The concern for many today is ‘Money, money, money’ to quote the Abba song. Yes we saw Mamma Mia a few weeks back, can you tell? With the current economic situation the way it is a lot of people are worried about money, coping with day to day expenses and the prices of basic items rising all the time, banks looking shaky and the share market in a slump. As well as those struggling to support families, it also affects those with retirement funds and investments as they see what they thought was a retirement nest egg shrinking before their eyes.
Recently the amount someone, at a social group Mick and I go to, told me they had last since the share market collapse staggered me. It is more money than we’ve ever had!
One of the things couples argue most about is money. It’s something Mick and I have never argued about. That’s not to say we don’t ever argue. But money is never the issue. Before I write this I checked with him to make sure I wasn’t remembering wrong. In fact he originally suggested this topic for the blog given the current economic situation.
Now maybe the reason we’ve never argued is we’ve never had enough money to worry about! You often don’t when you’ve been existing on one income or a part time income or a writer’s income for years. Money’s never been our priority in life. All we needed was enough to live on.
When we got married, we had a total of $10 to our name until the next pay day, nearly two weeks away. That was after our one night honeymoon in a hotel and having paid for the wedding, which my Mom on her own couldn’t afford. Of course in those days $10 could buy a side of lamb and still have money for veggies and groceries. The prices seems ludicrous today. But wages were a lot less then too.
Throughout our married life we had a joint bank account and paid cash for things. If we couldn’t, we didn’t buy it. One time when we did want a loan for some household item like a fridge or washer they knocked us back because we’d never had a loan before and had no credit rating. We were considered a bad credit risk, despite the fact Mick was in a secure job and I was working.
These days, banks and money lending organizations tend to go the other way urging people to take out personal loans whether they can afford the repayments or not. It’s the same with housing mortgages, which is why so many homes are being repossessed.
People commit to the maximum and then cannot meet the repayments when
interest rates go up. We’ve been in that position of interests rates going up, but somehow muddled our way through. It meant scrimping and cuttings back on other things e.g. no eating out or take away, buying cheaper cuts of meat, no unnecessary spending etc.
So long as we were together that was all that mattered. It still is. We’re just as happy walking along a beach together or being at home together and we don’t need money for that. Join me next time for some suggestions about managing money in a marriage.
Please visit these related blogs
Bracing My Marriage for a Depression
Marry now, Celebrate later, Save Money and Your Marriage
Making a Commitment to Live on Cash