When I was living alone independently, I had set up the 40/60 plan (10-Tithe, 10-Retirment, 10-EF, 10-Savings, 60-Living cost) for myself and it took awhile to get on that path regularly.

Most of you already know I am to be married in May of this year and trying to merge finance goals with my fiancé. We decided to keep our own accounts and will have a joint account for living things to take things slowly and see how it can work for us.

I am finding that my fiancé is eager to share but fiancé's habits are not matching the mental goals. Learning from my experience, it takes time for habits to form.

I am doing my best to not nag to him and try to quiet fully encourage him rather expect things to go my way. He has not done research and really never thought much about money. He is very simple and buys what he needs only which is not much except he pays as he goes to fix his much needed help on his house.

I am giving him much credit for being open minded to some of my suggestions and he has been writing down everything he buys every day so I can get an idea where he stand. There is no budget set up or anything and I informed this is only just to see on paper what he does and then after a few months, we can set up a budget that would fit both of our needs.

I want so badly to set up a budget and everything but I am sitting tight on my hands. I don't want to overwhelm things and be pushy. I just keep reminding myself "baby steps".

He is really open to opening a Roth IRA but will need my help to get started which I am gladly to. Funny he says he can not even afford to pay the max... (I personally know he can but "again baby steps" and informed him he can send as little as he can each month.

I keep smiling because I want our home life to be enjoyable and not stressed out. I also want him to feel free to talk to me about anything he wants without hesitating how I will react.


On a side note: We successfully saved more than enough for our wedding already. We are three months advance with all cash payments. I recently nixed the photographer so the original plan of $7000 of the entirity of wedding costs including our rings is going to be lower. I figure with the days of digital cameras, I am sure we are bound to find some good pictures from our guests and family members. I really do not want so many pictures and certainly not of me getting dressed in my dress. Actually, our wedding budget will be much lower because both of our family spontaneously surprised us with a gift of $2500 to contribute for the wedding. So it’s starting to look more like $4000 on our end more or less on our part instead of $7k.

Maybe I can convince him to put the extra money from the wedding expense towards his Roth IRA?!?!?!

We had a great kick off to the New Year. I was not really in the mood to go out late at night and party on New Year eve. My fiancé had an awesome idea and it was so much fun that I hope we can do this every year.

Instead of celebrating at night, we got up at 6am New Years day made some coffee to go and brought coffee cake to take with us to a mountain overlook which is a couple of miles from our home and watch the first sunrise of the year. It was breathtaking and beautiful weather. After the sunrise, we even took a walk down the trail from the overview. I never felt so alive then.

I am finally settled in a new place after quitting my second job which was a live in attendant for an autistic man. Some of you may remember I was working averagely 120 hours per week with two full time jobs. Now I am down to just one job and only 40 hours! Quite a change for me and I have been absolutely refreshed and energized lately. I couldn't help but be happily busy on a massive back-flow at work when my co-workers were all grumpy (work had a one week shut-down, thus backflow of work)

The whole week off I had, I just thawed out at home vegging and relaxing after slaving away working two full time jobs for the last 4 years to pay off my debts.

My firebird is not working out on the mountains and the rain is washing away our driveway and the car can't make it on there with it being so low and the nose so long. It has been scary going up the hill on the very curvy and dark road in that car. The lights are so bad and the window is way too sloped to avoid reflections on the windshield. The coil broke this time and car couldn’t make it up the highway to get home. My car has had so many problems and this took the cake.

My fiancé being a Ford auto technician, we decided to get two Ford Escapes. His is a 2001 older and mine is a Used 2006 we purchase below the Kelly blue book for private sales. I was not a Ford fan in the past but its nice knowing my fiancé can work on any problems and just take it to work with him as he will have all the necessary tools in the future.

This is the year I am getting married. The wedding is set for May 19th but truth is I just can't wait to marry my sweetie.

I am still in shock and often have to pinch myself with how good life is going for me now. It's like a dream feeling unnatural as usually tough times comes up and always have to work hard to make ends meet. Things are gliding smoothly and major thank to everyone on this site for giving advice on money. It really turned my life around. Thank you, Thank you, and Thank you.

Happy New Year!