When I met my current husband in 2006, he was beyond broke.  He wasn’t earning very much money and was living hand to mouth.  He was earning about $12,000 a year.  His job provided him with an apartment, utilities, and other amenities but his salary still had to stretch pretty far.  He needed things like food, insurance, medical expenses, transportation, etc.  Fast forward to 2015.  He changed jobs and moved in with me. His salary increased to around $22,000 and he started to share a few expenses with me like groceries and utilities.  Then he asked me to manage his money.  I did with his money what I was doing with mine.  What happened?  He saw that changes can happen quickly.  He stopped blowing his money on “stuff” and started a rigid budget and savings program.

How did hubby react?  He absolutely hated it for about the first year.  Then, he started to see results.  So what did I do exactly?  To start, I set up a budget for him.  His reaction?  “I can’t live on that!  I need more spending money!!!”  I said, “No, you don’t.  You wanted me to manage your money, and this is what’s going to happen.”  He grudgingly agreed to try it out for a while.  

His biggest objection was that I was saving his money.  I had him set up an account at the same bank I was using for a high interest savings account.  The purpose of that account was for emergencies and other expenses.  Then, every paycheck, a budgeted amount of money went into that account.  Later on in September of 2019, I took him to my financial planner.  With the help of my planner, I had him set up a Roth IRA.  If you don’t know what that is, I’ll write a post about Roth IRAs soon.  Once created, I sent money to that account each paycheck as well.  At the end of each pay period, whatever he had left over from the previous pay period was added to his emergency fund.  He started fresh each paycheck.  

The result from hubby was more grumbling.  He complained he didn’t have as much spending money as he wanted, and I told him just to suck it up.  I kept hearing him say, “Why are you sending money constantly to our financial planner?”  

As time went on, I continually added to both his Roth IRA and his high interest savings account.  His money continued to grow.  After the first year, he started to look at his balances.  While initially they weren’t huge, he could see an increase.  He started to get excited.  I stopped getting so much push back from him.

Then, due to various health conditions, he was forced to retire early in January of 2023.  Unexpectedly, changes happen quickly!  All of the savings I had done for him became important.  He was no longer getting a paycheck every two weeks.  Social security and his savings became his two best friends.  

So what is today’s moral of the story?

Sometimes changes happen quickly and you need to be prepared.  You also don’t need a huge income to save money and use a budget.  It can be done.  Creating a budget and saving as much as possible are essential.  

You also never know where life may take you and you want to be prepared.  Even in those few years, with a relatively small salary, he built up enough of a nest egg to be able to retire.  Yes, he does have Social Security, but he also has expenses.  He still shares food and utilities, but he also has other expenses to pay.  Fortunately, due to planning, he has the funds to support his needs with a little extra for continued savings every month.  He is now very thankful that he let me take over his money.  He knows had he continued doing what he was doing, he’d have nothing now.  And yes, unexpected changes happen quickly.