Money Money

This morning I paid off two of my student loans using our some of our income tax refund. They were loans that I've had for probably over 10 years, ones that I took out I think during my first couple years of university. I remember back then that I thought school was a good idea but I had no concept of what it took to pay for it. Getting student loans was an easy thing. Although I don't totally regret going to university, I regret the context in which I decided to go. I wish that I'd had more sense of how much work it would take, how much money it would cost, how long it would take me to be free of the debt, and whether it would really benefit me practically in the long run. Anyway, I still have two big loans left, one of which is for my most recent accounting diploma. I don't mind paying it because I actually really appreciate the skills that it gave me. The one left from university is just an elephant on my back.

I feel really good about how we've been handling our finances. My mom was really good at budgeting when we were growing up, but I somehow grew up without any awareness of what it meant to take care of my money. Before Dan and I got married, Dan had a good job and not a lot to pay for so he was used to having a large amount of disposable income, while I had a decent job and much more debt. When you put the two of us together in a new province, it didn't bode well for our finances. Two books really inspired me to take a hard look at the reality of our money situation: Inside Out by Larry Crabb and Debt Free Forever by Gail Vaz-Oxlade. The first made me realize that if we didn't take our money seriously, one day we would have a crisis and we'd have no financial options with which to deal with it. The second showed me how to start taking control. I really love that book, especially the beginning where you have to assess your current financial situation; I actually tracked every one of our expenses for 6 months to see where we were spending our money. The book actually suggests building a certain type of budget that divides your life into sections with each section taking up a certain amount of your money. Our budget was a bit skewed because our housing costs were so low and our debt was so high, and we created a disbursement schedule so we can divide our bills and savings over the two paydays. It's probably too complicated for most people (I don't mean that condescendingly), but I really like having the detail and knowing that we're not missing anything that will pop up as a surprise later. Dan being overseas really helped our finances, which is nice because if you're going to go through hell, it's nice to come out the other side with a bit of money. We've now paid off our bank loan, our line of credit, 3 of my student loans and our maxed out credit card, we've saved money for our trip to New York and we're only about 2 years away from paying off our car (which was initially financed with terms that no one should agree to).

Anyway, I feel really thankful for Dan. He's worked really hard to earn his money and he shares it with me as if it's mine. He lets me take care of where our money goes and doesn't complain much when I give him a bi-monthly allowance. Mostly though, he's just a great husband. He works hard despite the fact that he works for people who are idiots, he rarely complains about how tough things are because he doesn't want me to worry and he always helps out around the house. He's also my favorite person to talk to because he's smart and logical but he's kind and fair, he's insightful and helpful but he mostly listens to me and lets me figure out life on my own. And he's so funny that I laugh noticeably less when I'm not around him. And there's one more reason, but I can't share it yet. J