<< Back to all Blogs
Login or Create your own free blog
Layout:
Home > Balance

Balance

December 10th, 2014 at 02:07 pm

The hardest part of this new found financial responsibility is balance. In the past, my typical day was waking up at 5am, working 11-12 hours, and at night eating out, or being out with friends. I have lived in vacation destinations my whole life, so everything was expensive and added up. It also led to a " keeping up with the joneses" mentality, due to most young people here are living off trust funds or dad's money. If there was money, it got spent. Another issue, not an excuse, was that I was in a job ( golf construction) where moving was always a high possibility, so though I dated, I never got too close. I think it really takes knowing my decisions could affect someone else, for the importance of this to sink in. This leads to my issue now.

I have met and been dating a wonderful girl for a couple months and it is getting to be serious. She makes a lot more than I do, and has been a strong saver since she graduated college, so is now starting to reward herself some. I however, am not at that place. She is super supportive of me and my savings goals, but I think I undersold how bad I have really been in the past. I am stuck, where I want to take her out, and do fun things, but am also stressing over every dollar. She is by far the least high maintenance girl I have dated, and does not push me to do a lot, I just don't her to feel like she has to pay, or can't enjoy nice things because she has earned it. I watched my parents fight and stress over money my whole life, and I don't want that for my future wife or kids, but that has also made talking and being open about money tough. I know the correct thing to do is be honest and open, and that is what I will do ( ruined a lot of past relationships by not doing this) but just have a fear of letting people down. I know this has been more of a rambling than a post, but finding this step the hardest in getting financially smart.

Posted in Budgeting, Personal Finance, Saving Money | 3 Comments »

3 Responses to “Balance”

  1. crazyliblady Says:
    December 10th, 2014 at 02:50 pm 1418223033
    1418223033

    Hi, Laurence. I would say that you are on the right track. Be honest with this person, but you don't want to scare her off. As for what to do rather than spending a lot of money taking her out on a date, how about a candlelight dinner at home? Or an evening spent watching Netflix and eating popcorn? Or going to a museum or zoo? A date does not have to cost a lot of money in order to be fun.

  2. scottish girl Says:
    December 10th, 2014 at 03:30 pm 1418225451
    1418225451

    I agree, a date doesn't have to cost money. For our anniversary a few years ago I just made a big batch of chilli. We ate the chilli while watching a movie and having a glass of wine. It was great.

  3. llabruce4 Says:
    December 10th, 2014 at 07:59 pm 1418241598
    1418241598

    Thanks for the ideas. We are pretty good about not spending too much on a normal date night if anything, but always could use more ideas

Leave a Reply

(Note: If you were logged in, we could automatically fill in these fields for you.)
*
Will not be published.
   

* Please spell out the number 4.  [ Why? ]

vB Code: You can use these tags: [b] [i] [u] [url] [email]