January 4, 2009

I am 63 years old and have been married for 42 years. After being married for 2 years, I sorted things out and realized that one of us had to take charge of our finances. We agreed that my wife would be in charge. After six months, we both agreed that that was not working. I took charge and immediately began budgeting, allocating "x" number of dollars to 10-12 spending categories, i.e., house payment/rent, groceries, R&R (rest and re-cooperation-i.e., fun), vehicle/transportation, education, phone, other utilities, clothing, health, giving, gifts, etc.. No less that once a year, I would tweak our budget as my income and our life circumstances changed.

For the first 35 years, my wife generated varying amounts of income. As I considered myself the "bread-winner," our budget was always based on my income; not our combined incomes. My wife's income was used to purchase extra things that we simply could not have obtained with my income alone. My income has always been a tad above the average.

Without being obsessed with and obnoxious about keeping track of every expense, which does require saving receipts-even for tiny expenses, I developed a system which has always kept us above board to the point where our budget balances every year, managing to have a moderate IRA portfolio and always meeting our financial obligations -- all possible because we never spent (the "out" column on my budget) more than what I earned (the "in" column).

There were times when circumstances were so demanding that the "balance" column for any one category might have been in the negative, which simply meant that that category of spending would have to be curtailed until it zeroed out or became positive. If I was blindsided by an out of the ordinary expense, there were times that I would have to "transfer funds" from our R&R, Grocery or another discretionary category (if one existed) into the category that needed under-girding. When that happened we did not starve; we simply ate a lot of bean soup and corn bread.

Had I not disciplined myself to maintain a rigid budget, in spite of my wife's grumbling, we would be in financial trouble today. Frankly, even today as I enter my so-called Golden Years, I find it every bit-if not more challenging-to maintain a balance between income "in" and spending "out".

Now for the ugly side of the story: My wife has always been financially responsible -- until 12 years ago. She got involved in network marketing and did quite well. She decided that that she wanted a fancy car, more than my income alone would allow. I told her I would give her half the payment every month. That worked ok, but then she thought she needed to upgrade to another fancy car. I applied the same arrangement but after about a year, I began to see notices from GMAC about payments in the rears. After bailing her out several times, I took charge of making the monthly payment, having to squeeze her for her of the obligation most every month. Finally, she was no longer able to hold up her end of the deal and I was stuck with ~$18,000 of debt that my budget could not support.

Fortunately, I've always had good credit. About that time I was able to refinance our mortgage at much better interest rate. I borrowed an additional $18,000 and sent it to GMAC, leaving me with paying off my half - which did not impact me as it was an item already budgeted for. Without good credit and a household budget, this would have floored me. What did impact me was that I ended up with an additional $18,000 on my mortgage.

Then some time later, my wife announced that she was in trouble with a credit card (in her name) for an amount of ~$12,000. She was unable to pay it. I agreed to bail her out. This time I played the credit card game by transferring balances from one credit card to another, obtaining very low interest rates for short periods of time. Between a lot of finagling and eliminating every iota of discretionary spending in our budget for 2+ years, I got it cleaned up.

The last straw was when my (our) bank confiscated an $8000 CD (borrowed money designated to pay off a future obligation) to deal with a $10,000 overdraft written by my wife on her personal checking account. I determined that this would be the last time I would bite the bullet for my wife's total lack of financial judgment and responsibility. I immediately canceled all joint bank accounts/credit cards and replaced them in my name. I found a good lawyer to assist in removing her name from our assets and to set up a trust in order to protect my wife from herself in the event that I pass on before her. She is fully aware of this in that she had to sign off on the deed to our home and other joint assets where she was named first beneficiary. Though this sounds mean and cruel on my part, I was fortunate to have had the foresight to do so, as she is again in great financial trouble to the extent that one of her creditors would have the legal means to go after our assets if her name were on them. For her own welfare, I cannot continue to bail her out. In spite of me having literally divorced my wife (financially speaking), the black cloud of her debt hovers over me.

Certainly, my wife's lack of financial responsibility has put an extreme damper on our relationship. This is a very sad and ungodly commentary for a marriage of 43 years - and a sad state of affairs entering into the "fall season" of one's life. I love her and will stick with her for her sake and my kids and grandkids sake. Had neither one of us had any financial responsibility from the get-go, we would have been history long ago, both financially and martially speaking.

The moral of the story: Budgeting and trusting God has and will see us through some tough times. Be content with the "stuff" that your budget allows you to buy; there is much more to life then working your guts out to accumulate "stuff" -- like being there to raise kids and grandkids that have convictions, values and moral fiber.

Feel free to use this "testimonial" on your new website but for obvious reasons please honor my request for anonymity.