Automate your life

In this day in age if you aren't automating your bill paying you are missing out.. Checks are dead and cash is on it's way out.

Reason you should automate:

1. Predictable day your money will withdraw
2. Provides protection through your credit card company
3. You wont miss paying your bills
4. Gives you an extra 25 days to actually pay the bill. Like a 0% month loan.

If you can't use credit cards use your checking account

You should also be direct depositing into a saving account and brokerage account.

• Keep only enough money in you checking to cover your monthly bills and a buffer for the unexpected
• This provides your money a layer of protection.  The only account that should have access to your saving account is your checking.  Always make that the transfer point
• This will help protect against identity theft. 
• The rest should go into a money market or online savings account (higher interest rates then traditional banks). Emergency fund or short term savings.
• Put a small portion of you income say each paycheck into a brokerage account. This should be a small amount you don't really notice like $10-$300. Don't do more unless you have maxed your IRA and 401k contributions.  
• This should but used for investing

The more you can off load the better to free up your mind. 

Travel rewards lets try this thing out

I don't know if travel is a life essential, a perk, or a hassle. The one thing I know is that traveling can be expensive.

To get an idea how bad travel effects your finances here is a perfect example.  The wife and I went on our honeymoon almost 10 years ago to Hawaii.  We stayed their 7 days, 5 on Kauai and 2 on Honolulu.  Want to guess how much it cost?   Give up?  $5,000 yep that is a big chunk of change.  We spend almost $1000 on food and $2800 on airfare, hotel, and transportation.  Crazy stuff. That's with using some miles on our flights.  It was a life experience that we highly enjoyed.  

I've been hearing about travel rewards for awhile and I wanted to give it a try. We spent around $6,000 on vacations last year. That was mostly just traveling to see family.   With a few trips around 1/2 marathons.  

From what I can tell Chase Ultimate rewards are the cream of the crop when it comes to travel rewards.   My wife and I are going to start this together.  For one so we can double up the points and two we can get referral bonuses from each other.  

We are starting the Chase program.  Some call it the Chase Gauntlet or Chase Ultimate Rewards 5/24.

The reason for starting with Chase was one it has one of the best partner programs for hotels and flights and two the 5/24 rule chase has.  This is Chase will not approve a card for you if your opened any 5 cards in a 24 month period. It doesn't matter if they are Chase or Amex. 

We are starting off with the Chase Sapphire Preferred which has current bonus of 60K points after spending 4K in 3 months.  Then you get 15k points for every referral.  I got this card and opened it to pay for car insurance.  Since that was around $2000 I was able to take care of half the spending right away. 
After I finished hitting the spending limit my wife picked up the same card and we got an additional 15k for the referral.  These cards have great benefits besides just the points and a card you can transfer ultimate awards points.  An example is it provided primary car rental insurance not secondary like most cards. 

We are early in our journey with currently a total 160,000 Ultimate Reward points.

We are trying to map out next years vacations.  We are going to try to get the Southwest cards to get companion passes for the kids.  A companion pass is earned by getting 125k southwest as of 1/2020 points in a calendar year.  Reward points with the Southwest credit card counts for these points.  The companion pass is basically buy one get one free plus you get the pass for the current year and the next.  For a family of 4 that is huge.  I'm not the biggest fan of Southwest mostly because I like having an assigned seat, but I can get over that. This also works like doubling your reward points.

Since we are just about to hit October and we want to time the Southwest cards for the beginning of next year to maximize passes we are looking at hotel cards.  We normally stay at Hilton hotels because of my wife's work travel points, but Hilton doesn't fit into the Chase cards and it may not be the best to maximize points.  Currently looking to Marriott to get free stay for a ski trip planned.

The biggest reason we are doing this is to reduce our vacation spending and to enjoy our family time. Just remember this should fit into your normal spending habits. If you can't spend the amount required either open the card around a big purchase like car insurance or go with a card with less spending requirement.  Other options are to buy gift cards like amazon to pay for your future amazon expenses.

As this is the most important part of travel rewards. If you are not paying off you cards in full every month don't start this.  You need to get a handle on your debt until you can start gaining these rewards.  A hole will only get bigger the more shovels that are available.  

TV... How to navigate all these services

It seems like everyday a new service is being created.  The point of these services was to be able to "cut the core" i.e. reduce cost watching TV.  In 2019 the average cable TV monthly cost in the US is $85 and Satellite is $100.

I haven't paid for cable or satellite for 7 years.  I was a major TV watcher and most of the shows I watched were not on broadcast.  I was able to cover almost all my needs with, Netflix or Hulu and broadcast TV through an antenna.

Here are the categories that need to be covered:

• Movies
• Prime time TV
• Sports (Football, C-Football, Baseball, and basketball, Olympics)

I'm currently using the following services 

• Prime (Mostly for Grand Tour)
• Hulu (All prime time shows)
• Netflix (Movies)
• Broadcast and locast for sports
• Crunchyroll
• Freeform
• CW Seed

There are so many services their is no way to list them all but here are the big ones

• Disney+ 7.00 - My guess this will be big all Disney content
• Apple+  - 4.99 - unknown if this will be good
• ESPN+  - 4.99 - Sports
• Prime  - 10 - Some original content
• Netflix  - 8.99 - movies, orig tv shows
• Hulu - 5.99 - a must for prime time stuff
• YouTube TV - 50  - A little bit of everything
• Crunchyroll  - free - Anime
• Freeform - free-  movies
• CW Seed  - free- Good shows
• Locast - local broadcast as a tv service when reception sucks.
• HBONow- 14.99
• Starz- 8.99 - movies
• crackle - free

Some of these have paid premium option, but never pay extra to remove commercials. Not worth the cost.

Honestly with all these options I don't know how cable companies are going to survive.  But if you are not careful all these services will quickly exceed your cable bill making the whole thing pointless.
UPDATE - I found out how they are going to survive.  They also hosting internet services and are capping you downloads at a Terabyte and charging huge fees for going over.  This is going to happen with more 4k shows,

I have Apple TV and Fire Stick. They are very similar I prefer Apples interface a little more, but I like to take the Fire stick on travel.  The biggest problem I have had with cord cutting is I don't have an easy way to find the shows I wanted to watch across all the apps.  Apple does a good job, but doesn't search netflix or Prime.  I've played with Roku, but doesn't have any apple content.  

Bought movies became easier recently.  Somehow I don't know if it is Disney or some other magic, but Movies Anywhere ties all your movies together across all your platform.  Meaning all your movies in apple will show up on prime and vise versa. This is the only thing I've seen do this since the death of UltraViolet.

Olympics will mostly be on broadcast with an antenna or you can use a free streaming service like locast.

Don't get crazy. Keep it simple find out what you really watch sign up for that one or two services then enjoy.

For investing simplicity is the key to brilliance

Simplicity is the key to brilliance - Bruce Lee

This is one of the most true quotes you will ever see. This hold true in life as well in finance.

I have an inherent mistrust of people when it comes to money.  No real reason for it I guess. There has been to many occasions throughout time where power/money is misused.  Who doesn't have a friend or family member who has a financial adviser that mishandled there money and lost them lots of money.  Or an adviser that has made them good money for years, but is fleecing them with huge fees robbing them of an early retirement.  I firmly believe in not pay someone to do something for you that you can do for yourself as good or better.  This goes for anything from cleaning the house to taxes.  There is great satisfaction in going something yourself and even better to increase your talent stack.

Sit down I'm going to blow your mind.  It took me a good awhile to realize this, but you will not get rich investing. Some people do Not You.  There it is I'm sure you are dumbfound and don't believe it. I'm sure you think you are a special snowflake and you only walk on 4 left clovers. This is true and the sooner you realize it the better.  "The name of the game is not to get rich, but rather to avoid dying poor" (W. Bernstein - The Investor's Manifesto). Great quote and so true. If you want to get rich quick play monopoly.

So now the air is clear we can begin.  Mutual Fund advisers make a living trying to "beat the market" and nearly 25% of them do a year. Except usually not the same 25% every year. "The Market" usually means S&P 500 index.  If you decided to go with a managed mutual fund and luck out with an adviser on a hot streak that "beats the market" you may not.  Adviser fees and expenses eat away at your profits and into the advisers pocket.  Here is an example for one year.  Lets say the S&P 500 has a 8% return and your advisers return is 9%, but with fees of .5% with 1.0% expense your return is 7.5%.  So many adviser advertise their return, but they don't include their fees in that advert. Get the idea and that's if the adviser "beats the market". Also, no matter if you win or lost the adviser still wins. They collect their fees no matter what.

To keep things simple reduce risk and maximize returns.  There is a couple of things that can eat way at your returns.  First taxes and second fees. 

1. Taxes happen two ways first when you sell a stock either you trade it or it is sold in your funds. Second through dividends.  Adviser also make money on buying and selling the stocks which is the reason for higher expenses.  Ways to reduce risk is diversify. What is diversifying? Simple put buying different groups of stocks or types bonds.  And no diversifying is not buy Apple, Netflix and Amazon.   It is more like buying large cap small cap or industry sectors that are not related. Example agriculture stocks and no effect of tech stocks if they either goes up or down.  Remember simplicity we want low expenses with the lowest amount of risk.  We are in this for the long hall.
2. Fees are there your best bet is to listen to Jack Boggle and find lowest fees possible.  There are a whole lot of different types of fees. Some up front, some on exist, some on earnings, some just because.  To show the point.  
• Invest $100,000  
• 8% annual return over 10 year
• .5 expense/fee  - Return 206,103 
• 1.0 expense/fee  - Return 196,715
• 1.5 expense/fee  - Return 187,714

          So a 1% fee difference could cost you $18,389 over 10 years and over 30 years $214,059  👀

There are two easy ways to achieve this.  One buy a lows cost S&P index mutual fund. This will diversify your US stock holding and you will own the US top 500 companies.  This is simple and a great way to start.  Basically if the U.S market does well you do well.  Remember investing this way is for the long term 10+ years.  Put it in and forget that you did it.   Second way is invest in a Total Stock Market indexed mutual fund.  This will put you in the entire US stock market based on market size.  You will have Large, Med, and Small cap fund in there.  You can also do a Total World Stock market index to get international.  You should not pay more than .15% preferably .04% expense ratio on either of these.  Index mutual funds have very low turn over, which reduces your tax expense.


Vanguard has funds like Life Strategy mutual funds.  These fund give a balance between stocks and bonds.  They contain a combination of Stock and Bond index funds which gives you a more balanced portfolio and reduces risk.

Last:  REMEMBER this is important.  These funds will go up and down.  At least 60% of the world's stocks are held by experts (big companies or managers) so when you sell they are buying and when you are buying they are selling. Mutual funds take advantage of something magical called compound interest.  Know yourself!!!  If you can't watch your investments without getting worried and selling then don't.  Setup automatic investments and forget.  This will be the best thing you will ever do.

Category Shopping

I'm having a hard time with trying to figure out the Category of Shopping for expense tracking.  It is taking up 40% of my discretionary spending.

Right now it is basically Amazon and Target.  From these places it can be anything from clothes to toilet paper and everything in between.  On somethings I will go into MINT and split the transaction apart, but not always and it's a pain and hard to keep track with everything just listed as Amazon.

We do a lot of auto-subscribe in Amazon for things like toilet paper, paper towels and dog food.  These can come every month or every 3 months, but they get mix into other small things we buy like light bulbs and gifts. Making it very difficult and time consuming to organize all these transactions.

I don't have a simple solution for this problem.  Sometimes venting helps :)

I do believe re-evaluating when is auto setup is a good idea and make sure you still need what you are getting at the from door.

Once I figure out the solution I will share.

Maybe 42? no not the right question. 

Cleaning the house. Going frugal Green?

I know cleaning isn't the most fun thing in the world, but not doing it can really effect your health or mental state.  Behind finances cleaning the the second most thing couples fight about and the number one reason roommates separate.

I know some people appreciate their free time not working and don't want to spend it cleaning. To me this is ridiculous. It's your mess pick it up spend the 45mins to an hour picking your stuff up and wiping down some appliances. Picking up after yourself in the number one thing all moms teach their children.  Rant out of the way cleaning doesn't have to be expensive.  Here is a culmination of simple clean techniques. 

Who to Clean the Dishwasher

What you will need:

•  2 cups White Distilled vinegar
•  1 bowl
•  5 Lemons
•  1 glass bowl
• 2 cup baking soda

Do you remember the last time your clean the dishwasher.  Let me guess never? Distilled vinegar is cheap and it is a natural deodorizer and disinfectant.  It has been used to clean homes for ever.  White distilled vinegar is non-toxic and cleans just about anything.  To start cleaning first take out the filter according to the manufacturer's directions. Often it is just twist and take it out.  Pour 2 cups of vinegar into a bowl and then place it upright on the lowest most rack.  Run the machine on the short or energy efficient cycle. Bing that's it clean.

Now to fix any smells. Baking soda fixes all fowl smells.  Sprinkle a cupful of baking soda around the bottom of the tub and run it through a short but complete cycle using the hottest water. This has two effects one it will help freshen the smell of the dishwasher as well as help remove stains. If you have stainless steel front door panel on your dishwasher. Wipe down the stainless steel front door panel with straight vinegar or lemon juice and a very soft cloth. Use plenty of vinegar or lemon juice, wipe with the grain, and work quickly covering the entire surface, even if the prints and smudges are only in one spot. I prefer lemon juice because it smells nice.  Polish until you regain a smooth even finish. This can be tricky to achieve a perfect, like new result. Do it more than once if need be.

How to Clean the Microwave

What you will need:

•  1 Cup water
•  Lemon Juice
•  1 small glass bowl
•  1 spray bottle
•  Vinegar 1 cup vinegar 1 cup water

Place a Microwave Safe glass bowl (I’m using a Pyrex bowl) with one cup of water and one lemon worth of lemon juice. Place it in the middle of the microwave and turn it on HIGH for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, the microwave should be steamy and the walls moist. Spray all the surfaces with the vinegar water mix and wipe down with sponge. Wipe down the stainless steel front door panel with straight vinegar or lemon juice and a very soft cloth. Use plenty of vinegar or lemon juice, wipe with the grain, and work quickly covering the entire surface, even if the prints and smudges are only in one spot. I prefer lemon juice because it smells nice.  Polish until you regain a smooth even finish. This can be tricky to achieve a perfect, like new result. Do it more than once if need be.

How to Clean the Washing Machine

What you will need:

•  2 cups vinegar
•  1/4 cup baking soda
•  1/4 cup water
•  Scrub sponge
•  Bleach

Directions:

1. Start by mixing together the baking soda and water in a small bowl. This is going to be the "detergent" for cleaning the washing machine. This will look like glue.  Make sure to keep stirring the mixture.  
2. Add the baking soda mixture to the detergent container of your machine and pour the vinegar into the  drum. Set your washer to normal load at the hottest water setting. The baking soda and vinegar chemically react together think school volcano.  It will naturally break up mineral deposits and any mold growth while cleaning and refreshing your washing machine.
3. Use a clean scrubber to rub around the opening of the washing machine, removing stubborn mold or residue. Wipe clean with fresh water.
4. Now your done.  Try to do this once a month. 

How to Clean the Refrigerator:

What you will need:

•  2 cups vinegar
•  2 tablespoons baking soda
•  1 quart hot water
•  1/4 cup water
•  Scrub sponge
•  Bleach

1. Turn off power at the fuse box before unplugging the refrigerator
2. Put food in a cooler; remove glass shelves and crisper drawers and bring to room temperature so there’s no danger of cracking when you wash them.
3. Wipe the interior with a solution of 2 tablespoons baking soda and 1 quart hot water. Rinse with a damp cloth, and then dry with a clean towel. Important to use this natural solution otherwise your food can absorb chemicals. 
4. Soak shelves and bins in a solution of 2 tablespoons baking soda for every quart of warm water. Do not wash in the dishwasher. Dry thoroughly before replacing.
5. Clean the door seals, which can collect crumbs, with hot water and mild dishwashing liquid; dry. Or mixture of 1/2 vinegar and water thoroughly with a clean cloth. Check the seals periodically. An improper fit can cause issues. 
6. To get those dust bunnies out from under the refrigerator, remove the grill and run a yardstick covered with a pair of pantyhose underneath. Also check the pan of water underneath, since it can hold unpleasant-smelling water.
7. Wipe down the stainless steel front door panel with straight vinegar or lemon juice and a very soft cloth. Use plenty of vinegar or lemon juice, wipe with the grain, and work quickly covering the entire surface, even if the prints and smudges are only in one spot. I prefer lemon juice because it smells nice.  Polish until you regain a smooth even finish. This can be tricky to achieve a perfect, like new result. Do it more than once if need be.

How to Clean the Shower

What you will need:

•  2 oz borax
•  1 cup of while vinegar

Mix your borax and white vinegar inside a spray bottle. Apply the mixture to the

shower wall and allow it to sit for up to one hour while the mixture does it's work on the tile grout and stains. Wipe off the mixture with a clean cloth. This works on all of the shower tiles and glass doors. 

MISC.

Borax is a great toilet cleaner and de-clogged.  Just sprinkle inside the toilet or down a drain wait 10 mins and rinse. 

Twins..... How to manage and save when the NOW WHAT moment hits.

Today was my kids’ first soccer game.  5 on 5 with 8 kids on each team.  They are in a "non-competitive" league, but they don't play like it.  I was very proud they did great.  

This got me thinking about my kids and all the ways I've tried to beat the system.  First of kids are expensive and twins doubly so.  Especially if you are blessed with one girl and one boy.  

Let’s talk about pre-birth.  For a lot of us it is a conscious decision to have a kid it usually isn't to have two at the same time. Some of us are just blessed I guess :).  You really should be saving up for the unexpected once you decided to have kids.  Things we did to get ready 

• Look over insurance to see if you needed to up your coverage (we did)
• Look at Costco for all natural wipes buy them once they are on sale.  You can never have enough.
• Start looking for cribs just to get an idea on prices
• Pay attention which friends just had kids and ask for hand me downs.
• Subscribe to Amazon's mom membership 20% off.
• start those Prenatal pills

Pregnancy is a whole new experience for everyone.  It is rough on the mom to be and stressful on the father to be.  It goes without says, but you will need to pamper your wife and give her what she needs and what the baby needs.

This is the most important time to buy what you need. Once the little ones come you won’t have time to stock up.  When we were pregnant Baby's R U was our go to and now Bye Bye Baby seems like the same. 

The main expenses are strollers, car seats, and diapers.  

• Diapers we went with reusable. We used bum genius and Charlie Banana. I would recommend getting liners; it makes cleanup easier Bummis Bio-Soft Liner.  Using cloth/reusable diapers saves thousands.  We bought 8 diapers and 20 inserts.  We didn't start cloth right. Our twins were both a month early and were too small to fit the diapers.  Plus then they are first both they poop almost constantly and we couldn't wash them that fast.  We bought more cloth so be able to have enough clean which we cleaned the dirty ones.  For disposable diapers you will need roughly ~3000 diapers per kids at’s $0.15 per diaper that's $900 the first year.  Reusable diapers are about $20 each and you get 12; 6 each per kid that's $240 plus $60 worth of liners $300.  You do have cost for washing, but you get the idea. 
• First of you don't have to trade in that sedan for an SUV.  We went 5 years before we finally moved on to an SUV.  Things to know about car seats.  First unless you know the person don't buy used. Second go to a place and try them in both cars before you buy. A car seat may fit great in your wife's car, but not yours. This is debatable, but we got the rear facing only car seats and not that car seat that could do anything.  We didn't this because of the safely rating and all the extra features.  
• You will need to buy two car seats and 4 bases for each car.  Believe me you will put them in your car and just leave them.  
• Twin hack: I did this tongue and cheek, but it worked.  I asked for a twins discount and they gave me another 25% off. 
• Once your kids graduate to new seats and bases are no longer an option, just buy 4 seats it will make your life so much easier.  
• Strollers wise you will need two types of strollers eventually.  The light quick one and the tough one.
• Don't get anything fancy and go get a Bob yet.  Get a Snap-N-Go.  This is just a frame where your car seats just buckle in.  It is light and small.  The Snap-N-Go is great and has the babies in a line.  This is essential for grocery shopping and going down any aisle. 
• Once the kids get a little bigger (8 weeks +) and you start go to the zoo get yourself a Bob Duallie stroller.  Look at buying a last year model or buy used.  These are rugged strollers they will last many uses.  
• The last stroller you will need is the umbrella strollers. These are cheap and often you get them for free when you guy enough at a baby store.  They are for travel or very crowded places like Disney.  

Things to consider is getting a subscription to consumer reports.  This really helps making decisions on what to buy.

• Cloths and toy look at consignment stores for great deals.  
• Try to find parents a few months ahead to get hand me down for cloths and toys.
• Don't buy bottles or pacifies until you find which ones your kids likes
• A seam bottle clean will make your life so much easier
• Get 4 boppy pillows.  They will make one person able to feed both kids at the same time. And you don't want to be search for them when you need them.

Kids are not cheap, but you can be smart.  Good luck.

Wedding season. Happy times.

We just got back from attending our third in three months.  Not a single one was in the state we lived in.  Two were in California and one was in Alaska.  Yes Alaska and no they didn't live there and in fact never been their before. 

Being a guest at a wedding can be great.  Free food, free drinks, and good times. If you are not careful they can be expensive.  It is important to look for alternative ways to save money or their happy times equal our sad pockets. 

First off is the gift. Traditionally the guests of the wedding and reception give the newlyweds a gift as thanks and best wishes.  There are a couple of way to hack this.

• Offer the wedding party something you can help them make like the invitations
• Offer to help setup the reception
• Look on their registry and set alerts on amazon for flash deals
• We provide toasting glasses that we get a great deal from a vendor

Second is getting to the wedding and sleeping.  We had 3 remote wedding from us and all required us to fly.  Since these three wedding were close friends or family we felt like we had to go.  

1. The first wedding was in California for family.  We used miles to book our flight for all four of use and we stayed with family to not have hotel cost.  So the only cost of this trip was our gift.
2. The second wedding was in Alaska.  We used this trip as a vacation for the wife and I.  We flew into California with all four of use and dropped off the kids with my wife's family.  We stayed there an extra day to get a better rates on our flight.  We were able to use point to fly out to Alaska with a 5 hour layover in SFO.  We didn't have enough points to fly home, but we found a great deal with Alaska airline on the way back. We stayed in a hotel for 3 nights using points and 3 nights in an Airbnb for 1/3 the cost of the restore were the wedding was at.
3. The third wedding was also in California, but not close to family.  We had my family come into town to watch the kids. We left on a Saturday and return on Monday to maximize using the miles points.  We stayed a hotel two nights using points to cover the cost.  We were going to do one night and stay with a friend, but decided getting up at 4am to get the airport was not worth it.  

The third major expense is food.  When you are on travel eating out can really kill the pockets.  

You will get a free meal from the wedding and since they usually have lots of food I would only have a light breakfast and fast until the event.  

• First off if you get a free breakfast for lounge access through your hotel use them
• Second go to a local store and stock up on yogurt and supplies for dinner 
• Store these in refrigerator in your room. You can request one from the front desk
• Third when you go out going out for lunch is much cheaper way to dine.  The wife and I went out for one meal while we were in Alaska.  Mostly lunch and a couple of dinners.  A great way to cut cost is to order appetizers we usually buy three.  You get almost as much food and you get to try a ton of different things.  

The fourth is cloths.  Don't buy anything new just use what you already have.  I know this is hard so look in your closet find something nice.  Put it on and smile big.  

Activity wise he spend a lot of time just walking around and going on long hikes.  The only activity we paid for was a day cruse to see glaciers.  We pre-book this activity to get an early bird discount. 

Have fun for enjoy.

This is what it's like when world collide. Combining finances after the I DO!!!!

This year we will be hitting our 10 year anniversary.  It has been great and I have experienced things and gone places I never would of alone.   We agree on a lot and we on even more.  Our differences makes us a good team balancing each other out.

I lucked out with my wife; we are both college educated in a hot field that was just taking off.  We both graduated college debt free.  Both doing it different ways.  She did it with scholarships and parents paying for her schooling while I it through tuition reimbursement and working almost full time through school.  I graduated a couple of years before her, so I had significantly more money saved then she did.

Before I get into combining finances it is important to know our backgrounds.  I grew up in the Mid-West from a middle class family and my wife grew up in Los Angeles area from a middle class family. Now unless you've lived in both places you probably think they can't be too different.  I'll tell you what.  We could have grown up in two different countries and mad closer family spending habits.

If this comes across like I'm anti-west cost or mid-west is this best I don't mean too.

The Mid-West philosophy is to not pay someone to do something you can do yourself.

The West Coast philosophy is my time is valuable and if I can pay someone to free up my time I will.

These are generalized from what I've seen or experienced.

Mid-West	West Coast
4 bedroom house 2 cars (domestic or Toyota/Honda) fishing boat	4 bedroom house Pool 2-3 cars (BMW/Luxury or Prius) house keeper 2-3 times a week utility vehicle(boat, motorcycle, 4 wheeler)

As you can see similar backgrounds, but differently different.  We both have worked growing up I started at 15 throughout school and she held jobs in the summer throughout high school and college. 

She was never thought about personal finance or investing except she knew credit card debt was bad. I on the other hand had classes in mid-school math about balancing checkbooks and on most Sundays growing up on drives with my family my dad was listening to some type of investing radio shows on the radio. 

I started investing while I was in college.  I was dumb and investing in stocks, but took it slow to learn the ropes.  While my wife didn't invest until she started her first job out of college and put money into a 401k. 

Once you finally say I DO now the real works begins.  You start moving in together. This can be figuratively or literally.  Even if you live together before the wedding now it really it "our stuff" not yours or her stuff.  Get used to; from now on everything you buy is ours and you can't just buy something or make big financial decision without having a talk with your spouse. 

There are four phases to combining finances as a couple.

• First is the dating phase.  
• Second is the engagement phase
• Third is the first married phase
• Fourth is the big purchase/kid phase

First phase is simple it's your money and it's her money. You may split meals or dates, but that's about it. Usually at this point you don't know how much money or debt they have all it's all fun and games.

Second phase is a tough one.  One day, one of you will get the courage to ask the other to spend the rest of your lives together.  At this point you both have verbally committed to make a future with each other.  We have to assume at this point you have talked about marriage, kids, and finances.  If not GET TO IT NOW.  For me at his point in time my wife and I had not really talked about finances very much.  I believe we both assumed we had about the same amount of saving and debt. Our only debt being the new cars we both bough about the same time we started dating.   After the big question we did start taking about where we were going to live and our finances.  The thing was we lived in different states and both have lived in the same place almost our entire lives.  After creating a Venn diagram to determine which was best for us I moved to the California. Another thing I realized I had a significant amount of money saved compared to her.   This was mostly behave I started working a couple of years before her and I invested in stock such as Apple, Visa (IPO), and Berkshire Hathaway. Pure luck I picked these stocks. 

Third phase the married part.  Now your married and blown all you’re saving on the wedding and honeymoon.  In my case since I got married near her family we ended up having a second reception by my family complete out of our pocket.  There went all my stock money :( sad times.  This is the hard part. We had a big decision to make about how we are going to manage our money. We both worked and have two different banks.  I needed to change banks due to my bank didn't operate in California. I created a checking account at the same bank as hers and we created another checking about to put as a joint to pay bills.  

Our bills at this time:

• Apartment
• Utilities
• Her Car
• My Car
• Insurance for cars
• Insurance for Apartment

Simple life and we were saving a good amount I would say we were around a 50% savings rate.

This joint account worked for a while; until our bank change policy and needed direct deposits into checking account once every 45 days or they charged a fee.  The issue was we created joint checking both our checks went into then our two personal account we transferred from the joints as our allowance.  This was suck a pain in the butt to change we just cancelled the separate accounts and from then one we were one.  

This made life much easier.  I've been tracking spending since high-school so having me take over made scene.  I created an online savings account to keep our extra money.  This is important to do they proved a higher than average % APY.  They have been around 2% for years which blow most brick and mortar banks out of the water.  The heavy hitters in this area are ALLY, Discover, and FNBO Direct.  At this point we talked about investing.  She did not like investing because she thought it was just gambling.  I showed her my track record of success and now really it was gambling if you buy and hold.   Let just say I eventually earned her confidence in this year, but it took many years.  

Fourth stage is the big expense or kids.  If you are anything like me you did it the "smart" way and decided to buy a house within two month of having twins.  Did I say smart? Let take a step back on this.  We lived in California and looked around at house prices and just laughed.  No way could we afford anything anywhere close to our work.  So we decided to pack up our things and move to Colorado.  This ended up bring a great chose. Life was much more affordable and our job gave up a pay increase for move to Colorado.  WIN WIN. At this point we have been saving for a house for a few years with a goal to have 25% saved before we bought a house.  The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. No matter how carefully a project is planned, something may still go wrong with it - Robert Burns. Very true.  After some difficultly and doctor visits one thing led to another and we got pregnant "Whoopee"!!!! With twin..................Crap now what.  Ha well after the shock wore off we were very excited, but had no idea how much doctor visits we were in store for.  So about 4 months into the pregnancy we were in a hurry to buy a home.  This was no easy task. To give you an idea on a normal pregnancy 4 month the mom to be is barely showing.  Random people are asking you "wow your about to pop when are you due”. All you can do is laugh and smile.  It took us 2 month to find the house we wanted and honestly it was significantly more then we wanted to pay, but we were desperate.  Desperate decisions led to bad decisions.  

We had a chose to make either put 20% down and totally drain our saving or put 15% down and take out a HELOC for the other 5% and keep the remaining in reserve for the birth.  We chose the HELOC route mostly because the interest rate on the HELOC was the exact same as the mortgage and it was fixed for 18 months.  Knowing we could pay it off by then it was an easy choice.  

Now having twins are expensive, because they are high risk.  You will need to save, save, and save for these guys.  At this point our wife will not care about finance it will be up to you to make sure everything goes well.

Married is scary, hard, challenging, wonderful, comforting all rolled up into one.  There is no right or wrong way to manger your finances together, but you need to talk about it.  I have found since we both know what is going on with our finances it has made the talks easier when I wanted to go down the pay of FI. 

Just remember it isn't your money. It isn't her money. It is and will always be our money. It doesn't matter how it comes in once you say I DO that's it everything else is OURS from then on.  

Have fun and enjoy.