Money Mondays: Beginning the Journey, Part 1

I am naturally frugal. I don’t like large, expensive purchases. I love getting a good deal; getting the most bang for my buck. That should mean that I always have a bunch of extra cash, right? Wrong. The downside of loving bargains is….well….loving bargains. They can get really hard to resist.

When I was younger- those exciting 19-20-ish years- I was foolish and discovered credit cards. I found so many great deals that I couldn’t pass up, and I eventually got myself into some debt. I learned how to justify every purchase instead of saying no or waiting until I had more money.

I had always considered myself to be good with money because of how far I can stretch a dollar. One thing I never really learned was to save that dollar instead of stretching it. So, between the exciting swipe of plastic payment, and the lack of a savings account, I learned some hard lessons about money and how debt keeps us weighed down.

I started dating my husband about three years ago, and we found that we had a lot of good things in common. We had a few things in common when it came to money too. Neither of us had been taught how to save, although neither of us were extravagant spenders, either, for which I am thankful. By this time, I had at least figured out what a bad thing credit card debt was, and was trying to figure out how to dig out of the hole I had made. Thankfully, my husband had never used credit cards, so we did not compound the problem. But he had school loans, and with combined income, comes combined debt.

When we got engaged, we were learning some really great things about money. However, we found ourselves responsible to pay for a wedding and honeymoon. What to do? We wanted to be wise, but also to have a nice wedding. With only nine months until our wedding, we decided to make some changes.

We knew that we wanted financial freedom as a married couple, and we wanted to start off on the right foot, despite our mistakes or lack of knowledge in the past. We committed early on to only have what we could pay for when it came to our wedding and honeymoon. And you know what? God greatly blessed that commitment. This would be the beginning of our journey toward better money management!