As I mentioned last week, I have a reader who is a newlywed and she has some questions. I am hoping that you guys can chime in, because I am (in no way an expert, and) not a newlywed.

Her question:

How do you handle finances?  This could be way worse, but it is still uncomfortable.  We have enough money.  Together, we do just fine.  I can only imagine if we had to be careful - that time may come of course.  I think the real issue for us is control.  We have been controlling our own money for at least a decade (me) or closer to two (him) so giving up control of how we manage our money is tough.  Again, I think that once we get it worked out, it will be easier.  We are taking baby steps.

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My husband and I traipsed to our bank last week to sign our mortgage renewal papers and our banker told us that at the rate we are making payments, we will be mortgage-free in eight years. EIGHT YEARS.

(Side note for my American friends: I think mortgages are done differently up here in Canuckistan than in the U.S. Our mortgage is amortized over twenty years, but the terms (Interest, etc.) are renewed every five years.)

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A will is one of those things that my husband and I knew we should get but never got around to drawing up until we planned our first kid-free trip…eight years after we we were married. Not the smartest plan, I know, especially because we have kids. And, the law in the province we live in is such that if we were to both die without a will, everything goes to the youngest spouse’s family. My husband is two years younger than I am and while I love his family, I love mine too, and there are three little people we created that need to be taken care of, first and foremost.

I
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This past Saturday, my husband and I drove our kids to a ferry five hours away from our home to send our kids to Grandma’s house for a week over spring break. (Yay!)(Boo!)(I’m conflicted.)

After handing the kids of to Grandma and peeling them off of our legs wondering why they didn’t look back and wave goodbye wistfully, my husband and I made two stops: IKEA and Old Navy.

I’ve been to IKEA solo on past trips to the Coast but he and I hadn’t gone together in, oh, four years or so. There were some things that we needed (a storage unit for toys to replace the dilapidated (handmade)(by him)(twelve years ago)) dresser that we use in the family room for toys, and some things that were more in the “well it’s cheap and so why not?” category (yet another flower vase). We had a lot of fun wandering the show rooms, pointing out things we liked and (of course) mocking things we thought were ridiculous.

We hit up Old Navy next, partially to get some more spring clothes for our kids and partially to see if I could (finally) find a pair of jeans that I loved. Jeans that I liked, even. (I have large, muscular thighs. Jeans are not my friend.)

I found a pair that I didn’t HATE, and that my husband told me I needed to buy because he liked my butt in them. I also found a skirt and some tops that also got the thumbs up from by beloved.

I am not one of those ladies that likes to spend their weekends wandering through a mall. I will go shopping when I have a MISSION. My husband loves to accompany me on my missions because they are directed and have a purpose and, if he’s lucky, the sales associate will let him in the change room with me while I try on clothes.

Ahem.

As for me, I love to have him with me because he’s honest. If something doesn’t look quite right, he will tell me. And if something looks good on me, he will readily give me two thumbs up, an eyebrow raise and sometimes, a low whistle.

How is it in your home? Do you like to shop together?

My friend Hillary wrote a funny post yesterday about how she arrived home from a weekend away to discover that her husband had purchased a 52″ television and hung it on their bedroom wall. (Go read it. I’ll wait.)

As you’ll see, the point of her post is not so much about having a television on the wall, but the fact that he made such a large purchase without her knowledge. I read the post to my husband and he (jokingly) told me that he didn’t see a problem with making a purchase that big. I knew he was joking because this is a man who is so frugal that he runs nearly every purchase by me, including whether he should buy a block of cheese if it’s not on sale. I’m not even kidding.

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(I usually try to use the term “spouse” in my titles to make any male readers I have feel included but based on the comments, I’m pretty sure that men do not read this column.)

(If there are dudes who read, feel free to set me straight.)

My husband likes to shop. He is no way a metrosexual (Not that anything is wrong with that) but he hates when his clothes are worn and/or outdated and likes to remedy the situation.

He also loves to help me shop. A (large) part of it is likely the chance to watch me strip in the change room. Aside from the free show, he also has valuable input. He has no problem telling me if something is just not working and he also has no problem telling me if (he thinks) I look HOT. He’s pretty much the most perfect shopping partner ever.

As if his shopping prowess with me was not enough, he has extended his awesomeness to our three children. With me back in full-time employment and him working part-time around school hours, he’s been the One In The Know when it comes to the kids’ clothing needs.

In addition to “The Basics”, he set out this past week in search of an Easter dress for our dear daughter. He emailed me a photo of said dress (I silently squeed), then proceeded to buy it, as well as some other necessities (Her shirts were all starting to look like tube tops).

I know that my husband is a rarity in our circle of married friends, but maybe it’s just because we live in a small town where many couples fall into more “traditional” roles.

How does it work in your relationship? Does your husband like to shop? Or is it something akin to being lashed with a wet noodle?

I came across an article over at Divine Caroline titled, “When “I Do” Means “I Want” – The New Rules of Registry.” The article explains what items are appropriate…and what items are not. The stores mentioned in the article that have registries was pretty varied and a little mind-blowing.

As someone who got married nearly ten years ago (Woo!) our options for registering at the time were The Hudson’s Bay Company (I’m Canadian. Holla!) and IKEA. My husband and I had both spent a number of years living on our own before we met, so we didn’t necessarily need anything.

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I came across an interesting article titled, “Big spenders tend to marry big savers, researchers find.” In the article there was the following quote:

“They found that people who generally spend less than they would ideally like to spend, and those who spend more than they would like to tend to marry each other.”

I found this point quite interesting.

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Nataly sent me this link for an article titled, “Is marrying for money worth it?”

Base on the title, I thought I could ramble on about how I truly believe that love is not merely a feeling; it is a commitment. I thought I could debate the point that based on the number of people in the world who come together via arranged marriages, and subsequently are deeply in love, that an argument for marrying for money could possibly be made.

Then I read this quote from a book that they cited:

The book contains a lot of other advice that the average mother wouldn’t care, or dare, to hand down: that sexual fulfillment is dependent on discovering yourself through masturbation; that it is imperative to marry young, while you have the seductive powers of the sexually attractive and fecund; to be aware that men are prone to trading up, “once you no longer have great skin or look great in jeans”.

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