My perception of money was much the same. She and I are kindred spirits, you know. And we were even both thinking about said topic at the same time. If I wanted to keep talking like Anne Shirley, I'd even call her a bosom friend. But, you know I wouldn't do that, of course. Mention bosom on my blog and all. Ahem.
My parents taught me absolutely nothing about money other than that it should be spent, and that it possessed the power to make you happy for a moment. When the moment passed, it was then necessary to go spend some more. There you go. My upbringing. In a nutshell. As a young woman, I was completely clueless.
Enter my Savior Jesus and Saver Jim, and I realized I had a heart transformation and an education waiting for me. Well, really, Jim needed some schoolin' too. The Lord has been good to us. And, if Jim didn't have me, he'd live in a box, and sit on boxes, and be quite happy there. He would give, and save, and almost never spend.
The beauty of marriage, then, is the balance, should we allow it to take place. The mutual rubbing off on one another is a wonderful thing.
We really are quite balanced now- I'll always sway a little more spend, Jim always a little more keep- but we both love to give and enjoy life, and we have, over the years, really found balance.
With our vision ahead of us, our budget telling our money where to go, our lack of extreme amounts of disposable income keeping us from having too much to fight about, and our open communication and accountability with every penny we have, with these things I can say today I am happily a changed woman.
Everything I know about saving came from Jim. He's been a patient and encouraging lead. And I'm thankful.
And now, I am happy to say I do know a thing or two about saving money, and necessity being the mother of invention, I've discovered for myself myriad ways of saving on purchases, saving on expenses around the house, and saving for a future reward.
Like my little bag up there- I've secretly been funnelling some of my household budget money into it, in preparation for my decorating hopes for The Shack that I mentioned yesterday.
Shhh! There's a lot of money in there!
5 comments:
Sounds exciting...! Can't wait to see the end results of your "Shack"!
My hubby is a financial genius too, and he takes care of all of our saving/budgets etc. Its WONDERFUL for me, as I am not good with money. (Well, I am now!) But he, like Jim, won't buy himself stuff...he'll wear the same work clothes forever, so I have to make him buy new clothes and such so that he will look to the standards of the role that he has at work. I have to talk him into splurging on himself sometimes for fun stuff too. You're right, its a balancing act, and sounds like you and I both found the perfect other half for that. It's awesome!
OK...I'm dying laughing...Max is asking me what I'm laughing so hard at. We SO get each other :)
Ditto on it all...aren't we so blessed to have such great husbands...whose names both happen to start with J...aw how sweet.
LOVE your money saving bag by the way, and I too am looking forward to the Love shack decor! :)
We just keep praying and praying for wisdom. And sockin' away the money :)
Completely debt free (not a single credit card just vehicles!) in less than two years is our goal!
-Andrea
p.s. LOVE Anthropologie
We are still working on our money - but we too have found saving a little and tucking it away somewhere really helps us to "find" the money we needed to do a project/vacation/purchase that we thought otherwise difficult. Love this one!
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