Cleaning Up Our Mess – Relationships

When we started our debt-free journey, it was very much so me reading the books and turning to Hubs and saying, “We are doing this, I’ll create the first budget.”. I took hold of the reigns and dragged him along. Pretty quickly, we learned to talk about our finances and start planning our budget together. While I do the majority of the planning, we still both have to agree on it. It’s important to be on the same page, every step of the way.

I was asked to share my thoughts on whether or not your could be successful and paying down your debt if both parties were on different pages. I honestly don’t it’s possible, at least not for a prolonged period of time. For us anyway, we have needed to communicate. We have needed to be on the same page, using cash only, and celebrating the small payoffs together. It’s that other person saying, “We rock!”, and reminding each other about due dates that has really helped.

I also believe that non-spousal relationships can be affected as well, or at a minimum, affect you negatively or positively. If you have friends who constantly use credit cards, and constantly want to go shopping, you WILL feel pressured to join them. Peer pressure kicks in and you want to be like your friends, even family members. If your friends and family aren’t supporting you, you can find yourself pulled in by temptation. We were on the fence, we didn’t want everyone under the sun to know our situation, but we also wanted others to know and maybe motivate or inspire them to get on the right track. It’s definitely a personal decision that you have to talk over. If you do decide to leave your friends out of the loop, take a leadership role! Start planning the activities, and making suggestions of free or relatively cheap activities to take part in. You don’t have to spend every Saturday browsing the malls, you can have a pot-luck picnic and go fishing pretty inexpensively for everyone! If you are invited somewhere that you know is out of your budget, don’t feel bad for declining the offer. It can be hard, but if you are hard-core about becoming debt free, you’ll say no.

It’s also important to create a support circle around you and your home, whether it’s filled with friends, family, or online buddies, having a place to turn to for support, encouragement, and understanding can provide a world of wealth and information. For us, we’ve posted several questions on the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover member forums, and found several couples/families to connect with who have been there, done that. We have family that supports us, and has celebrated with us as we have paid down debt. It’s important to us, so if it is for you, talk to each other and talk to others!