DH and I did talk, on Sunday evening after Daisy was in bed.
I have taken the information that I had on a file card and put it in a pocket-sized notebook. What you see on the side bar for April fits on one page.
On the next set of pages are the May spending plan (looks a lot like April) and the month-to-date totals. The next two pages after that hold the things that we talked about spending money on May, with estimate and actual expense columns. These are items that fall in the "Everything Else" category. There aren't many, or the list wouldn't fit on one page of a pocket-sized notebook.
DH wanted to see the April figures. I had already told him about The Dead Zone, so that even though it looks like we under spent by about $200, we actually over spent by about $100. He looked at May. Then he told me about a few expenses he could see coming in June. I wrote them down, although only one of them has a dollar estimate.
That was pretty much the end of the conversation. It took about 10 minutes.
Even though we have a long, long, long way to go, this conversation was way more than I would have anticipated back on April. I need to keep reminding myself of that when I feel completely frustrated by his non/under-involvement policy.
Conversation Results
May 14th, 2008 at 03:57 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 04:25 pm 1210778709
He might also feel insecure with himself. Not knowing what to do or what steps to take. He may be in the dark tunnel not having hope or light.
You might want to read the Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. It has a lot of easy steps and kind of gives a person a path to follow and some hope too.
May 14th, 2008 at 06:21 pm 1210785712
May 14th, 2008 at 08:48 pm 1210794524
May 14th, 2008 at 09:57 pm 1210798662
May 15th, 2008 at 11:06 pm 1210889169
Merch, I actually talked DH into reading The Total Money Makeover. I'll blog about that in the next post. DH is someone. . . who does not have much life experience with setting long-term goals, persisting with those goals and seeing them through to completion. So the uncertain & unexpected does put him in an insecure place.