Our #1 Money Fight — Abbett Road

Ninety-nine percent of the time Aaron and I are on the same page. I can bring a new budget item to the table and he may ask a question about it, but ultimately he'll end up agreeing. Generally, he's just curious about what something is or how it fits into our life. We have over time built into our budget-life the question, "how does this fit into our life? how does it benefit our life?" If the proposed budget item doesn't have a good answer to coincide with those two questions, then it either gets tossed out, put on a list for purchasing after we're out of debt, or we can choose to purchase it with our own "blow" money.

We have had a similar mindset about our financial goal since we got married over a year ago, but it has not been without a few "money fights". Being on the same page does not mean that our minds have melded together. I have found that my husband does not like to waste money on frivolous or unused subscription-type products, which is where our first BIG money fight came from. He happened to marry someone who LOVES subscriptions. I love magazines, online subscriptions to just about anything (netflix/hulu, web training, photography tutorials, organizational help, etc.). When we got married I knew there were a few things that I needed to cancel because I didn't use them, but there were a few that I absolutely intended to keep because I was "planning" on using them.

My LA Fitness Gym Membership was exactly one of those that I intended to keep. Now, most couples biggest money fight is about their food budget. And they get into huge fights over hundreds of dollars. One wants to keep their food expenses down to literally beans and rice and the other will not live without feeding their family organic produce and grass fed beef. Well, not Aaron and I. Aaron thought that I was wasting money on my "frivolous" subscription (my LA Fitness membership), all $29.95 per month of it, so we continued to have a huge fight for a long period of time over it. Maybe 2 or more months. We just happened to be incredibly busy at the time. We had just got back from our wedding and were preparing for another reception that we were planning to have at our home. We were also adjusting to married life, it was an extremely chaotic time and I really hadn't had time to go to the gym at all, and because he didn't see me to go the gym, he thought I didn't want it or wasn't using it (or didn't intend to use it). One night we started talking about it again and it escalated and finally I broke down and explained that it wasn't just about the $30. It was about value. I didn't feel valued or supported because something that I really wanted and needed was being pushed out of the budget. Aaron was the most supportive, amazing husband after that. To this day, my LA Fitness Membership is a line item on our budget.

See, what Dave says is true, it is PERSONAL FINANCE. Sure, we could have canceled it and saved $30 and that could have gone towards our debt snowball. I've definitely canceled other subscriptions that have gone towards our financial goals since then, but going through these small battles ultimately helped us gain the bigger victories. This particular battle opened up a line of communication that NEVER would have been opened had we just gone crazy and both spent whatever we wanted. We were discussing every aspect of our lives, every dollar. And in that, we got down to the very core of where we were at spiritually and emotionally. It was definitely an eye opener in the first two months of marriage. It taught me a lesson about communication, my husband, and what our marriage could look like.

Nothing is perfect. Even though I learned about that, I still find myself falling into the same trap. Aaron still questions anything having to do with a subscription based model, and I find myself wanting to buy them all, so we balance each other out. I am learning to take a step back and recognize the difference between "need" and "want" and that in itself is freeing. Those things that make Aaron and I stop and talk it through are what make life interesting, we have some of the most amazing conversations and I wouldn't change that for the world.

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