It started with a friend of ours losing her father on Thanksgiving Day. The mood was really pulled down, because we were grieving for our friend. After the craziness of Black Friday had subsided, we hadn't really heard from her until she invited us to the memorial service. Sometime before then, we realized quickly that for the first time, we hadn't been working together well for our budget.
When I moved in with him 4 years ago, Matt and I got a joint bank account. And a lot of our friends called us crazy, because we were really just getting serious in dating, and they knew plenty of married couples who fought over finances enough to need to keep their money separate. How could we possibly make this work? Well, it worked out pretty great, actually, We've never argued about money. We've always made decisions together about what to spend, even very small amounts, and it's worked well for us.
Until the last few months, apparently.
We've both been making purchases, myself on baby things, Matt on grabbing fast food before and after work, without really checking to see what each other has been doing. And somehow it turned into a situation where I assumed we were fine when in fact we were not fine. So we overdrafted the checking account by a few dollars, and Matt's been driving back and forth to work more lately and didn't account for the gas, and we came close to going over our limit on the credit card. Well fantastic.
Then I ran out of insulin. HURHURHUR.
So we fought, for the first time in our entire relationship, about money. And it was awful. We borrowed what we needed for my insulin and to get us through on gas, we thought. Until we'd underestimated how far the drive to our friend's dad's memorial service was, and Matt got called in for an extra shift to his job that has a very long commute, and suddenly we were just shy of him being able to go get his paycheck and get to the bank and a gas station afterwards. Faaaaaaaantastic. So we had to borrow another ten dollars. And we fought some more, and I've been feeling completely and irrationally mean, like my worst day without medication.
It doesn't help that I also have been feeling a little neglected in the love department, but it just seems that lately I can't stand Matt's FACE. I just want to punch him repeatedly every time I see him. I think I just need to get out and away from him, and the only time I've been out of the house has been in high stress situations (substituting). Going to my prenatal appointment alone yesterday helped a little, until later in the evening.
We are taking proactive steps to ensure that this does not happen again, especially since we're getting into the home stretch. In two (or three?) weeks, I'll be in the third trimester. How weird is that feeling? Ha ha. But I've set up a budget tracker on Excel, and told Matt that I needed a copy of every paycheck and receipt, even for the tiniest purchases, from now on. We aren't just some couple of young college kids that can get by on Ramen and the hopes and dreams of our car's gas tanks anymore. Lorelai is coming and we really need to step up our game and be *gasp* adults.
And I'm sure it'll be better for our marriage if I'm not karate chopping my husband in the face just because I don't like the way his nose is pointy.
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