When we spend money on things we don’t need, not only do we lose that money, but we permanently deprive ourselves of what that money, better applied, could have yielded. $1 million (and maybe much, much more) is not lost by your carelessly misplacing it. It is lost $50 and $100 at a time. When you buy $10 glasses of beer, $15 glasses of wine, $50 lunches, $100 dinners, $125 ties and $500 shoes, you lose out on the future value those funds, if invested even in a poorly performing market, would have produced. Over a lifetime, the poorly performing markets will fade into nothingness and the long term results take effect. Indeed, the financial crises of the hour will one day be but a memory. The shock of realizing what you could have had will floor you and last a lifetime.

$1,000 per month invested at 8% for 35 years amounts to almost $2.3 million. Adjusting for 3% inflation, you would still have over $800,000 in today’s dollars. Take a look at your annual expenditures on things you don’t need and you’ll find the $1,000 (and maybe a lot more) a month.

Ignorance of the concept of opportunity cost can mean, after 35 years of well paid employment, having a negligible net worth at 60 and parking cars under the direction of a high school kid at 70. You can be young in this country and be without money but it’s really tough being old and in that shape and much worse to realize it needn’t have turned out that way. James’ brother advised saving “until it hurts.” What did he know that you don’t?

Richard E. Savoy

btw to the last guy – go to my church for professional budgeting help – you’re on something better than I thought money could buy, why not just pray for more money, it would be as likley.

I’m seriously thankful she’s not so bad she opens up new credit cards though, thank god for that anyways; I think for me that would be one straw too many; I’m just not willing to live my last 50 yrs on mac & cheese so my wife could by cloths she throwout everytime she changed a dress size.

I did a few thinks I think that helped over the last 12 yrs though that I think helped, I’ll share them in case they’re useful to anyone.
a) setup 2 personal accounts – auto transfer into them each pay period – we do about 250/month each – thats to cover dining out,, movies, etc more or less fun stuff – the reason was because using the shared budget we could agree on eating out, but not say a ps3 etc; and similar misc stuff for her – it gives some defined flexibility then. bought a frying pan tonight from it.
b) autopay bills – set it up once for the next x yrs with online banking – then if you’re not right ontop of bill payments before it’s spent at least vedo isn’t coming for your cable box. Add in your rrsps to that and a auto transfer to a savings account and you can spend to your last penny and still be ok each month – which is good because thats pretty much status quo around here unfortunately.
c) buy everything with your debit card & keep your credit card maximum to $1000 or less. That allows you to track all of your spending easily w/ online banking & if you suck at paying yorur visa cause hey when you do it just climbs right back up there it’s only a $30 fee / month – I should really change that to a low interest one & just accept it; but I digress.
4. Venting even if completely unproductive still feels good .

a.) I’m not qualified to tackle that issue.
b.) You need professional help. I would go to my church (if you go to one) and ask for counseling. Otherwise I would seek out some other form of counseling.
c.) Sounds like she is spending out of either habit or to make herself feel better. That will need to be addressed.

I wish I could help, but that’s serious stuff. You’ve got to be on the same page with finances in marriage. Plain and simple.

My wife earns $50K per year. I earn more than double that. So already, I contribute significantly more to the pot in the first place. But, get this…. she spends about 75% of her take home pay on herself!! Mother of G-D! I can’t stop it either. We have a sit down heart-to-heart then she says “I promise I’ll just use the credit card for emergencies (gas, etc..).” IT DOESN’T MATTER… She just keeps opening up credit card accounts at different stores and I just keep paying them on her behalf but it’s killing our finances. I do love her dearly, please note. She is amazing. But why the heck does she CONSTANTLY need to buy clothes and shoes? (that is what she is buying)