Author Topic: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?  (Read 7969 times)

Retireme32

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Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« on: July 08, 2014, 04:40:08 AM »
Good Morning Mustachians, I am sorry to say that when we were dating I thought I was with a very conservative man but now I realize that while he does have some heavy caution and due-diligence style when it comes to making big purchases - he still in fact makes unnecessary big purchases and very much wants to keep up with the Jones' - at least just enough to keep us from retiring early and the saddest part is that with his salary he would have a much easier time achieving said goal than a lot of us have.  Last night he told me that he had just made his last car payment- Hooray! I shouted! and then he says, "No, not hooray.............(long unfortunate pause)........I want to buy a truck".   

A truck!  Why? We just bought a new house that need fixing up but Home Deport is literally down the street and I have fix many a large items in my tiny little beetle (2000 model - bought used in 2004 with 43k miles on it - just hit 100k last month).  I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that most of our neighbors have trucks but hey they're friendly enough - I'm sure they'd loan us a pickup or two if we needed it for those extra large deliveries. 

The main problem I have is that he never really believed in the extreme early retirement and I thought -well, I'll lead by example - I'll retire and sit back and still provide my share of the expenses month after month without having to go to a 9 to 5 and then he'll say to himself, "hmmm, maybe she's got something here"  but how can I possibly do that when he's throwing ridiculous road blocks in my way!  A truck! Come on!  And what do you say to someone who just stopped paying a car loan and wants to get right back into one?  Like, I can't even start that conversation.  Something is seriously wrong with you.  Seriously. Why would you do that to yourself? And for a piece of metal that you'll only drive on the weekends up and down the street.  Not to mention that halfway into paying it off you'll probably start to look at needing a new everyday car bc of the wear and tear of your daily commute to work and you could've paid that in cash had you not been making $400/month truck payments!   

Okay, sorry, I'm done with my rant.  I really don't know what tactic to take here b/c I think it should just be something he naturally wouldn't want to do but here we are...........thanks for listening.  If you have any tactics for this losing battle, feel free to shout them out.  Thanks.

Gin1984

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #1 on: July 08, 2014, 04:44:28 AM »
Well, when people are married it does take compermise.  Do you two have a budget?  Could you separate your incomes and do what Jacob on ERE does.

Anatidae V

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #2 on: July 08, 2014, 05:00:23 AM »
First off, I highly recommend ranting on here, and not to him. With him you'll want useful conversation and discussions.

Second, read everything on getting your spouse on board. He wants a truck? Great! Can you help him with the idea of buying it for less in total by saving up for it, and not paying all that useless interest that jacks the price right up?

JCfire

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #3 on: July 08, 2014, 06:20:47 AM »
If you have significantly different financial and lifestyle priorities, it will take years not days to bridge that gulf, and the end result will not be either party getting exactly what they want.  In the meantime I would make sure to maintain separate finances to the extent possible.  When you have conversations to try to come to some mutual agreement on priorities, remember that there is no logical reason why some amount of freedom (what Mustachians like to buy with their money) is inherently more important than a truck.  Your perspective is not inherently superior to his, and if you enter the conversation thinking of yourself as an educator rather than an equal partner you're not likely to get the results you want.

Rollin

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #4 on: July 08, 2014, 06:32:04 AM »
If you have significantly different financial and lifestyle priorities, it will take years not days to bridge that gulf, and the end result will not be either party getting exactly what they want.  In the meantime I would make sure to maintain separate finances to the extent possible.  When you have conversations to try to come to some mutual agreement on priorities, remember that there is no logical reason why some amount of freedom (what Mustachians like to buy with their money) is inherently more important than a truck.  Your perspective is not inherently superior to his, and if you enter the conversation thinking of yourself as an educator rather than an equal partner you're not likely to get the results you want.

That is one of the best pieces of information one can have, but one of the hardest to realize!

Thegoblinchief

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #5 on: July 08, 2014, 06:53:35 AM »
Or have a talk about how often you'd actually use it. Compare that to the cost of renting the truck conveniently ALREADY AT HOME DEPOT.

KBecks2

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #6 on: July 08, 2014, 07:27:27 AM »
It's one thing to say I want a truck, and another thing to go out and buy a truck.  It's OK to want a lot of things…  I like to fantasize about purchases at times.

Would your husband agree to listen to Dave Ramsey?   

My husband wants a new car.  He dreams about it.  But, he gets that our cars are working great and that we don't need a car.  When I talk about saving money, I am thinking INVESTMENT, and when he wants to save, he thinks CAR.  We are both agreeing to save money, LOL.  When we need a car, we will work on paying cash and getting something that is nice and that he likes but that doesn't screw up our net worth too badly.

He really, really is hot on the car thing.  I am not going to argue with it now, because our plan is to save, save, save.   

We are trying to have monthly, or every other monthly savings/investing/goals meetings.  I cannot get him to get off the car thing, but…   I can help walk him through the numbers and ask him how much we should throw into a car vs. have in the bank.  You don't get rich on depreciating assets. 

See if he will drive an El Cheapo truck or an El Cheapo minivan. :-)   There may be a way to do what he wants inexpensively.

If he just wants the shiny new thing, let him talk about it but keep him away from the dealers!!!!

KBecks2

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #7 on: July 08, 2014, 07:30:19 AM »
P.S.  Deep breaths.  Your marriage is an investment.  Guys like cars.  See what you can do to encourage him to get interested in building wealth.   And, try not to make it a fight about money.  Just see if he will agree to drive his car that runs well longer, you don't' need a new vehicle.   That's baby step #1, drive the car you have, it's awesome to have no payments.  Save the payment money and then you can buy the next vehicle for cash when you have it!!!

Have fun.

neo von retorch

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #8 on: July 08, 2014, 07:42:56 AM »
A great many moons ago, I was engaged, and we fought about money. We had already combined finances! I was bringing in most of the income but she was spending a lot of it. We went to therapy and our therapist had us keep one joint account which our income went into, and some major bills came out of (rent, utilities, maybe groceries) but then from there chunks were automatically split out to our own individual checking and savings with which we could do whatever we wanted to do. It didn't fix all our problems, but it fixed our MONEY problems. She quickly changed her attitude about spending when it was hers and hers alone, for some reason.

PloddingInsight

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #9 on: July 08, 2014, 07:56:03 AM »
I'm not clear on what the financial arrangement is in OP's marriage.  Are your finances separate?

If they are separate, his buying a truck should not impact your schedule to retire at all.

If they are not separate, I don't understand the comment about leading by example and retiring early.  How can you do this if you are pooling your money?

schimt

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #10 on: July 08, 2014, 08:16:19 AM »
Another possiblitiy is to understand why he wants a truck and propose alternative solutions! It sounds like it's a combination of having something for home improvement projects and to "keep up with the joneses"

If he is leaning more towards the home improvement side, look into adding a hitch receiver to what ever vehicle he already has, and get a small utility trailer. I find that most people are surprised at how much a car can tow. Your little beetle can tow 850 lbs, my 99' corolla can tow 1500 lbs.

You can find a receiver for most cars on amazon or the like for somewhere between $100-$200. Then a utility trailer from harbour freight or used on craigslist for less then $400. Don't need anything fancy if it is just to run up to the Depot on the weekends.

Make a full plan, towing capacity, costs, positives and negatives (cost and space main positives, negatives include convineince, needing a place to store the trailer could be an issue although the fold up trailers harbour freight offer hardly take much space) and pitch it to him as a solution to try for now, and if it doesn't work out after trying for a few months, possibly start considering a truck again, but my guesses are that it will fullfill his needs that he is trying to use to justify his WANTs for the truck.

My little 4x8 fold up utility trailer that i tow behind the corolla has more space then my full size dodge Ram had (before i got on the MMM train) which had a 6.5 ft X 4 ft bed.


CarDude

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #11 on: July 08, 2014, 08:41:40 AM »
If you have significantly different financial and lifestyle priorities, it will take years not days to bridge that gulf, and the end result will not be either party getting exactly what they want.  In the meantime I would make sure to maintain separate finances to the extent possible.  When you have conversations to try to come to some mutual agreement on priorities, remember that there is no logical reason why some amount of freedom (what Mustachians like to buy with their money) is inherently more important than a truck.  Your perspective is not inherently superior to his, and if you enter the conversation thinking of yourself as an educator rather than an equal partner you're not likely to get the results you want.

Excellent post, including that bit. Most folks on this forum don't value the presence of safety features like side airbags when suggesting vehicles, while I won't recommend any vehicles that come without them. As a result, I pretty much never suggest little old cars like 90s Civics/Corollas/etc, even though I used to drive vehicles like them for years and experience the things folks here value (e.g., great mileage, low purchase price, low maintenance costs). However, it doesn't mean the folks recommending the tiny deathtraps are wrong, just like my recommending the safe gashogs isn't inherently wrong. And to have a happy marriage, you've got to find ways of honoring his dreams even if you don't agree with them.

neo von retorch

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #12 on: July 08, 2014, 08:43:03 AM »
It also sounds like there's a huge gaping hole here... what are his motivations? Obviously he has this impression from our culture and advertising that "happiness" comes from the impression you give off to others of your status. So he wants to buy happiness by buying a truck.

How else can you motivate him? Since FIRE is something that gets *you* excited, but not him, is there some other way to motivate him? Does he love his job? Does he love other things like travel, vacations, golf, live sporting events?

There are two major kinds of motivational focus... promotion and prevention. You two might be on opposite ends of the spectrum, so you'll have to think about motivating him in very different ways than your own.

Perhaps think about a "pretty nice" truck configuration that excites him, in addition other things, that he could end up having (and more!) if you follow a plan together to avoid debt and get your savings/investments built up. Think about telling him "how awesome would it be if we stick to this plan for a while and several years down the road... you go on this awesome vacation the Joneses can't afford, and then you get a truck you really like on top of it?"

DoubleDown

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #13 on: July 08, 2014, 10:12:28 AM »
As long as he's not on board, separate finances is the only way. Maintain one shared account to pay shared expenses (housing, utilities), then separate accounts for everything else. You save and invest as much as you want after paying your part of shared expenses, and you can retire when you are able. He can continue to work as long as he wants in order to buy new trucks and TVs. It's also important that you have agreement on some base level of investing for the future, so that he at least is adequately preparing for his own traditional-age retirement. You don't want him old and penniless and unable to support himself.

My wife and I do this, and it works. It would be better if we both had the same financial goals regarding early retirement, but there is no way she wants to retire early, and there was no way I didn't. I will say, she has made some pretty big strides in becoming more frugal and investment savvy as a result of observing what I'm doing (even though she would never admit that!), and I also don't resent her spending at all since it doesn't directly affect me.

okashira

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #14 on: July 08, 2014, 10:26:09 AM »
Good Morning Mustachians, I am sorry to say that when we were dating I thought I was with a very conservative man but now I realize that while he does have some heavy caution and due-diligence style when it comes to making big purchases - he still in fact makes unnecessary big purchases and very much wants to keep up with the Jones' - at least just enough to keep us from retiring early and the saddest part is that with his salary he would have a much easier time achieving said goal than a lot of us have.  Last night he told me that he had just made his last car payment- Hooray! I shouted! and then he says, "No, not hooray.............(long unfortunate pause)........I want to buy a truck".   

A truck!  Why? We just bought a new house that need fixing up but Home Deport is literally down the street and I have fix many a large items in my tiny little beetle (2000 model - bought used in 2004 with 43k miles on it - just hit 100k last month).  I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that most of our neighbors have trucks but hey they're friendly enough - I'm sure they'd loan us a pickup or two if we needed it for those extra large deliveries. 

The main problem I have is that he never really believed in the extreme early retirement and I thought -well, I'll lead by example - I'll retire and sit back and still provide my share of the expenses month after month without having to go to a 9 to 5 and then he'll say to himself, "hmmm, maybe she's got something here"  but how can I possibly do that when he's throwing ridiculous road blocks in my way!  A truck! Come on!  And what do you say to someone who just stopped paying a car loan and wants to get right back into one?  Like, I can't even start that conversation.  Something is seriously wrong with you.  Seriously. Why would you do that to yourself? And for a piece of metal that you'll only drive on the weekends up and down the street.  Not to mention that halfway into paying it off you'll probably start to look at needing a new everyday car bc of the wear and tear of your daily commute to work and you could've paid that in cash had you not been making $400/month truck payments!   

Okay, sorry, I'm done with my rant.  I really don't know what tactic to take here b/c I think it should just be something he naturally wouldn't want to do but here we are...........thanks for listening.  If you have any tactics for this losing battle, feel free to shout them out.  Thanks.

I'm confused. Are you already married to this man or was this just a date?
Kids?
Do you work?
My advice will depend on these answers.

okashira

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #15 on: July 08, 2014, 10:28:11 AM »
Good Morning Mustachians, I am sorry to say that when we were dating I thought I was with a very conservative man but now I realize that while he does have some heavy caution and due-diligence style when it comes to making big purchases - he still in fact makes unnecessary big purchases and very much wants to keep up with the Jones' - at least just enough to keep us from retiring early and the saddest part is that with his salary he would have a much easier time achieving said goal than a lot of us have.  Last night he told me that he had just made his last car payment- Hooray! I shouted! and then he says, "No, not hooray.............(long unfortunate pause)........I want to buy a truck".   

A truck!  Why? We just bought a new house that need fixing up but Home Deport is literally down the street and I have fix many a large items in my tiny little beetle (2000 model - bought used in 2004 with 43k miles on it - just hit 100k last month).  I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that most of our neighbors have trucks but hey they're friendly enough - I'm sure they'd loan us a pickup or two if we needed it for those extra large deliveries. 

The main problem I have is that he never really believed in the extreme early retirement and I thought -well, I'll lead by example - I'll retire and sit back and still provide my share of the expenses month after month without having to go to a 9 to 5 and then he'll say to himself, "hmmm, maybe she's got something here"  but how can I possibly do that when he's throwing ridiculous road blocks in my way!  A truck! Come on!  And what do you say to someone who just stopped paying a car loan and wants to get right back into one?  Like, I can't even start that conversation.  Something is seriously wrong with you.  Seriously. Why would you do that to yourself? And for a piece of metal that you'll only drive on the weekends up and down the street.  Not to mention that halfway into paying it off you'll probably start to look at needing a new everyday car bc of the wear and tear of your daily commute to work and you could've paid that in cash had you not been making $400/month truck payments!   

Okay, sorry, I'm done with my rant.  I really don't know what tactic to take here b/c I think it should just be something he naturally wouldn't want to do but here we are...........thanks for listening.  If you have any tactics for this losing battle, feel free to shout them out.  Thanks.

Maybe he wants an early 90's toyota pickup? Surely that's enough to satisfy his desire not to borrow a neighbors trucks or put materials in a hatchback? ;-)

Retireme32

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #16 on: July 08, 2014, 10:46:50 AM »


I'm confused. Are you already married to this man or was this just a date?
Kids?
Do you work?
My advice will depend on these answers.
[/quote]

Yes- we're already married. we dated for a long time too but like I said, I always thought I'd be the problem when it came to managing money - I didn't think he would be.  He does take a long time to make a purchase but the fact that he asked me last night means he's been thinking about it for a while..

Retireme32

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #17 on: July 08, 2014, 10:49:17 AM »
As long as he's not on board, separate finances is the only way. Maintain one shared account to pay shared expenses (housing, utilities), then separate accounts for everything else. You save and invest as much as you want after paying your part of shared expenses, and you can retire when you are able. He can continue to work as long as he wants in order to buy new trucks and TVs. It's also important that you have agreement on some base level of investing for the future, so that he at least is adequately preparing for his own traditional-age retirement. You don't want him old and penniless and unable to support himself.

My wife and I do this, and it works. It would be better if we both had the same financial goals regarding early retirement, but there is no way she wants to retire early, and there was no way I didn't. I will say, she has made some pretty big strides in becoming more frugal and investment savvy as a result of observing what I'm doing (even though she would never admit that!), and I also don't resent her spending at all since it doesn't directly affect me.


Yes - we already have separate accounts but you are the first person to tell me that it can work and still get me to early retirement.  everyone else on these types of blogs has said, "no way!"   So thank you for providing yourself as an example.  And yes- he does save very well in his retirement accounts - technically more than me b/c he makes so  much more but not a lot for retiring early .

Retireme32

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #18 on: July 08, 2014, 10:50:25 AM »
If you have significantly different financial and lifestyle priorities, it will take years not days to bridge that gulf, and the end result will not be either party getting exactly what they want.  In the meantime I would make sure to maintain separate finances to the extent possible.  When you have conversations to try to come to some mutual agreement on priorities, remember that there is no logical reason why some amount of freedom (what Mustachians like to buy with their money) is inherently more important than a truck.  Your perspective is not inherently superior to his, and if you enter the conversation thinking of yourself as an educator rather than an equal partner you're not likely to get the results you want.

Great advice. Thank you.  I certainly do not want to come off superior I guess to me it was just like - who doesn't want to do a happy dance every month that they are free of a car note?!  But you're right - different follks, different strokes. 

Retireme32

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #19 on: July 08, 2014, 10:55:04 AM »
I'm not clear on what the financial arrangement is in OP's marriage.  Are your finances separate?

If they are separate, his buying a truck should not impact your schedule to retire at all.

If they are not separate, I don't understand the comment about leading by example and retiring early.  How can you do this if you are pooling your money?

Sorry - yes, they are separate - and I guess you're right - but I guess I liked the idea that we were working towards a "no debt minus mortgage" situation.  The car would set that back but you're right - not my debt technically. 

Retireme32

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Re: Will my marriage cost me my early retirement?
« Reply #20 on: July 08, 2014, 11:01:55 AM »
It also sounds like there's a huge gaping hole here... what are his motivations? Obviously he has this impression from our culture and advertising that "happiness" comes from the impression you give off to others of your status. So he wants to buy happiness by buying a truck.

How else can you motivate him? Since FIRE is something that gets *you* excited, but not him, is there some other way to motivate him? Does he love his job? Does he love other things like travel, vacations, golf, live sporting events?

There are two major kinds of motivational focus... promotion and prevention. You two might be on opposite ends of the spectrum, so you'll have to think about motivating him in very different ways than your own.

Perhaps think about a "pretty nice" truck configuration that excites him, in addition other things, that he could end up having (and more!) if you follow a plan together to avoid debt and get your savings/investments built up. Think about telling him "how awesome would it be if we stick to this plan for a while and several years down the road... you go on this awesome vacation the Joneses can't afford, and then you get a truck you really like on top of it?"

I like that idea. Thank you.  Also - I should take back that comment that he is "keeping up with Joneses" - it's not exactly that  - I think that I hate  the idea of us looking like a driveway that needs to be "punched" on a MMM level, you know? I pride myself in using my car until it literally falls apart and I would never ever buy a new car so I don't want to see one in my driveway b/c it's "not me" but then that's just it - "it's not me" - it's him so I need to relax.  I'll use the tactics you guys have given and at least try to get him to delay.  My  main issue is that we have one joint savings account and it just got depleted by the new house we bough and I'd like to get it back to our "stable status" before we do any big purchases at the very least.    And all of your guys are right - different things are important to different people - we're planning a trip overseas this year and although he wants to go - I definitely wanted to go more than him - to compromise I let him pick the destination but even then - it's still more me that wants it than him.  So - Compromise.  Good thing I came here to vent before getting into it with him!  Thanks you guys!