Personal finance changes once you get married. Before Miel and I got together most of my financial considerations were somewhat easier. After being married, things have become somewhat more complex. For example, instead of thinking solely about funding my IRA, now Miel and I need to balance the priorities between mine and her IRAs.
Sometimes we don’t always agree about priorities. In fact, sometimes we fight about them. For example, this week we had a disagreement about spending money on travel. Miel and I have a couple of upcoming weddings we have been invited to on the West Coast.
Miel wanted to go to both weddings, citing family obligations and the fact that we didn’t go away for the holidays at the end of last year. I didn’t want to go to both. My rationale was that it was expensive to travel, and that factoring in the cost of our education, we are living above our means. For me, family is important, but building wealth should be first priority. Miel disagreed.
These kinds of discussions can get tense. We’ve both blamed each other for being pig-headed, and at times we’ve been frosty towards each other. Generally, when we don’t agree things aren’t fun.
This weeks disagreement was much the same. However, I decided to go along to the weddings. It was the path in which the least damage would have been done (e.g. nobody gets offended). Even though we will be out the money for the travel expenses, Miel is happy and our relatives are happy as well. More fundamentally what this illustrates is the importance of comprise and, at times sacrifice. In this case, I loose (by being obligated to fork over the travel money) but everyone else wins.
Hope this helps.
Best,
James
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