3708: [Part 2] You Can Teach An Old Dog New Tricks by Grumpus Maximus on Family Finances

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[00:00:45] This is Optimal Finance Daily. You can teach an old dog new tricks, part two by Grumpus Maximus of GrumpusMaximus.com. And I'm Justin Malek. Welcome back or welcome for the first time if you're new here. And if you are new here, today is actually continuation from yesterday. So I'd recommend listening to yesterday's episode first. But if you're all caught up, let's get right to part two as we optimize your life.

[00:01:16] You can teach an old dog new tricks, part two by Grumpus Maximus of GrumpusMaximus.com. Budget woes. It didn't go so well. In fact, that might be the understatement of the decade. It went horribly. It went so bad that the shock waves were still emanating up until that aforementioned email.

[00:01:40] Don't get me wrong, developing the budget was not hard. As I discussed in Track Your Money Part 1, I was a devoted user of Microsoft Money at the time, so drawing up a budget was no issue at all. To be honest, Mrs. Grumpus could have drawn up the budget herself since one of her former jobs involved developing line-by-line budget plans for large group travel events. Thus, she understood the importance of coming in under budget.

[00:02:09] Sticking to the budget was not all that hard either, although she might have a different opinion. No, the real issue was the resentment the budget generated. As someone who had worked her entire adult life only to give up her career to emigrate to the USA on a fiancé visa, marry a serviceman, and await a green card, she'd already experienced a significant shock to her identity and psyche.

[00:02:33] At best, she viewed the budget as my attempt to metaphorically shackle her to the house and kitchen, hearkening back to a time before women had the right to vote. At worst, she viewed it as punishment for a mistake in which we were both culpable. In fact, considering her resistance to the budget, it was probably both. From my perspective, I cannot understand why she was so resistant. We had a problem, and it was the debt.

[00:03:03] We needed to solve that problem, and the solution was the budget. But when I said earlier that we drew up a plan to eliminate the debt, what I really meant was that I drew up the plan, since I was quickly becoming the accountant for the family. As a result, it became my budget and the cause of a lot of friction in our marriage.

[00:03:25] For example, Mrs. Grumpus got upset every time I entered the expenses into Microsoft Money and asked her what category I should label her receipts. We argued over a reasonable spending limit for groceries. In fact, we argued over pretty much everything related to spending. At a time when I expected a thank you for being such an awesome problem solver, what I got was a big FU.

[00:03:50] Like two bighorn rams, we kept clashing and clashing, neither of us willing to yield. Did I mention that besides my already mentioned subtlety, that some of my other finer qualities include humility, empathy, and understanding? Didn't I? Huh. There may be a reason for that. Better ways. I love to say that we eventually resolved our differences over the budget amicably, but we didn't.

[00:04:20] What really ended most of the arguing was Mrs. Grumpus getting her green card and landing something akin to her dream job. Once she felt she was contributing financially to the relationship, she became a lot less defensive when I questioned how we were spending the money. As dinks, or dual income, no kids, we easily paid back the home equity loan. We loosened some of the budget categories to create fewer clashes, but we still kept the budget going.

[00:04:48] I began reviewing the budget with her annually and updated her monthly on any categories we overspent. While Mrs. Grumpus insists that I continued to pick, pick, pick at her spending, what I was really doing was asking the questions required by Microsoft Money to correctly track where our money was going. It kept us honest, if not conflict-free.

[00:05:12] As a result, our savings rate expanded significantly and it stayed healthy throughout our marriage thus far. Some of you may be listening to this and thinking, what an idiot. Don't worry, I get that a lot. And you are right, savor that feeling. I don't utter those words frequently. As I already pointed out, we could have avoided the whole situation by talking about our specific financial situations during our courtship.

[00:05:38] If there is one piece of premarital love advice I'm going to give the grumpus minimi, it will be to discuss finances prior to engagement. Maybe I'll just face-with-time tweet book them this article via our neural links, the future will be so cool, if this article still resides on the interwebs in 20 plus years. Hopefully they'll be more subtle and thorough than their old man when they inquire into their potential future spouse's spending history.

[00:06:06] I could have also backed off aggressively tackling the debt until Mrs. Grumpus had settled into her new environment. Marrying an international wife is a common occurrence within the military. There were resources I probably could have sought to better prepare myself for some of the challenges. A more emotionally attuned husband may also have seen the signs that Mrs. Grumpus had already experienced a significant shock just by moving to the U.S. and giving her some space.

[00:06:36] Instead, I metaphorically clubbed her over the head like Captain Caveman. I might have also taken the time to understand that I was the odd one in this situation. Carrying a commercial debt load is a rather common occurrence in the Western world. Not everyone is as anti-debt as I am. With all that said, each of those solutions would have required a certain amount of introspection that I am unsure my younger self would have been capable of at the time.

[00:07:04] A kinder, gentler Grumpus. What was within my limited capacity was working with Mrs. Grumpus to solve the debt problem together. As previously stated, Mrs. Grumpus had prior work experience putting together budget proposals for large groups. I should have played on that strength, which would have allowed her to feel like part of the solution. Instead of going away, figuring it out on my computer and imposing a solution,

[00:07:33] we could have sat down and worked out a budget together on paper. Then I could have gone away and input the numbers into my geeky money program. Doing that would have been a far gentler and more acceptable way of introducing her to the fact that, while we were, and still are, a comparatively well-off military family, we were, and still are, a family of finite means.

[00:07:58] Thus, everything we do must be considered from a cost versus benefit perspective. Had I approached the problem in that manner, I probably could have saved us the 12-year battle before Mrs. Grumpus finally succumbed to Stockholm Syndrome, and did I just say battle and Stockholm Syndrome? Pardon me, I never meant to imply she was my enemy and or captive in this situation.

[00:08:22] Of course, I meant a journey of self-discovery in which Mrs. Grumpus finally came to understand my core beliefs about money, he says sarcastically. Although, had I approached it that way, I never would have gotten to do my touchdown dance. And as my new, introspective, self-actualized, empathetic, and chasen self will tell you, it's good.

[00:08:51] You just listened to part two of the post titled, You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks, by Grumpus Maximus of GrumpusMaximus.com. I'll be right back with my commentary. You've heard me talk about how I started tracking every dollar in and out of my life back in 2010. It began as a business school assignment, and I liked it so much, I never stopped. For years, that meant a spreadsheet I updated by hand. Now, Monarch does it for me. It tracks everything.

[00:09:21] Accounts, investments, savings goals, and spending, all in one place. And going automatic showed me something my spreadsheet never did. My savings rate had slipped as my lifestyle crept up. It's like having a financial advisor in your pocket, flagging spending spikes before they become a problem. My favorite part is just asking the AI assistant, can I afford this vacation without touching my savings? And getting a real answer.

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[00:10:43] which, as someone who records for a living, is especially interesting to me. There's also LifeLog, which can capture moments hands-free and turn your day into an organized summary or journal, so you can stay more present instead of constantly reaching for your phone. If that sounds useful to you, check out the Rayneo IO smart glasses at rayneo.com slash OFD. Thank you again to Grumpus.

[00:11:10] I like that the lesson isn't really about budgeting at all. It's about how he did it. His budget didn't fail on the numbers. He even says the math was the easy part. It failed because it was his budget, drawn up alone and handed down. It's likely true of almost any shared money decision. When one person builds the whole plan and then presents it, the other person doesn't feel like a partner in it. And people don't really fight the math.

[00:11:39] They fight the feeling of being controlled. What he wishes he'd done is so simple. Just sit down and build the thing together as a team so his wife felt like part of the solution instead of part of the problem. And that goes way beyond couples and budgets. Anytime you're trying to get someone on board with a plan, whether that be a spouse, kids, a coworker, and so on, people tend to support what they helped create.

[00:12:09] So if you've got a money plan that keeps causing friction at home, it might not be the plan that's wrong. It might just be that only one of you made it. So a great one to consider. Have a great day and I'll be back tomorrow as usual where your optimal life awaits. You can see the kids. .