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Yesterday was a big day for Mr. Spring Roll and me. No, we didn’t elope. We opened our first joint bank account. Sister Spring Roll works as a Personal Finance Representative at WaMu. Needless to say, we visited her branch for our big day.
Like many couples, Mr. PN and I have different views when it comes to finance. I am a penny-pincher and he tends to splurge a little more. Occasionally this causes conflict, but for the most part we keep each other on track. He reminds me that it is okay to spend money on clothes, nice haircuts and a pedicure (all things I view as non-essential), and I remind him that our TV is just fine and doesn’t need to be replaced yet (since it is less than 2 years old!).**
The number one conflict in marriage is money, and one of the biggest factors that contribute to divorce court is debt. Now let’s face it, money is very unromantic. It can be difficult to discuss and if you and your honey have different spending habits (which is often the case) it can be even harder to reconcile.
[Source]
There’s an interesting thread on the Weddingbee boards at the moment discussing what it means to have a “budget wedding.” Some say the term means sticking strictly within a defined wedding budget. Others believe it’s a synonym for “inexpensive,” especially if you are able to pull off something that looks more expensive than its actual cost.
In our case, I’m not sure how well we did with #1. We spent what we spent, and I made some unwise and even wasteful purchases. But I’d like to think #2 came out well. Everyone has different definitions of “inexpensive.” But Mr. T and I were married in an extremely expensive area, with a celebration that included everything we cared about … for $8,800.
Here’s the breakdown of how we spent that sum, along with some tips for other would-be “budget” brides. (And some last favorites from Punam Bean’s wonderful photos!):
“It’s once in a lifetime…”
I hear this a lot. It’s what people tell me when I hesitate about making a wedding purchase due to cost. Sometimes people feel so passionately about what they think I deserve that I end up having to defend myself. These good intentioned debates usually halt completely when someone suggests involvement of my plastic buddy. I guess that’s where I draw the line.
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According to an article on CNNMoney.com, a growing body of research shows that married couples are astonishingly clueless about many aspects of their financial life together. In a recent poll, four out of five respondents revealed that they hide purchases from the one they love.
We had a little discussion over in the BeeTV chatroom the other day about our spending habits and our significant other’s spending habits. Mr. Toucan is definitely a saver, while I on the other hand, am not. If shopping was a sport, I’d be on the varsity squad. I have a hard time saying ‘no’ to good deals, and have a particular weakness toward dresses and shoes.
Poorly edited by me in Paint - Original photo by Robert Mirani
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Confession: I love Oprah. I tivo her and watch almost every episode. Yesterday’s program about women & money really got me thinking about us (and by “us” I mean you and me, wedding bee readers). We are at one of very few starting points in our lives, ladies. With marriage comes a lot of changes, and some of those changes relate to money.
Ah, money. It keeps me up at night, because I never seem to have enough of it. Mr. Cream Puff has much more of it than I do, but he’s in debt, too. Combined, we have over $30k in student loans, most of it mine. I feel responsible for every penny of it.
Every couple deals with money issues differently. My co-workers and I had a discussion about this the other day, when one of them asked, “when you don’t have any money, do you ask Mr. Cream Puff for some? Do you have a joint banking account?” My answer to both of those questions is “no.” Mr. Cream Puff and I keep our finances pretty separate. However, a lot of couples deal with their finances differently–some share everything, and some split everything right down the middle.
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Strip courtesy of the now defunct Patrick Grey. R.I.P. Patrick.
Is the balance of my bank account.
Even though I always understood that weddings cost money, I was never really aware of how much money until I started paying for mine.
I’ll admit I was a fool. I should have known that the numbers floating around in my head were unreasonable, even doing things the budget way, but I was optimistic and figured that with a little elbow grease and ingenuity, we could squeak by with our meager budget. Oh how wrong I was . . .
Miss Toucan posted yesterday about a savings “account” they use — a change jar for all their loose change! Mr. Onion and I do this as well. I had a gallon jar filled with change before we moved in together and cashed it in for extra moving expenses - it was about $400!
Our first vacation together led us to Burlington, VT, where we ended up getting married. On that trip we took a tour of the Magic Hat Brewery and we went home with a growler of what they had on tap that weekend. We kept the bottle and now put our change in it as we’re saving up for our first home. They actually wrote “new apartment fund” on it at Magic Hat and we didn’t notice until we got home!
When Mr. Toucan and I moved in together, I realized we both kept little stashes of coins for a rainy day. Most of my coins were saved up from when I worked as a waitress, and always had some extra change from tips. I’m actually not sure where all Mr. Toucan’s change came from…
Anyway, Mr. Toucan kept his change in a giant glass bottle. Come to think of it, I think he’s been hoarding change because he likes the look of the glass bottle. So, we decided to combine both of our “rainy day funds” together. I put all my change into his glass bottle:
In light of my last post, I figured I’d write kind of a how-to follow up for people who maybe haven’t had the big money talk with their families yet. It can be a really hard thing to talk about, especially because there’s kind of this general idea floating around that the love and happiness of your big day shouldn’t be tainted with talk of dollars and cents, but really, when it comes down to it, the bottom line can be a really big deal and one of the first things you should deal with when planning so that it doesn’t cost you a huge amount of grief later.
So my tips for “The Talk”.
1. Be united – Before you go in to talking to either set of parents, talk things out with your partner to make sure you’re on the same page. Work out the things you might need help with and then, when you go into the talk, have the person whose parents you are talking to take the lead in terms of navigating the conversation. There is nothing more awkward or unfair than forcing your honey to hit up your parents for cash.
It’s funny how a little bit of time can change things. When I originally wrote my post about my parents and my financial situation surrounding our wedding, it was not too long after we’d gotten engaged and I think my parents, even though they were happy for Mr. Hummingbird and myself, were kind of weirded out about the idea of me, their only child, getting married.
After we made our announcement, as if it was almost a reflex, the first words out of my mother’s mouth were “We’re not paying for it,” even though I hadn’t expected or asked my parents to. I’m not sure exactly which emotion motivated the reaction. Maybe it was surprise at our big news. Maybe it was confusion because I once announced as a teenager that I would never get married. Maybe it was fear after seeing the increasingly elaborate and expensive wedding plans being staged by her friend’s daughter. I don’t know. All I knew was I made my announcement, my mom said no and I immediately figured that was the end of it.
As I mentioned in my previous entry, as much as I wish it were not the case, money is a concern for us as we plan our big day.
From the minute we got engaged, I was told by my parents that they would not be contributing financially in any way to help us pay for our big day. My mother thinks that long engagements are ridiculous and both my parents feel that it is a big waste of money on what “essentially boils down to a big party.” This reaction did not surprise me since I have always known my parents to have very set ideas about money, especially due to the three years of financial hardship we faced when my father was unexpectedly laid off from his job. When he became re-employed, he not only ended up having to take a pay cut (his senior management salary was considered too much) but we ended up moving into a smaller house and a precedent was set - every man for himself.
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Now that Mr. Apple and I are hitched, we’re really trying to budget as a married couple. Budgeting was easier when I was single since I knew what I was bringing in and what items I was spending on. But now that we’re married, everything doubles up - the food expense, the traveling expense, the income (yeah!). We have our own separate accounts, and we also have a joint account, a shared credit card, our personal debt, and future investments. Though we think we have a good handle on our current financial situation, it wouldn’t hurt to narrow it down to exact figures. Every penny does count!
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I think this would be great information for those brides who are still in the engagement stage as well. You can get started now and it will be an easier transition when you do get married. 
We had quite a busy weekend. Birthday celebrations, a karate tournament, apartment chores and errands.. but most importantly, the one thing we did accomplish this weekend was planning our financial future together.
I think I’m a dreamer. I live thinking that as long as I’m making some kind of money, I’ll be fine as long as I designate my husband to handle all the finances. I hate financial talk. I’m seriously not a numbers person and even when my financial friends talk about money, they start losing my focus after about a minute. However, a dreamer still needs to eat and live.
On the flip side, I am also realistic. I worry a lot. I worry that we won’t have enough money left to do what we want (travel, buy a home, eventually have children). I realized this weekend (it only took 8 years) that I can’t just leave it up to my husband, because he can’t do it all. Just like I couldn’t plan our wedding entirely by myself (although I tried really hard to), this is a team effort. I need to get involved and work out a plan.
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