/facepalm

N

need answer fast

New member
There is a list of things that people don't tell you when you get married. At least, they never told me. Money is definitely on that list.

It all got to the "I want to rip my hair out" point when we went grocery shopping the other day, only to find that Wal Mart wouldn't accept our debit card. There was no money in our account.

The bank double dipped on our car payment, for the second month in a row.

Since then, it's started getting worse. The Air Force has jacked us around now for money we should be getting, with silly excuses about paperwork and some other junk. We didn't get our tax refunds direct deposited (which is entirely our fault, but it still sucks).

And it sucks. We're living way below our means and things are tighter than they should be for silly reasons. It's getting stressful.
 
I know how you feel about the money situation, Jesse. I'm definitely there with you.

My funds are stretched thin right now. All of it is going to medical bills.

:hug2:

I hope things get straightened out for you.
 
How is your bank getting away with "double dipping" your car payment? That sounds like something you should be able to get straightened out with a phone call to the right person... I'd switch banks too, that's fucked up.

The way I seperate my marriage from my financial situation is to not go joint checking. He has his money, I have my money, and WE have OUR bills. It works pretty well for me.
 
Due to a small family emergency and an unexpected need for expensive medicine without health insurance, there wasn't enough money in the bank when it came time for his car payment to be withdrawn, and so a month's payment was missed. I guess the bank's way of compensating was taking the payment out twice the next two months. We've been on the phone with them, and they've sworn up and down that this won't happen again.

My husband is absolutely atrocious with managing his money. If he had his own account, his money would not go towards bills. It's been working out fairly well that I have control of the purse strings.
 
When it comes to military accounting, your better off with different accounts. I'm not talking about his and hers, I'm talking about one account that the money goes into, and another that you pay your bills from. In this manner, you have more control over what the bank can and can't take.

If your husband is a common man and spends money like a kid in the candy store, why not have another account for him, or maby just a credit card with a low limit so he can have some way to by things, but it won't interfere with balancing the checkbook.

I actually set up an allotment to go to a different account for myself, and I pay my bills from there. The bank did that crap once, where they over pulled my account (I had extra money going in, and they drained it.) I still had plenty of money left because they couldn't transfer money from my other account.

When money is tight, the tiniest thing hurts a great deal more, just don't fill one hole by digging another.
 
these are problems I had alot of when i had a low income before. If you are going to live on an income that doesn't allow for a big bank account, then you need to not do certain things...

1. Don't do electronic or automatic withdraws. Banks absolutely fuck this up worse the POS charges. Double dipping will happen every month, every time.

2. Dont use checks. If you pay a bill with a check then you have floating money. You can balance your book all you want but eventually someone is gonna fuck you by not drawing on a check for like a month and you'll notice your account is higher then it should be and chalk it up to a book keeping error. Once you use that money to get that new shiny DVD player they will in 5 minutes of the purchase draw on that check and bounce your account. And likely do it two more times just to make sure they got the last of your money wiped out in bounce fines. If you can't pay a bill in person with cash, buy a money order and send that.

3. some banks double dip as a temporary policy. They call it a glitch in the system as something posts twice for a day or two because it shows up in two different systems. I call it robbery cause if you dont have enough money to cover both charges, it will cause a bounce on your account and you will get fined. You can talk to them till your blue in the face that it was thier fault but they will just keep going on about bank policy and run you around for a week.

4. Dont use shitty ATM's. An ATM at a bank(espcially yours) makes instant contact with your account and removes the money. Smaller ATM's like in the gas station or a convienence store that dial in only dial to a POS terminal. That's Point Of Sale not Piece of shit but it qualifies all the same. The POS Terminal posts just like an electronic debit so it only verifies you have the money in your account. If it's late in the day it might not actually post till tommorow. In the mean time you could have other pending charges. Like a check if you still want to use such things. If the other charges post first, then that ATM charge will bounce.

Now of course alot of these things can be solved by keeping a solid balance on your account. But in a joint account both of you usually have cards. Since your not both together at the same time all the time that means one of you might need money or to make a purchase without the other knowing. This makes any effort to maintain a balance record pointless. By paying everyone in cash or money order before you do anything else, it makes sure the bills get paid and no checks bounce. After that and your groceries, the rest of the money you can do with as you want because you know it wont screw anything else.
 
Every relationship needs to handle money issues differently. Simply making a blanket statement of one or the other person handles the money is a reciepe for disaster. Honestly as cheesy as it sounds communicating and making decisions together is worth a shot! If you just take over the money issue in the relationship there could come a day when you begin to resent him because you feel like you have to do everything.

Most importantly seriously try NOT to let the stresses of "life" let you forget that you love each other, when that happens all hope will be lost for the relationship.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Don't mix drugs and alcohol in a relationship (at least not in excess) it's not the answer to a stressful day (not all the time anyway)! :thumbsup:
 
We have the same thing. AND different accounts. But it's always our money. not my money and his money.


I hope it all gets sorted out :hug2:
 
We don't fight about money, and I by no means leave him in the dark about our finances. But when it comes down to making a budget and seeing to it that our bills get paid, it's my responsibility. Because then, it actually gets done. It just works better for us.

And everything is looking up. We've got everything sorted out with the bank and things are getting stable again. It's nice. (:
 
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