear Dave Ramsey speak! I really hope that we walk away from this being able to create a working budget (that actually works for us and not against us!). I hope that Matthew really understands how much money we have coming in and how much we have going out. I want him to realize that cooking at home vs. eating out (even the same meal) can save so much! I hope that we can sit down and talk about our finances without me getting stressed out and Matthew getting mad. I hope that we come to have a mutual understanding of where we are and where we could be!