Personal Finance Story: Love and Marriage
Getting married at the young age of 19, straight out of the house doesn't give you enough time to accumulate debt. But, it happens.
I didn't have the best fiscal responsibility in my upbringing. Mom and Dad were loving and spoiled me rotten, but when it came to finances, I pretty much got whatever I wanted. I was one of the only kids to get a brand new car upon graduation. Yes, I was sort of spoiled. Although, I did have to pay for my own insurance in high school. Even though I groaned the entire time, I plan to do this with my kids because it did help me with budgeting.
I was responsible.
Paul and I were married just a few months before I turned 20. We had been dating for several years, so marriage was the next logical step. Of course, we were in love so that obviously mattered (=:. When we first married, we purchased a mobile home so the payments were not expensive (making this purchase wasn't the best financial move either). As a matter of fact, our car payment was more. Looking back, both were extremely BAD financial moves for us to get into (Dave Ramsey would totally agree).
Because we dated so long, we knew starting a family was the next step for us. And, getting pregnant happened pretty quick. As in 4-months post-wedding quick. We announced our pregnancy that Thanksgiving. We were excited beyond belief!
So, with love and marriage marriage, we already had two financial mistakes that weren't too horrible. Little did we know how much one of those decisions would end up costing us down the road.
It can only get better, right? Well…
Will there be more to the story posted later? You’ve got me listening!!!
Jenna, there will be a lot more! I am working on finishing up additional posts taking us through all stages of our lives to where we are currently. Stay tuned!
You’ve got me listening too. I too was married at the age of 19 and got pregnant 6 months later. Although we have managed to stay out of big debts (not counting the two houses that we own right now because we couldn’t sell one of them) we do have a little right now that we were not able to completely pay off with our tax rebate. Being a SAHM I have just signed up for something that will hopefully give us a little bit of income so we can pay that off and buy a backyard playset for the kids in time for summer. :)
Thanks for sharing! I look forward to hearing more. I am 21, but getting married in June. I know we are going to be needing a lot of help with your finances.
Thanks for sharing!
…and then…
I can’t wait to hear the rest! Dave Ramsey is my hero, really he is. My husband and I married at 22, right out of college, with a combined student loan debt of $85,000. Yup! that’s three zeros. We had our first child at 26, just five months ago. We both have good jobs and make good money but we realized we didn’t really know where it was all going. I found out about Dave Ramsey through some coupons blogs. We sat down and looked at his program and are 100% on board. We will have our student loans paid off in 4 years, 12 years earlier than we ever imagined. Then we will work on paying off the house. We feel motivated and empowered because we know we can be debut free at 34 years old! We are already saving for our child’s college education, because we know what a gift it will be to not have the pressure of student loans. I wish every young couple could receive a copy of Ramsey’s book when they got married. We feel so blessed to be starting our life on solid financial ground with a savings and retirement plan.
I can’t wait to hear your story! Thanks for being an inspiration to me!
Christy in Lansing
Thanks for sharing. I too was married at 19 :)
So, you are reflective and understanding some mistakes … thus, you have the capacity to move forward and make good decisions …
http://www.ashortguidetoahappymarriage.com
So far our stories are fairly similar. I was married just a few months shy of turning 21 and we purchased our first home just two months before getting married. We did however wait 6 years before having our first child!! I definitely knew I couldn’t handle that route (and at times know I still can’t – ha!).
My hubby and i were married at 20. We had our first child 2 months before we got married. We’re also military and at the time on a Airman’s salary(not that much). 15 months after that i had our second child. We’ve now been married for 6 years and have 3 kids. We still have cc debt and now own our own house. Hopefully when he deploys this summer i can get our cc debt down again.
Can’t wait to hear the rest!!! Love your stories!!!!
Cannot wait to hear the rest of your story! I could read personal finance stories all day long! :)
I was married just weeks after turning 22, and we had just signed the papers on our first-ever-home purchase the month prior. When we married, I decided to become a SAHM (we already had 2 children). The adjustment to 1 income was really hard for us apparently, as we accumulated a ton of debt! By the end of 2007 we were close to $40,000 in consumer debt! Thankfully we are finally seeing the end of the tunnel, and we should be making our final consumer debt payment in April or beginning of May!
There should be some sort of manual given with the marriage license to younger couples full of financial mistakes NOT to make. It took me til I was 28 and not in good health to realize the situation we were in, and now it’s harder than it should have ever been to get through beecause I had to stop working and get on disability. If I could teach one young married person through my blog how to NOT make the mistakes I nade when I got married, it would make me feel like I made a difference in someone’s life. I tell everyone just do the opposite of everything I did between ages fo 18-28 and you’ll be set. I wasn’t even married until I was 26. I was just irresponsible and stupid. I loved to buy things for people, and my mom wasn’t the best influence on me at the time financially because of her lofve of shopping and use of credit cards. I was spoiled growing up pretty badly too, by everybody, and then when I got a job just to have something to do when I started driving and got my hands on my first credit card it just went downhill.
I wish they’d teach a real life economics class for kids before they graduate from high school, and teach them about budgeting and saving money and couponing or at least how to save money …I know it sounds dumb, but somebody needs to prepare kids for real life because although my parents did what they could, a lot of parents don’t do it these days. I never did have to pay any real bills growing up, so it was shocking to me when I got married. I wish I had never touched a credit card in my life. They aren’t evil I just don’t have the type of personality owhich is good to use them without recourse.
I can’t wait to see where this leads…and to see if any of your mistakes mimic any of the ones I made when I was newly married. Wow, you were just a baby when you married! Twenty just seems so young to be married and have a baby. No wonder you’re so wise, my friend. Can’t wait to hear more!
Can’t wait to hear more…. !