My husband and I are good people. We try to be good parents. We care about our friends. We look after our pets. We are polite and kind (most of the time!). What we are not, is good with money! (Or organized, but that's another post) In fact, we are HORRIBLE with money. We both have giant student loans which we are not really paying back (thank-you, government interest relief program) the credit card is racked, and the bank accounts are empty, even though we both make a decent wage. Some people worry about getting their identity stolen; we would welcome it! Have fun with our massive debt-load, sucker!
I joke around about it, but it is a serious situation. I ain't gettin' any youger, as they say, and I would like us to spend one or two years in the black before we retire. So I recently contacted a financial planner through my EAP (employee assistance program) to get some advice on how to get ourselves out of the hole we are in. I can boil what he said down to very few words for ya'll: don't spend what you don't have! Well, it wasn't quite that simple, but basically it comes down to math. You bring in a certain amount of money. If you're not covering your bills and paying off your debts, you have two choices. Bring in more money, or spend less somewhere else. He sent us this really cool spreadsheet budget thingy to fill out to figure out where our money is going, and where we can make changes. Of course, we haven't gotten around to filling it out yet 'cause were too busy spending the kid's inheritance, but one of these days...
Again, joking around, but I really do want to do this. I am hoping that with an organized system, we can get ourselves on a more reasonable spending track. Kids, you might get a bit of an inheritance after all!
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