I feel their pain
After the Suze Orman show on MSNBC, I didn't change the channel and a feature came on about a couple with a six figure income living in Buffalo who were having a struggle making it financially. They've already borrowed against their home equity. The wife is a SAHM with an MBA who is still paying off her college loans and has three children. The house and cars were very nice--not palatial, but better than anything I've ever owned. They appeared to be in their early 40s.Then today USAToday featured the Hetmers of Rockwall, TX, another family (blended) with a six figure income, wife has two jobs and the husband has a sales job that has a base of $30,000 and then he works on commission. He'd been making about $130,000, and this is a new job, probably a step up. They can't borrow against their home equity, because they have none, and have an interest only mortgage. She too is paying off her college loans, and now has decided that her college age son should borrow her half of the costs (his father pays the other half), so they'll have two generations of college loans in that family. She is about 41.
What do you want to bet that neither family tithes their income to a church or synagogue? And yet that's about the best way to stay out of debt that I know of. I don't know why it works, but it does. If you start early enough, you won't have any excess cash to fritter away on eating out or shopping as a hobby. Later, when it's a habit and not a hardship, it will help you focus on what's important in life.
Back to Suze Orman (soapbox alert). I enjoy her show and her dramatics. It's well-paced with good advice. But I wish she'd slap some of these "living together" couples up side the head instead of giving them advice on investments. Living together without marriage screams "lack of commitment," so why should they be mingling funds just because they are mixing body fluids? Marriage isn't always a good financial base, but shacking up never is.
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5 comments:
Yeah, but some of us are saving up the enormous amounts of money needed for all the bullshit that goes into a wedding (i.e. hall rental, dress/tux purchase, bags of rice, mimes) not to mention the huge bling it's gonna take for her to say 'yes.' Living together until then does spell out financial relief and who is anyone to judge us as lack-of-commitment types? If someone wants to bankroll all this stuff, I'll be more than happy to apply it towards a wedding.
Elope, and put the money towards the house.
This looks very different in Firefox than IE. That subject like is supposed to have a snarky shadow, but doesn't in FF.
I don't know what's supposed to be going on with the title in either version.
Anyway, someone once told me that people spend whatever they earn. He was more or less correct, but they sometimes spend more. Tithe or not, common sense is a precious commodity -- a very good conservative trait that I liek to think I possess.
Okay, I'm late to this party but I have to chime in. I wish I could smack everyone who thinks that a big reception is a must to be married. It's not, people! You can get married at city hall or in a private church ceremony and in the end--you are still married. Isn't that supposed to be what counts? And there's nothing more pathetic than people who can't afford it holding a big party because "they have to do it" or "it's expected" and then using their wedding gifts to cover the bills.
For various reasons, my sister got married in Vegas in a rather dull ceremony that we viewed over the internet. My parents threw her a nice party 3 months after, and it was wonderful because it wasn't a reception. It was at their house, we had catered food, and rented tables, chairs and linens. People were relaxed and pleased it wasn't an all day event, and most didn't have to travel far. It was the best wedding related festivities ever.
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