Starting Out

When we were first married, we both had pretty good jobs. We were both paid every other week, and we were on opposite weeks. This was nice because we would get a pay check every week.

The way I handled our money was by calling the bank if we wanted to make a big purchase. If the money was there, we would get it. Unfortunately, we would forget that I had just mailed a bill and didn't consider that when we called the bank.

Because we were getting a paycheck every week and we were both making fairly good money, we managed to stay afloat for a while.

--Susan

Our Story Begins

When Buck and I got married, we had very different ideas of how to handle money. Like most people, we got a lot of our habits from watching our parents. In Buck's family, his dad would take his paycheck and deposit it. He would take out a little cash to use for his lunches and other things he might want. Everything in the bank, Buck's mom would handle. She would pay all the bills, buy all the groceries, and do what ever else needed to be done to keep up the household. I'm not even sure if his dad knew how much money they had in the bank most of the time.

In my family, I'm not exactly sure what my parents did. They had shown us at different times what a budget was and how it worked, but I never really understood how that worked for their finances. I remember my mom going through their checkbooks at the end of the month and making sure it matched with the bank.

At the start of our marriage, we didn't really discuss how we wanted to take care of our money. All that we really talked about was that I would be in charge of managing the money and taking care of the bills.

--Susan