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Wives and Money
Yes, I put this in politics for a reason!
To further the tangent Jason was going down in another thread...
Before my wife and I got married we maintained separate checking accounts and we both made the same exact base income. We both worked the same exact job for the same exact pay. The only differences were when one of us got overtime.
We lived together for a short time and this was when my wife began talking about "pooling" our incomes as opposed to just splitting bills 50/50. I was against this at the time because I still owed a few grand on my car and about $800 in credit card debt. I knew I could pay off both bills in a matter of months as the debt I owed was equal to two months net pay and I had 75% of the total owed in a savings account. I didn't pay off the loans early as I had a very low interest rate and I was using the debts to increase my credit rating by paying them on time.
Unfortunately our company went on strike shortly after we got married and this somewhat screwed me. I used the funds in my accounts to clean up all but $1000 in debt as we were out of work for more than a month! when we then merged our accounts I had nothing and she had about $2K left in her accounts. We used $1K of that to pay off the last of my debts and then she acted as if she bailed me out! The funny thing is that I now had ZERO debt while she still owed about $8K on her car! I don't count the mortgage on the house because we both benefit from that.
We then went to a system of $20 per week "allowance" but that soon went wrong as she would spend her money on coffee and newspapers while I would save mine and buy games. She had some weird problem with this and told me that the money was strictly for things such as coffee and snacks and that if I did not use the money for that purpose I could no longer have it!
A while later she went on maternity leave and never went back to work. Things got worse because, for the first time in her life, she had no income. It can be very hard on someone to go from making $75K to nothing. I understand this but it is annoying to have someone try to micromanage your money because they no longer have any!
My main thought has always been, "just give me $20 per week, no questions asked, and I don't care what you buy!"
The thing about work giving you reimbursement checks is that the money in question already came out of my $20 allowance, if it now goes back into the general fund I never see it again!
A few years back I purchased some copies of the Farscape magazine that was put out by Titan. I spent my own money buying the issues and kept them mint. When the show got cancelled I eBayed those issues and made a hefty profit, or should I say "we" made a hefty profit. Even though I spent $120 buying those things from my allowance money the $450 I made from selling them went into the general fund. See, if you only make a few dollars here and there it's not a big issue, but once you start making real money the have-nots get jealous! And no, I did not get my initial $120 back!
At this point we have a joint checking account, savings account and several investment accounts. She has a checking account (she does Mary-Kay) and I have a checking account (I do software and SimplyFun). What irks me to no end is when she tells me that she is putting some of her Mary-Kay money into the joint account. I know what she is doing, she is trying to guilt me into doing the same. Why? Because she knows the balance in my account! What she fails to grasp is that just because I have $800 in the account does not mean the money is not destined for some other purpose. It might be there because I just filled a party order and I have a $600 balance on my credit card, the one I used to place the order!
If she were back at her old job and making the same money I do this would not even be an issue. Our disparity in incomes is the problem. She has always identified with the fact that she makes lots of money, now she does not.
To further the tangent Jason was going down in another thread...
Before my wife and I got married we maintained separate checking accounts and we both made the same exact base income. We both worked the same exact job for the same exact pay. The only differences were when one of us got overtime.
We lived together for a short time and this was when my wife began talking about "pooling" our incomes as opposed to just splitting bills 50/50. I was against this at the time because I still owed a few grand on my car and about $800 in credit card debt. I knew I could pay off both bills in a matter of months as the debt I owed was equal to two months net pay and I had 75% of the total owed in a savings account. I didn't pay off the loans early as I had a very low interest rate and I was using the debts to increase my credit rating by paying them on time.
Unfortunately our company went on strike shortly after we got married and this somewhat screwed me. I used the funds in my accounts to clean up all but $1000 in debt as we were out of work for more than a month! when we then merged our accounts I had nothing and she had about $2K left in her accounts. We used $1K of that to pay off the last of my debts and then she acted as if she bailed me out! The funny thing is that I now had ZERO debt while she still owed about $8K on her car! I don't count the mortgage on the house because we both benefit from that.
We then went to a system of $20 per week "allowance" but that soon went wrong as she would spend her money on coffee and newspapers while I would save mine and buy games. She had some weird problem with this and told me that the money was strictly for things such as coffee and snacks and that if I did not use the money for that purpose I could no longer have it!
A while later she went on maternity leave and never went back to work. Things got worse because, for the first time in her life, she had no income. It can be very hard on someone to go from making $75K to nothing. I understand this but it is annoying to have someone try to micromanage your money because they no longer have any!
My main thought has always been, "just give me $20 per week, no questions asked, and I don't care what you buy!"
The thing about work giving you reimbursement checks is that the money in question already came out of my $20 allowance, if it now goes back into the general fund I never see it again!
A few years back I purchased some copies of the Farscape magazine that was put out by Titan. I spent my own money buying the issues and kept them mint. When the show got cancelled I eBayed those issues and made a hefty profit, or should I say "we" made a hefty profit. Even though I spent $120 buying those things from my allowance money the $450 I made from selling them went into the general fund. See, if you only make a few dollars here and there it's not a big issue, but once you start making real money the have-nots get jealous! And no, I did not get my initial $120 back!
At this point we have a joint checking account, savings account and several investment accounts. She has a checking account (she does Mary-Kay) and I have a checking account (I do software and SimplyFun). What irks me to no end is when she tells me that she is putting some of her Mary-Kay money into the joint account. I know what she is doing, she is trying to guilt me into doing the same. Why? Because she knows the balance in my account! What she fails to grasp is that just because I have $800 in the account does not mean the money is not destined for some other purpose. It might be there because I just filled a party order and I have a $600 balance on my credit card, the one I used to place the order!
If she were back at her old job and making the same money I do this would not even be an issue. Our disparity in incomes is the problem. She has always identified with the fact that she makes lots of money, now she does not.
Comments
Steve: "I had nothing and she had about $2K left in her accounts. We used $1K of that to pay off the last of my debts and then she acted as if she bailed me out!" Yeah. She bailed you out.
Let me emphasize: a beer.
/beer snob
That's why "On The Beach" was such a good movie. They drank like bastards in nearly every single frame. Don't tease the geeks like that. Now you've made them all hot and bothered.
I'm sure any age-appropriate ones here would marry you in a heartbeat. AND give you all their moneys.
Take a poll of the married guys on here and ask them this question.
The Flintstones was just an animated version of the Honeymooners.
I almost just gave birth to a live roflcopter I was laughing so hard....
This is a pretty amusing thread, nevertheless. WaterisPoison wins! XD No way. Australian beer is horrible!
Also, I agree with Mamath, in that I don't like most Australian beer. Then again, I'm not a fan of lager or most lighter ales. I'm all about darker ales, stouts and porters, and barley wines.
It's easy to be a snob. What's the worst you've had or will admit to having? What's the worst you'll tolerate now?
I'm not a beer man myself, though when I do drink it, I drink Killian's Irish Red. Yummy. Actually, I prefer the hard stuff. Bring on the whiskey.
I will not drink any of these cheap, crappy beers today, unless there's a very good reason (for example, buying a shitty beer at a bowling alley and drinking it in a cup so I can enjoy the good beer I snuck in later). My general rule is that if there isn't any beer that I like, I won't drink beer. If you said that if I wanted any beer in the next month it would have to be Bud Light, I wouldn't drink beer that month.
EDIT: My current beer goal is to get this beer. It's only sold one day out of the year, and only at the brewery where it's made. The stuff costs $150 a case, with a run size of 200 cases. The limit is 2 cases per customer. It's apparently the second best beer on the planet.