Love the comment – keep visiting!

My husband is also an only child who got spoiled rotten by his mom. She would tell about how when he was little, nomatter how tight money was, she would manage to squeeze out $5 a week to buy him a brand new action figure.

And so began our financial downfall…

My mother-in-law was also quite the shop-a-holic, and my husband inherited that trait from her as well. By the time we were married, he was 29 years old, working for his father in the construction industry.

Oh, and he was GROSSLY underpaid. Even with 10 years experience as a full-time plumber, he was getting paid less than an apprentice. Anyway, that’s a whole different story…

Anyway, fast forward three years. My husband is now partners with his father in a very successful business. We don’t pay ourselves much, but it’s a heck of a lot more than he made when he was working for his dad. We found ourselves with a significant amount of money left over every month after paying the bills.

My first thought was: Yes! Now we can use this extra money to pay off the mountain of debt we aqcuired in order to buy groceries when we were dirt poor!

My husband’s thought? Yes! Now we can go out to eat, I can buy more DVDs and comic books and stuff… YAY STUFF!

In his heart, he truly wants to pay off our debt, but when it comes down to making the necessary sacrifices, he can’t bring himself to do it.

One thing that’s helped was putting personal spending on an allowance. We each get $30/week to spend on whatever we want. Mine goes into a savings account, because I can’t spent money on myself while we’re in debt. His goes to feeding his comic book addiction.

The problem comes with things like trips to the mall and eating out. Like his mother, he LOVES to shop. Not like, “Hmm, we need X so let’s go and buy it.” it’s more like “Hey, let’s go to the mall and see what useless crap we can blow money on! It’s awesome!”

For him, a lot of it is just so deeply ingrained in him that he doesn’t even realize that he does it.

I came from a family with virtually no money, so not spending on extra stuff doesn’t hurt me one bit.

What’s saved us is that I handle the checkbook. Every Thursday, we get paid. I deposit the paychecks, pay the week’s bills, and all but $100 of what’s left over goes straight into a savings account. If it remains in the checking account, it’s too easy for him to spend it!