3707: [Part 1] You Can Teach An Old Dog New Tricks by Grumpus Maximus on Paying Down Debt

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[00:00:54] This is Optimal Finance Daily. You can teach an old dog new tricks, part one, by Grumpus Maximus of GrumpusMaximus.com. And I'm Justin Malek. Today I have a bit of a longer post, so I'll read the first half today and then finish the rest for you tomorrow. So with that, let's get right to part one as we optimize your life.

[00:01:21] You can teach an old dog new tricks, part one, by Grumpus Maximus of GrumpusMaximus.com. Grumpus, the Eldorous Kinnanus? The other day, Mrs. Grumpus tried to kill me. Twice. She sent me an email while I was at work asking if our budget could support her joining a new community center with gym, childcare, and pool akin to the YMCA.

[00:01:47] The price tag attached to her query nearly gave me a heart attack. Fortunately, my bike commute has paid off and my heart withstood the initial shock. To put this in context, since our marriage, I've adamantly refused to pay for a gym membership, since all military bases, big and small, have gyms, many with the type of classes she likes to take. It is an expense that does not make sense in the overall context of the benefits that the military affords its members.

[00:02:17] With that said, we've paid for outdoor exercise classes before, and at the time she asked about the possibility of joining the new community center, she had just stopped going to her latest outdoor class due to the summer break. In her email, she also listed several other memberships she was willing to let lapse. When I did the math, though, the memberships she proposed to let lapse did not add up to the cost of the new community center. I sent her an email stating such.

[00:02:46] I expected much foot stomping and toy throwing when I got home. Heart attack, part due. Her reply nearly gave me my second heart attack of the day. She insists it was not written in advance, but I am skeptical. In any case, she sent a line-by-line breakdown of the costs she already incurs when going to the base gym, like childcare for Grumpus Minimus No. 2,

[00:03:13] along with the costs of all the other items she was willing to forego. Just to be sure, she threw in the cost savings of gas and her time, because the new place is closer than the gym on base. Once I regained my breath, I nearly shed a tear. It felt like a 12-year journey had come to an end. She was finally on board with my way of thinking about money and budgeting.

[00:03:39] If you only understood the hardship, toil, and strife we had gone through to get to this point, you would understand why I wanted to shout from the mountaintops and do a touchdown dance. It felt like I could die a happy man. But more importantly, it felt like I could die without the fear that Mrs. Grumpus would blow through all the insurance money in the first six months. Now, if we could just get her smart on the investment side of the house,

[00:04:07] my ghost would not have to come back and haunt her. Maybe that can be my project for the next 12 years? She'll happily confirm I am never satisfied as she mixes hemlock into my beer. As I fade to black, I think back on how it came to be thus. An early, marital, tough love story. In one of my first posts, I joked about Mrs. Grumpus' pre-marriage spending habits. I think I used the term profligate, pre-marital, spendthrift ways.

[00:04:38] Ouch. She just threw something at me for reprinting that line and threatened divorce for the 10,000th time. Just kidding. That was only the 9,998th time, but had it been the 10,000th time, it would equal one divorce threat for every dollar of debt she brought into our marriage. Prior to our engagement, we talked intimately and in-depth about numerous subjects, but we only lightly touched upon money.

[00:05:06] I knew she was carrying some loans from her student days, and some commercial debt from recent travels to Nepal to hike in the Himalayas. Strangely though, as revealing as we had been with other corners of our lives, I felt it taboo to pry further about her money. These days, when I want to rile her up, I imply that she hoodwinked me about the debt and then dodge whatever item is closest to her in return. In reality though,

[00:05:33] I refrained from asking proper follow-up questions during our courting phase because I didn't understand the importance. Of course, with hindsight, I wish I had followed up, but hindsight, as they say, makes an f*** out of you and me. Coincidentally enough, the same year we got married, Utah State staff produced a study in which they determined, quote, both husbands and wives who brought even relatively small amounts of debt,

[00:06:01] for example, $1,000 to $5,000 into the marriage, had significantly lower marital adjustment and marital satisfaction scores than those with no debt. In addition, husbands and wives who entered marriage with the highest amounts of debt, for example, $20,000 to $50,000, had the lowest marital satisfaction and adjustment scores of all participants, end quote. Debt plan.

[00:06:29] Mrs. Grumpus and I can confirm that the beginning days, weeks, and months of our marriage were stressed by the debt. It was a needless early test of our matrimonial bond. As I related in An Unintentional Meander Up Grumpus Avenue Part 1, I purchased a condominium in late 2004. I did that in preparation for Mrs. Grumpus emigrating from her home country to Southern California in early 2005. And as a result,

[00:06:58] we were not flush with cash when I finally came around to inquiring about the sum of the debt. We eventually sorted out a plan to transfer the debt, it resided in Mrs. Grumpus' home country, to a U.S. credit card with a 0% introductory interest rate, and then pay it off with a home equity loan once the introductory rate ended. It took us about a year to pay off the loan once she started working, which wasn't straight away since we had to wait for her green card.

[00:07:27] Looking back now, the challenge that debt created almost seems laughable in comparison to some of the other money issues we've since tackled together. At the time, though, it was a brutal clash of money cultures between someone adverse to debt and someone who had grown comfortable with the idea of carrying debt. Being the manly man that I am, I addressed the issue the only way I knew how, head on. Also like a man,

[00:07:55] I did it with the subtlety of a brick through the front window of someone's house. In other words, I immediately put us on a budget. To be continued. You just listened to part one of the post titled, You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks by Grumpus Maximus of GrumpusMaximus.com And I'll be right back with my commentary.

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[00:09:16] That's 50% off your first year at Monarch.com with code OPTIMAL. This episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners, sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra. Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9% of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier,

[00:09:45] so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now at Palmolive.com. Thank you to Grumpus. It's interesting that he and his wife talked deeply about basically everything before they got married, except money. He even says it felt taboo. But I think that is common. Money is somehow the one intimate area we treat as off-limits, even with the person we're about to spend our entire lives with.

[00:10:14] Then he mentions that study that couples who start marriage with debt report lower satisfaction. And you can see exactly how the avoidance and the debt feed each other. Nobody wants to have the awkward money conversation, so it just sits there, and then it shows up later as a fight about a gym membership or a grocery budget, when it was never really about those things at all. It makes me think the most important money conversations aren't about spreadsheets.

[00:10:44] They're the uncomfortable ones we keep putting off. So if there's a money topic you've been avoiding with a partner, this first half is a pretty good reminder to just go have it. But we're just halfway through the post. We'll finish the rest tomorrow. So for now, thank you for being here and listening every day, and I'll see you tomorrow, where we'll finish up this post, and where your optimal life awaits.