Friday MM Question

[UnderProtest]

What has to happen for you to start freaking out about money?  Will a small event or small expenses get you in a tizzy or does it have to be a huge event for you to get worked up?  What happened in your life to make you react that way?

[v]

I don't freak out about money. We're in a stable place.

[panicked]

Moving cross-country twice in one year for my dh's job has sent me into a spin lately. I'm self-employed and it takes time for me to establish a client base when we move, so we are still recovering from the last move and get slammed with another one. The move will lead to more stability, but I don't get paid when we move (until I get re-established) and that scares me. Unfortunately, we need my income (eff you, sallie mae)

[audette]

I was very unprepared when I was laid off from my first post-college job. That sent me into a bit of a freakout. I've been much better about saving and spending less than earnings since that happened.

[mskitkat]

I have a whole lot of anxiety around money. My parents were (are, sigh) the opposite of MM. Fancy cars and a Starbucks visit every day, but no money in savings. Any time there was a minor thing they forgot to budget for (like, the water bill), they would come to me for money. First my babysitting money, then my paychecks. I learned early on I had to save everything for when my parents needed it.

Years of therapy later, I no longer have quite as many financial panic attacks. It was *very* stressful while DH wasn't working, but now that he is, I'm much more relaxed about the little expenses popping up.

[tine]

We were pretty comfortable a couple years ago so back then it would have had to have been a big event to make me nervous. Now with a higher mortgage, a kid and less income, I've been freaking out a lot lately... If H could find a better job (he has an interview next week!), we can get back to our happy place.

[UnderProtest]

So this issue was obviously on my mind lately as I've been having a minor freak out. While we are stable, it is access to our money and my husband's new pay schedule that is sending me into a tailspin. It seems like expenses come up randomly and his pay now fluctuates (and is monthly vs. twice a month) and I can't get my head around it all. We had a vacation payment, rent, and school tuition come up and I had a minor anxiety attack. Completely not the end of the world or anything, but I handled it poorly. I can't imagine what I would do if it was a real issue. I'm not sure why I reacted this way. I remember my parents fighting about money a lot growing up but we were always stable.

It sounds a lot like what RockNVoll is experiencing so it may be more attributable to the move than anything else.

[konapoppy]

Mainly I panic when H talks about spending. He likes to spend money on what I consider things we don't need or that don't align with our goals. Luckily we talk about it first, so mainly he is just joking and trying to get a reaction out of me (let's go test drive cars!!11!!).

[L]

Dec 5, 2014 8:04:23 GMT -5 @beagle said:

I freak out about money all the time, regardless of how much we have.

Me too.

[pattieice]

When DH lost his job. When I separated from DH. When I faced the reality of being financially dependent on someone who is not dependable.

[AAM2012]

Dec 5, 2014 8:25:43 GMT -5 L said:

Dec 5, 2014 8:04:23 GMT -5 @beagle said:

I freak out about money all the time, regardless of how much we have.

Me too.

Me three. I tend to freak out when we have a lot of money going out in a short period of time. Not like normal monthly bills but like if we're going on vacation or have a few unexpected bills I tend to freak even though I plan for them and we can afford them.

[scout8]

We both work off 100% commission, so I start to freak out if we aren't selling. Even though we have plenty of savings to get us through a slow time, I still stress.

[Deleted]

Incurring CC debt. That makes me freak out. We have some (about $5K) now b/c we had to move and tried (and failed) to sell our rental home at the same time. We had to cover both mortgages and get the new house. Plus stuff always breaks (water heater and heater in our case).

[Deleted]

I'm pretty breezy about money; I get that from my parents (even though I try not to copy their spending habits.)

We did have a pretty expensive year this year; we unexpectedly needed to come up with $40,000 in about three months (our house decided to betray us.) We had the money, it didn't clean us out or anything, but it sent me into a depression. We've been working to rebuild our savings; we've made pretty good progress but it was the first time in a long time where DH and I were sitting at the kitchen table going, "OK, how much do we have in this account? What about that one?" It was scary.

[FishChicks]

I freak when the outbound cash flow in a month is greater than the inbound cash flow. I know that's not logical and we have substantial savings intended to handle large expenses, but I still worry that we'll get in the habit of spending too much.

[Pom]

Things are reasonably stable for us, but a few things stick out to me that could send me in to a tail spin:

-If FIL gets kicked out of the adult foster care place he is in (and he's had a very bad first couple of days) and he goes back to nursing care and then the cost doubles.  We will have to take drastic measures to get rid of his properties and spend down to Medicaid.
-Mr. Pom losing his job....the oilfield is notoriously cyclical.
-Our current health insurance is meh.  I miss BCBS and I never thought I'd say that.

[dexteroni]

I freaked out a little after I quit my job and was a SAHW for a while. We were stable, and I knew we were before I quit, but it was still a big adjustment.

Now, my only real fears are a huge home repair, DH losing his job, and my mom running out of money. None of the three are likely to happen (knock on wood), but we're pretty financially stable, and these are the three things that could potentially threaten that stability.

[dexteroni]

Dec 5, 2014 9:01:30 GMT -5 @linzercookie said:

we unexpectedly needed to come up with $40,000 in about three months (our house decided to betray us.)

Reading this made my stomach sink. That's one of my fears!

[mbcdefg]

Honestly, MH's attitude toward money makes me freak out. He grew up with a family who had poor money habits and was always in debt, and at one point in young adulthood he was supporting the family entirely on his own. So we've had a lot of fights about money during our relationship, and it's still tough for him to spend money on himself because he thinks we may need it for something important. And FIL is not in a good financial place due to a combination of bad luck and bad decisions, so MH pays for a lot of his stuff and worries about him.

He's had a hard time separating my credit card usage from that of his parents because they'd just never pay it off. He's gotten better about that because he sees that I pay it off either immediately or within a month or two, but I have about $200 on my 0% interest CC right now that I don't plan on paying off until after the holidays and I don't plan on telling him about it because I don't want a fight. 

The idea of losing my job freaks me out simply because I don't want to have to tell him about it. We'd be fine for a while between his paycheck, savings, and my unemployment checks, but he's SO dramatic about it. I had advance notice of a non-contract renewal at one job and I called him early in the day to give him time to process it, but by the time I got home he was sitting on the couch with a bottle of whiskey and a shot glass in front of him. I don't even think he'd been drinking it, he just wanted it to he could sit there with his head in his hands and moan, "What are we gonna doooooooo?" :^)

He's gotten better, but his parents' money habits really did a number on him.

[WinterWine]

I've been lucky to never go through anything that should put me in a major stress situation about money (no layoffs, no major health issues or home disasters). However, that doesn't stop me from stressing when things go wrong. When our furnace and oven broke a few weeks ago I definitely get stressed. We have a small cash eFund and investments we can always use. But I'm the weirdo that just likes to see those balances go up and never ever get used - H has to remind me that we save for a reason - for when these things happen, and we'll rebuild again shortly.

I think it comes from living in a home where my Mom just bought whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted... and then would complain she didn't have any money. She made a good living but was a horrible spender... so I tend to hoard money. Not the best solution either.

[bostonmichelle]

I get anxious when we have a bunch of small/medium expenses all hit at once. Since Nov. 1st I've had to buy a bridesmaid dress, Christmas gifts (even though most of the money is in a save to spend account), a planned trip for a race (again money is in save to spend account), oil changes for our cars, higher utility bills, some annual membership money, needing new running shoes because my last pair is dead, etc. We always have the money but I hate seeing that we aren't putting much away into savings these months. It doesn't help that work is a bit unsteady at the moment as well, but I know it will pick up by Feb. 1st.

Oh and we've been toying with the idea of selling our house/buying a new one so we have been doing all those small home repair projects that we've been putting off.

[Deleted]

Ahh good question. This changes constantly for me!

I've been super laid back about money ever since I got divorced. I freaked out about money a lot while married, because it was a huge issue throughout my entire relationship with my XH and I always felt like he was one purchase away from ruining our future. He was the type that spent money if he had it, and often even if he didn't. He thought our bank account was bottomless and just bought whatever he wanted. So, I used to stress about it a lot.

Once we split up, my budget got tighter but I felt in control of things, and stopped freaking out. I trust myself not to go crazy buying things, so I'm ok with a small amount of CC debt and the savings I have. I generally make enough money and feel very fortunate to be able to live on just my salary and still mostly do what I want.

However- that's really my "before extended job search" perspective. I'm starting to freak out again. Mostly because my budget is built around my old job, and I have approximately $1000 less per month now than I did with my old job (between cut in pay, paying for health insurance, and long commute). I had a nice cushion from severance for a while, but that's all gone now and I'm stressed about making up the shortfall. Luckily, my BF officially moved in with me a few weeks after I lost my job, so I have rent/expense money coming in from him that helps offset the shortfall. But it's not enough to completely offset it.

Basically, I guess my short answer is that I start to freak out now when I realize I have no wiggle room. Currently my budget contains enough money to pay all my bills, buy gas, food, and that's about it. Any shopping, entertainment, eating out, doing fun stuff, etc needs to be covered by about $100 a month. I feel like that's unrealistically low - I just spent $12 on cold medicine this morning and that has to come out of that $100. It's going to go FAST and hey, I like having fun and being able to do things. So I'm stressed.

Ohhh and for part 2 of your question (since I'm writing a book), I think I'm this way because of my upbringing - I would say we were lower middle class growing up and while we never went without, things were always tight and I know my mom was very, very careful with spending and budgeting growing up. I know she didn't completely hide that, so I think I grew up thinking money was something to worry about. Then I married someone who spent all our money, so that didn't help. I'm finally old enough and I guess mature enough to be able to look at things realistically and recognizing how lucky I am to have the money I do have, and that so many people are so much worse off that I shouldn't complain or freak out about not being able to buy everything I want or stockpile savings. I have "enough" and while it's good to strive for more, I can't logically freak out about being in my position. But my gut reaction still sometimes goes to panic before I can think it through and have that perspective.

[kadams767]

I am really nervous about money in general, so admittedly, it doesn't take much to put me into panic mode. I've been working on not being so uptight about money for a few years now. I've gotten a lot better, but if there is a month with a lot of random expenses (car repairs, home maintenance stuff, etc.), I get a little nervous.

[HoneySpider]

Right now any unexpected expense, no matter the amount, makes me freak out only because we've had so many expenses this year (especially moving and medical bills) and have had to take a lot of money out of savings. I know we're still ok but I want to see the amount go up at some point, not keep going down.

I found out I'm losing my PT job come Feb and we were really counting on that income. So I'm nervous about finding something else either PT or FT.

[sometimesrunner]

Well, H and I both quit our jobs at the beginning of November, so that has sent me over the edge more than once. Before then, not too much bothered me.

[ssmjlm]

Something in the mid 4 figures would make me freak. Anything else I wouldn't be happy, but that's what savings are for. Whenever DH finds something small with our house I'm always fearful it will turn into something like a total gut and be $$$, although that hasn't happened, yet.

[Deleted]

I have become much more breezy about money since we hit our magic number in our savings (eight months living expenses). Our expenses are very, very low. If we had to add a car payment into the mixI would be more nervous because that expense would eat into our monthly

[crashgizmo]

DH losing his job would be the big one, but I also worry about large expenses even if they are planned for. I freak out more than I should. Logically we are just fine, but I have a lot of fears from my previous experiences. Growing up we were solidly middle class and then my dad lost his job when I was 10. He was out of work for 2 years and life was a struggle. I never knew how bad it was until I was older, but I still felt it. Then when I divorced my exH, I had a 3 year period of financial hell- 2 jobs, credit card debt, divorce expenses. The last 5 years have been idyllic compared to those times, but I am still cautious.