A Spender and a Saver Fall in Love

A Spender and A Saver Fall In Love

I used to be absolutely terrible with money.

I lived paycheck to paycheck and could never figure out where my money was going.

It was so frustrating because I worked so hard but I had nothing to show for it.

Then, I met my (now) husband. He’s always been a saver and very financially responsible. He was used to doing things that I’d never really tried: like planning ahead.

We had so many other things in common, but when it came to money, we could not have been more opposite.

Early on in our relationship, it wasn’t a big factor.

He’d occasionally try to give me advice and I’d tell him he didn’t know what he was talking about (ha!) and then we’d change the subject.

Then, our relationship starting getting more serious and we moved in together.

Around this time it really hit me that he was the guy for me. I knew I wanted to marry him.

And then I started feeling bad for him. Because I thought we’d get married and I’d ruin his perfect credit with my cruddy credit.

I was so insecure about my financial history. I had so much stuff and I had zero savings.

Worst of all, I felt like this was something I couldn’t fix.

I was 25 years old and I thought I was doomed to my current financial situation.

My career was progressing. I was making more money. But I didn’t have any more money to show for it–I spent it all.

I had some credit card debt. I had a huge student loan that I couldn’t even wrap my head around.

I really believed that my current financial situation would always be financial situation.

I just felt hopeless.

As our relationship progressed, he started trying to have the serious conversations that people have when they are trying to build a life together.

He knew, just like I did, that we would end up married. He wanted to lay out a plan to conquer our finances together.

While he didn’t have a full picture of my finances yet, he always saw how fixable it was.

I couldn’t see it clearly because I was too emotional. It was always clear to him.

This continued for a while. Then, it happened…

We got engaged.

It was such a joyful time for our relationship. I really wanted to be married to this man and I was thrilled. But a little part of me was terrified.

I was going to have to tell him all my money secrets. I imagined it going something like this:

Me: “Dear, I need to tell you about the mess I’ve made of my money. I spent it all. I have some credit card debt and a crazy huge student loan. I’m a hopeless mess and I’ll probably be this way forever. I totally understand if that makes you want to leave me.”
Him: “Oh. Well, in that case I’ll take the ring back now. See ya!”

This was completely irrational and crazy. But I couldn’t see it clearly. I couldn’t be objective. I was too emotional about the whole situation.

So, I kept it to myself.

Then, we started thinking about planning a wedding. Boy, did I want a wedding! I wanted a marriage, I wanted a life and a family with this man that I loved so much, but I also wanted a really awesome wedding.

How were we ever going to afford a wedding?

I had no idea.

I spent a week trying to figure it out on my own. I made a sad attempt to crunch some numbers. It didn’t add up.

I realized that my future hubby and I were going to have to have a conversation about money.

I was so nervous, but I knew it had to happen.

We sat on the couch facing each other and started talking. He asked me questions like “How much debt do you have on these credit cards?” and “What about your student loans?”

I wanted to make excuses. I wanted to throw up.

But instead, for the first time, I answered his questions.

He didn’t freak out. He didn’t ask for the engagement ring back.

He calmly said the perfect things without even knowing how perfect they were. Things like “That’s fixable.” and “We are a team. We can figure this out together.”

I was so relieved! I didn’t actually believe yet that my problem had a solution, but I was so relieved that he did.

I was so relieved that I had told him and he didn’t panic. He still loved me.

He called us a team.

He made some suggestions about what we should do next.

“We need to pay off the credit cards. We need to pay towards the student loan. We’ll save whatever else we can toward the wedding.”

Why did it sound so simple when he said it?

A little while after our conversation, he fell asleep.

I stayed up late that night. I was motivated to make a plan.

I added up the debt from my 3 credit cards. It was $1,400.

That was actually less than I was expecting it to be.

I could put my money toward that and pay it off in one month. If I didn’t buy anything.

I continued to do the math. I figured out that we could cover all our bills, pay towards my student loan, and save $1,200 a month for our wedding. If I didn’t buy anything.

If we were going to have the wedding that we (but really mostly I) wanted, I was going to stop buying things.

I wasn’t totally sure I could do this, but I knew…

I wanted my wedding more than I wanted the stuff I was going to buy.

More importantly, I wanted to prove to my future husband, and to myself, that I could do this.

The first month was really tough! I was tempted. I wanted to go to the mall. But I stayed out of the stores. I drove a different way home so I didn’t have to drive past my favorite places to shop.

I made it through the first month. I didn’t buy anything except groceries.

I paid off the credit card debt. It felt good.

I started replacing shopping for stuff with shopping for wedding vendors.

I did a lot of research and I met with so many vendors. I looked at 20 different wedding venues before I decided!

I did want to make sure I loved my choice and that we were getting the best deal. But I also wanted to elongate my shopping experience.

As the months went on, I gained momentum. It was so exciting to see the number in the savings account grow and know that I was doing that!

It became easier to avoid shopping because shopping wasn’t part of my routine anymore.

I had priorities.

I started looking into ways to save more money. There were so many!

I reduced our phone bill and got better at finding deals in the grocery store.

Saving money was fun! It was empowering!

I was helping our team.

We had a long engagement, which I think was good for us. It lasted 20 months. We reached our wedding savings goal 18 months in. We ended up surpassing it by the time our wedding came.

We even survived the perfect storm of car disaster.

I know that for many people spending 18 months of savings on a wedding may not be the best choice. For me, it was.

For me, it changed my life.

It was how I learned to stop spending money and start saving it. I was motivated to completely changed my habits and my mindset. I discovered that being frugal could also be fun.

What about after the wedding?

We have been {so happily} married for more than a year. I haven’t gone back to my old money-spending ways. I feel good about the financial decisions that I’m making. I wouldn’t sacrifice that for any amount of stuff.