Ken has 2 cards, his American Express which is only used for hotels when we travel, and his Visa. The AmEx card gets paid off in full every month, and the Visa hasn’t been used for anything but token purchases, to keep it active, in about two years. It’s also paid off if we use it. I have none, and that’s fine with me. I am the most irresponsible person on the planet when it comes to money. I did pretty well when he was active duty Navy, but after he retired our financial situation was a mess, mostly because he continued to leave bill paying and such in my incapable hands. I got so far behind on everything it was obscene....getting the mail first and stashing bills, staring at the ceiling at night wondering how to rob Peter to pay Paul without Ken finding out, and catching the phone before he could. Then we had a major financial crisis, I ended up spending a night in jail for 2 bad checks, and we had a huge, ugly blowup. It was all out on the table. He borrowed from his folks, made restitution, and charges were dismissed. He took over. It took three years to get back in the black, and those were hard, hard years. Our credit was so bad most places wouldn’t take our cash!
“They” say that if you grow up dirt poor, in adulthood if you’re making a decent living you’ll either keep living as if the wolves were at the door or buy, buy, buy because you think you can. Ken lives in the first camp, I live in the second. But I gotta say, it’s nice to be “normal”....able to do the things we do without hurting ourselves, planning ahead for big things, discussing finances like grownups, and having room in my sock drawer for socks instead of it being full of hidden late notices, covered by a thin layer of socks. If the phone rings, I don’t break my neck to get there first, and we each have a key to the PO Box, so either of us can pick up mail when we’re out and about.
I told my kids, “Better a ten minute argument over a bill than 10 years of sleepless nights.” Tam is like her Dad....frugal, responsible, and living well within her means. Kenny is more like me, and so is Jenny. We’ve offered to help them gat a financial system and plan going so they can stop living paycheck to paycheck, and often not making it between checks, but I guess it’s just so intimidating they can’t wrap their heads around it. At least they are open with each other, not like I was, but they just have less than nothing for day to day, let alone emergencies - Kenny’s old car is sitting in Powell right now because it broke down there Christmas Eve and they can’t do a thing about it. We had to close our checkbook a few years ago, unless the girls need something that they can’t afford. About three years ago we paid all of their past due bills just to catch them up - over $900 worth - and told them then that that was it....they were either going to figure things out or flounder. It’s hard sometimes, but we’ve stuck to it for the most part. The exception was buying the hot water heater and having it put in last month, but they’d been without hot water for almost 2 months until Dad said “enough”. In fairness, they do repay us first thing with their tax refund checks, but if they aren’t going to do anything to fix their situation, we aren’t responsible for fixing it either. Jenny is out of work for 3 months every summer, day care for Kendra with her needs is impossible to find, unless it’s me, and I can’t do it with our schedule. They need to be able to set some aside for that three months.
Oh, crud! TMI again.
It is the rare person who has credit card debt (ie not able to pay off monthly) that can retire and not cut back severely. Best to learn how to do that before there is no paycheck.
.
