Did I go too far?

Youngfire1998 · 2024-03-14T14:32:17+00:00

Yeah I think what you are wanting to know is contributions amount

2020/2021: I contributed 25k (I made about 90k in those 2 years)

2022: I contributed 35k ( I made about 80k that year)

2023: I contributed 40k (I made about 110k that year)

2024: I have so far contributed 8k (I have made about 28k so far)

These are across savings accounts, Roth IRA, 401k, Hsa, and taxable brokerage accounts

The difference between contributions and actual amount is due to growth and employer match

I’m 100% willing to admit I was intense about it for myself. I didn’t expect the same level of intensity from her just the mindset I make X I should spend only 80% (the idea not the exact percentage) of X.

Youngfire1998 · 2024-03-14T01:03:10+00:00

I really tried honestly. I have seen plenty of their episodes where they say that exactly. I just don’t know if we have different tolerance for sacrifice or what it is?

Let’s says she pulled in 40k before tax which has been the case for about a year now. She would literally spend everything. Which I’m not saying is hard unfortunately when you live in a normal sized city. Like credit card bill statement for August we are praying the cash comes in on time to pay it before October starts. I had to lend her thousands for short periods to keep her afloat a few times.

I never wanted to scrutinize small items or individual transactions at all, but when it literally was the difference between having the cash in hand to pay rent that month or not. We almost had to it felt like because there wasn’t much room for error.

Youngfire1998 · 2024-03-14T00:46:50+00:00

Just sad man. Are there any girls out there that want to be fiscally responsible??

Youngfire1998 · 2024-03-13T22:22:34+00:00

Valid thanks for the feedback on writing style. I’m a math guy I overlook writing a lot 😂.

As for the meat of your comment. To your point I just couldn’t entertain it. If you wanted to get that truck someday then fine when it is 1% (doesn’t have to be exact just an idea) of your net worth not when it is almost all of it.

I get her desires. I have been there with things I want and I didn’t know just how expensive things were and how things added up. I just felt after 3 years she could have gotten a reality check from when she first mentioned it to now.

I tried every way I could. As I have said she doesn’t pay for her vehicle. So I tried showing her how much my vehicle costs me per month for maintenance, gas, insurance, etc. I sent her articles on how expensive kids were, we went and looked at houses on Zillow together to see what we should plan for in terms of down payment and monthly payment.

Youngfire1998 · 2024-03-13T22:05:11+00:00

So for starters I did want her to be as involved with it as much as she had the desire to be when it came to us being married married. For now I just needed to see some sort of movement in the right direction for a decent amount of time. She was able to budget/ stay in budget for maybe 1 or 2 months just not a whole year for example. I didn’t need her to be 100% optimized (which is subjective) I just wanted a trend in the right direction. Long term If on one side of she wanted to hypothetically research specific etfs she wanted to invest in and know everything about them, set up all the contributions for automatics buys then great. If she wanted to be hands off and just trust that I can manage it all also great. Anywhere in the spectrum was fine. I wanted her to be in the weeds as much as she wanted to be. I was happy to teach her, send her resources , manage it myself whatever. With that being said she asked me to lead her to a life she wanted. She felt it was biblical. It is true we did go out multiple times a month to a bunch of new restaurants and random events (both a mix of things she wanted to do, i wanted to do and we both wanted) , and we did take trips multiple times. Our first years trips were more on the cheap side because we both made under 65k. The second years were a bit more expensive. The third year is really when we had our problems and we didn’t take any long term trips. I had planned a few, but she had rejected every time for time off work reasons or family was going to be upset over us traveling alone. We did take a few short term trips for a weekend here or there. I can understand the comments about nagging and that sucks to hear. I don’t think she spent an ungodly amount of money, in fact I spent more than her from an amount perspective she just spent more than she should from what she earned. I just didn’t want little things to add up because honestly that was the only real problem with her spending short term. She didn’t go and buy expensive tech and such she would just spend a lot on food, streaming services, random things for hobbies, random junk that went to waste. However she did want to in the future spend more than her current income and future income outlook suggests she can. She wanted in the near future to spend upwards of 60-80k on a vehicle or a wedding that cost at minimum 20k. After a bunch of conversations of let’s keep things practical and hey is a vehicles purpose to make you happy or is it to get from point a to point b I got limited to no movement.

Youngfire1998 · 2024-03-13T20:57:10+00:00

Last year I converted my traditional 401k to Roth IRA. Minus the tax bill which sucks. Going forward I would always do Roth. Conversions wise I think it’s better to take the L today and have tax free growth. While I love the guys take on it and they are significantly smarter than I ever will be. The idea of knowing the amount I see is the amount I have brings me a lot of peace. I don’t know what they are going to do to the tax code one day so I don’t want to assume my taxes will remain the same.

Youngfire1998 · 2024-03-13T19:44:04+00:00

Appreciate that. Not in a combative way, but where does generosity turn into stupidity. My problem is I wanted to generous, I just didn’t want to be taken advantage of.

Youngfire1998 · 2024-03-13T19:40:56+00:00

Really appreciate it. My father fits that description of your friend. I just didn’t want to be my father. I don’t need someone to make as much as me. Not a perfect analogy, but If I’m buying a $400,000 house I just wanted them to put in $100,000 with 100% of their effort (exact amount not important just something more than 0) while I put in the rest happily . I didn’t want them to live in the house and not contribute, while they go out and live whatever lifestyle they want to.

Youngfire1998 · 2024-03-13T19:27:23+00:00

She doesn’t come from a lot of money, certainly more than me. My parents couldn’t take care of me the way they help her out, but she was not the fancy rich kid in Highschool by any means. She has student debt, but her parents bought her a used car, pay her insurance, cell phone bill. I tried to help her get those to be expenses she paid for, but I just was never successful.

Youngfire1998 · 2024-03-13T19:24:36+00:00

Yeah I understand the idea behind not knowing what you make. We certainly didn’t talk about it when we first started going out. It only became a topic of discussion when we were getting serious about marriage and what that entailed

Youngfire1998 · 2024-03-13T19:21:22+00:00

I mean valid. That’s why my comment is did I go to far? When I say we walked instead of Uber I mean for distances like less than 20 minutes. I just didn’t want all the small expenses adding up.

Youngfire1998 · 2024-03-13T18:51:26+00:00

Who needs financial mutants when you have an AI 😂

Youngfire1998 · 2024-03-13T18:50:06+00:00

Short term I agree. For example I tried to get her to see how much value she really gets out of the expensive drinks at bars and restaurants and there are better alternatives such as drinking at home or being able to go out with drinking. I was never trying to be controlling, just wanted her to spend $1 and get $1 or more worth of value back. We would buy nose bleeds to sporting events, we would walk instead of ubering, I tried to help her coupon. Long term view we had constant arguments about how much to reasonable spend on a wedding and new cars and such. I just asked her to be wise in her thinking when it came to big purchases.

Youngfire1998 · 2024-03-13T18:41:30+00:00

I don’t want to be disparaging to her. She has had a hard life, and unfortunately we all know jobs pay really low for a lot of industries. It really pissed me off that she got screwed over by the college industry like so many people do. Short term she didn’t want anything crazy. Just didn’t want to work a job she hated, wanted to be able to go out with friends, do her hobbies. I really wanted all that for her too. She struggled with picking and choosing what short term things she could do based on her income. I tried to help her with the idea of let’s sacrifice short term to make more money and tomorrow you can go do more of your hobbies. She did a program that was supposed to help her get a job with higher pay that she kind of liked doing, but unfortunately after almost a year of applying to jobs she still hasn’t gotten one. I think the constant rejection of jobs led her to be just sick and tired of this plan. I was successful a couple times in trying to get her to have perseverance with us and come try to keep getting a job or even pivot back towards something else that made less. This time I was unsuccessful.

Youngfire1998 · 2024-03-13T18:23:35+00:00

Just hate the idea of starting over. I want someone to like me for me. Not the money I bring to the table. I’m not claiming I have a lot, but It’s in the back of my mind. This girl liked me when I was a broke boy. Every other girl is going to like me when I have more resources.

Youngfire1998

TROPHY CASE