I'm getting married to an idiot....

[Erika J]

Wow, Evan has been saving and saving for a bike. He has taken the saftey course, bought a jacket and gloves and is getting ready to update his drivers liscense. i thought I was totally alone in this bike world.

 

Anyways he got laid off in Dec and I told him NO bike until he has a new job and we know we can pay our bills.

 

I am sure it wont be too long.

 

 

BTW if my FI went and spent $3200 of OUR $$ on fixing his car while only contributing $800 to bills. I would NOT marry him. That would piss me off beyond the point of return.

[big3n09]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duchess I My solution is that DH and I dont keep all of our money together. We have a joint account for bills and things that we split, the rest is our own. I personally think its a very modern way to eliminate the biggest fight in most marriages. Plus, its not the time anymore where women dont have their own money. I make plenty, and dont want him to have anything to say about it when I buy shoes. Except that I am out of closet space, that he can say! And if he wants to lend money to deadbeats or buy video games, whatev!!!

I totally agree with you, me and FI are planning to set up a joint account for bills and emergency account. I plan to have a seperate account for the thngs I want to do I have had a job since I was 15 and used to having some of my own money. I would never hide my account information from him or withhold any money from him but on a daily basis I think it would create less problems if we have seperate accounts for our little vices we have. I like to shop and buy nice things he likes to gamble and we both know our limits so we will keep our fund for those things seperate.

[seaprincess]

My DH and I seem to be quite a bit different from the rest of you ladies....my hubby and I loop each other in on almost every purchase out of the ordinary...ie. other than groceries, bills etc. We have one joint account that we use for everything, and b/c we spent 2008 saving for the wedding and we bought our first home, there wasn't much left over for splurging. We are now in the habit that if one of us plans to spend money on shopping, going away, etc we pass it by each other. We come to an agreement on what we can afford/are willing to spend and then the money is spent. We keep each other accountable as well...no impulse shopping for me, no surprise TV purchases for him.

 

It may sound like we are overly involved in what we spend, but on the other hand we never fight about money b/c there are absolutely no surprises. I should point out that my DH is a financial service rep at a bank and I check our accounts daily as well as pay our bills so both of us our very involved in the finances.

 

I'm not sure if putting some of the responsibility back on your FI would open his eyes to the reality of his spending, but sharing the responsibilty of paying the bills may be a start....

[Soon To Be Mrs. Gomez]

I think we both spend on extra things when we really shouldn't right now , but my FI has been into his shooting range weekends and snowboarding and he bought season tix for the Dodgers so when I ask for money for the wedding he know she can't complain because I point out his ridiculous spending right away.

[purrfected]

I am so relieved to hear that I am not the only one dealing with the whole motorcycle thing! First of all, I love bikes. The FI's Harley is beautiful, but there are times when I wonder exactly what the pecking order is. I swear sometimes that bike comes before me. We live in CA, so unfortunately for me he gets to ride year round.

 

I never thought I would be competing with an inanimate object!!!!

[saltocoach]

The bike was something he's always wanted. He had one years ago but sold it when he was sick and his disability ran out. I was never against the bike. I just thought that when you had the bike that was it. I was WRONG!!! Apparantly there are several "stages" that MUST be performed each year.Each stage is about $1100 - $1500. Add on the registration and insurance. I jsut have a hard time trying to justify spending that much on something that you can only ride for 4-5 month of the year. Plus business is picking up and he's working a lot so it REALLY doesn't make sense to me. I guess it's a biker thing.

To update things he has apologized again and everything's cool here. His problem is peer pressure. Go figure! His friend had his bike out and he had to get his out too. I thought that we left all of this in high school! I guess it really never leaves us. Mike is a sweetheart and he doesn't intentionally kep things from me. We've never fought about money before. This is the first time in the 10 years we are together. We've always had the belief that his money is my money and vice versa. We've only has one account since we moved in together and things have been fine. Just with the wedding and trying to save the the thing I've been stressing about money. Sorry to make everyone think that he's bad but he's not! I just had a freak out and had to vent and I knew that you ladies would understand

[YoursTruly]

I agree that this is a fudnamental issue. Yes the ar might be his thing but if there is a greater priority he needs to deliver on that---no ifs ands or buts. FOCUS. WTH is wrong with men!

[BillysBride]

I'm just glad to see we're not the only couple who have two different attitudes about what's a priority and what isn't.

 

I've just made the decision to treat him like a child in this department. When he shows a tad bit more maturity, I'll potty train him and let him have his piggy bank back.

[Vikki]

Quote:

Originally Posted by soccergurl3 Wow this is Exactly like my FI. He got laid off from work about 2 months ago and ever since then has been laying around the house doing nothing. He gets a measly $350 a week from EI and thinks that giving me $100 of that for bills is suffice. As soon as he got laid off he called me one morning and said his car broke down and needed to go into the shop. It's been 5 weeks alreadya nd no car so I asked him how long it takes to fix a broken car! He said oh another week. So another week comes around and he finally gets his car back....NEW paint job and all of a sudden his car went from a Automatic to a standard....WTF. So i asked him how much it cost and he told me $500.00. WHich I thought was fishy so I went onto his online banking and he took out $3200 dollars for this fricken car. I seriously was shaking beyond no belief. He hasn't had a job since Novemeber because he was laid off and then he went to school for a trade for 2 months in January and hasn't had a job ever since. So the grand total of his contribution in giving me money ....$800.00 in 5 months. I am seriously thinking about backing out of marrying him. Isn't the man supposed to support the woman? and did i forget to mention we have a 2 year old son! I am jsut so livid with his spending habits and his car obssession that I am seriously thinking of calling it quits! And on top of that I work 10 hours a day and am completely stressed because the two ladies higher up then me got laid off and now I have to take over there jobs. Then I come home make dinner completely take care of the son by myself while he just sits on his Lazy ass the whole night......I am so sorry about the ranting but I am FUMING RIGHT NOW!!!

Hmm. Be really careful with this guy. I dated a guy for 5 years, truly loved him and wanted to marry him. But if he would have asked me to I would have had to say no. The bad part-it's because of his money management. I know that sounds shallow, love should be more important than money but we live in a world where poor money management can lead to a difficult quality of life, and that strain is never good on a marriage.

He had $28K in defaulted student loans, bad credit cards and worked for his Dad for several years getting paid under the table. There were periods of 4 or 5 months where he wouldn't work at all. The worst part is we (and by that I mean I) HAD the money to be paying on all of those debts-and I would have done it in a heartbeat!! He had this really strange view of money, one of those conspiracy theories about the government owing the people, ect ect. His father spends his whole life looking for ways to cheat the system, from one shady deal to the next.

I knew some of this when we first got serious but not all of it until a couple years in and because I loved him so much it was hard to pull the plug. But, when I wanted to purchase a home and realized he would never be able to share that responsibility with me and when I began to think about children I realized I did not want them to grow up with this influence. It was the hardest thing I've ever done to leave him but I'm so glad I did.

I joke now with my FI that I would never have agreed to marry him if I hadn't seen his credit report. And it's partly true..

Good luck and remember, you and your FI are the example your child will follow!

[TAHOEJENI]

Wow! In the three pages of postings I didn't see that many people concerned about the issue. From my perspective, it's a huge red flag being flapped in front of my face back and forth. Considering the majority of marriages end over finacial issues, this is HUGE.

 

Every day I drive to work thankful that I have a job. We both have our 6 months of SAVINGS incase either one of us was to be handed a pink slip. Sleeping is much easier when you know you have something to fall back on.

 

While we might think buying/upkeeping a motorcycle is stupid (my FI has motorcycle - not that I mind) a wedding from their persepctive might be equally as dumb. I'm sure plenty of the guys think it's dumb to spend a lot of money on ONE day when they could be golfing, riding, jet skiing, etc for days on end. Don't approach it as an item, approach it as a behavior.

 

Both parties need to be involved in the day to day books of keeping the household afloat. As a Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman disciple, things just work better that way in our house.

 

Jeni