When Miel and I did our monthly budgets back in May, we failed to fully consider the impact that grad school would have on our income. This is starting to hurt us. On reevaluation it turns out that our budget, which we initially thought was balanced, is actually $1,800 in the red.

Yep, that’s right, we are currently spending $1,800 per month more than we earn.

The figure of $1,800 is derived from approximately $800.00 of educational expenses on Miel’s part and approximately $1,000 of mortgage expense on James’s part. Both of these somehow did not get properly accounted for when we did the initial calculations.

Since spending more than you earn is one way ticket to the poor house, our financial health depends on meeting this challenge head on. Fortunately, we do have a relatively high net worth, so we do have have options other than borrowing. We are considering:

1) Person to person money lending at very high interest rates.

2) Pairing down on a number of living and travel expenses.

Folks, real life tends to get in the way of financial health. In this case, both of us going to school has hit our budgets harder than we first thought. That said, I’m confident that we’ll work out a good answer. So, stay tuned for our solution!

Best,

James

MANAGE YOUR MONEY TOGETHER

Here are some simple guidelines for DINKS to build wealth:

1) Collaborate: Meet regularly to talk about money, set goals together, track and monitor them.

2) Understand and respect your partner. Take time to understand your partners values about money.

3) Watch the numbers. Get a budget, monitor your spending and track your net worth.

4) Max your retirement. Maximize contributions to your tax deferred retirement accounts.

5) Invest in stock. Stocks perform better than bonds or cash.

6) Avoid high interest debt. Credit cards and title loans are financial cancer.

7) Diversify. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

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