That speaks rather poorly about most men, doesn’t it ;)?
Oh, aye - that I can get behind. I’d consider that a reasonable semi-permanent “temporary” situation, so to speak. Good childcare is often just so atrociously expensive as to swamp out anything but truly elite salaries. And the intangibles of having a genuine parent at home are always worth considering.
My step-brother and his wife did it by having her work just the two grueling twelve-hour shifts as an RN on the weekends, when he was available to take care of the kids. Meanwhile he worked full-time, but compressed - four tens Tuesday-Friday. They overlapped and had grandparents to give them an occasional breather on Mondays. Rough, but pretty functional and with maximum shared parenting experience despite the workaday life.
I think we’re within a few blocks of each other. Downtown was pretty quiet today; I think a lot of people stayed away, and I know most of the courts were closed because of the anticipated marches. I didn’t see any real disruption in traffic, although there were more helicopters than usual hovering over downtown.
Today was supposed to be a boycott of “America,” and to show how dependent America is on immigrants, immigrants were supposed to not go to work/school and instead march to show support for immigration rights. But I understand that their numbers were way down this year. Personally, I attribute that to today’s cruddy weather.
My mom always said she married “potential.” It took him decades to actualize, what with four kids to put through college, but they’re pretty comfortable now. You’re right; it’s all about having similar values, or at least having compatible values.
Somewhere back when this thread was about money someone said compatibility was everything. I agree. We’ve had maybe one argument about money in 28 years, because neither of us would ever buy anything expensive (over $100) without consulting the other. I’m very slightly cheaper than she is. We both hate debt, and don’t give a damn if we drive old cars - in fact we’re rather proud of it. However, we know people whose financial habits would drive us up the wall, but they’re compatible too and very happy. So it doesn’t matter who makes what or how much, but whether you both are okay with it.
That’s why I find separate checking accounts kind of sad.
A friend of my wife’s used to date a rich guy - drove around in a Rolls Royce. At the time she was a bit snooty to her friends who were married to guys, like me, who weren’t rich yet. Of course she got dumped by him for someone younger, and wound up, years later, marrying a very nice teacher. She rejected some guys who seemed nice, but not rich enough, and it seems to us that she could have been happy years earlier if she cared about the guy more than the bankbook.
Also, I let him know how much we have in the account after all the bills are paid, i.e., the $100 rule doesn’t count if we’ve only got $200 left 'til payday. We both know exactly how much extra money exists so we don’t make a costly mistake.
to me, it doesn’t matter how much he makes. It does matter that he either be good at managing it or be able to let me (since I am good at managing it). It would bother me if I found out that he was being paid less than the usual rate for his work, but this bothers me when I discover it re. friends or family as well.
Some friends of us have a store (6th generation) and Mom showed them, pen and paper and calculator and taxation tables on hand, that it actually made a lot more financial sense for the son-and-current-manager to give himself a normal salary than to not have any kind of salary and go on drawing a weekly allotment from his mother (and official owner). The sister has worked at the store for years, but because she never was officially employed… it’s not in her work history :smack:
Most of the guys I like are either techie types or hands-on types; I’m more likely to have a good time with a mechanic or a civil engineer than with a lawyer or a language teacher. All kind of salary ranges, there.
Another detail: at this point, I’m making more money than most of my circle of friends and relatives. But I’m considering going back to school for a third master’s which would allow me to get jobs with better hours that will definitely never pay as much as this one(1). So in my case it would be extremely dumb to say “guys who make less than X an hour need not apply”! I want my job to give me overall satisfaction and I also like it when my SO has a job which gives him overall satisfaction.
(1) For my last half dozen jobs, every change of job has carried a pay increase. But every single one of those jobs has also carried a lot of face time (ie, wasted time - and I hate waste like I hate nothing else); stuff like a boss complaining that I’m not doing anything when I simply don’t have nothing to do; bosses who don’t want to give me vacation because hey, the sky hasn’t fallen down yet, but what if it realizes I’m off and decides to fall down?
The new master’s would be in translation, where in Spain you get paid an amount per document plus another per word. More if it’s technical (hehe, I’m an engineeeerd!), more if it’s any documents other than Word (I’ve been doing translations in Power Point at the same time as a professional translator and I went about 10x as fast). Most agencies give you the stuff to translate at home and a deadline; I could either take more work if there’s more work to be had or do what at home we call “pull a Gramps.”
Gramps used to be a salesman. Like his colleagues, he got a circuit of stores he had to visit in 10 weeks; then 2 weeks to hand in the paperwork, and another off… in theory. Most other salesmen wouldn’t get out of bed before noon or do the paperwork as they went, so they were always late and often missed the vacation. Gramps would help his first customer of the day open the store and prep the paperwork before going to bed, finish his circuit in 8-9 weeks, get home, sit on his bum for 2 weeks, go to the office, hand in all his paperwork, be given 2 weeks off and asked to go back for that last week of the trimester (with bonus pay) to help the latecomers
I suspect we’re on the same page on this. I wouldn’t be attracted to someone completely dismissive of education either and certainly not someone who views it as a waste of time.
I’m late getting on this thread, but it really is an interesting one .
My mother has been married many times and was kind of an “old mom” when she had me. Anyway, the wisdom she imparted to me after long experience is that the best financial decision in terms of a spouse is to stay married. Mom says that she has watched as people who stayed married, even though they never made that much, eventually outstripped their richer counterparts who went through divorces. I guess that piece of advice has helped to form my outlook on money and marriage.
My husband does production work (currently for an ad agency) and although he doesn’t make much now, I feel that the long-term outlook for his financial success is pretty darn good (fingers crossed). Currently, we are scraping to pay bills, save, and have a bit left over for fun. We have similar goals and neither one of us cares about the outward trappings of money and status as much as being able to buy our lives back from “the Man.”
We put all of our earnings into a joint account from which all bills, savings, and joint entertainment expenses (Chinese take-out, movie rentals) are paid. At the end of each month, we split what is left over and that money goes into our individual accounts. From our individual accounts, we pay our student loans and it is also our personal “mad” money. We have only been married for a few years and are only that far removed from graduating college as well, so we have flip-flopped a bit in terms of who makes more. We figure that sometimes he will make more, sometimes I will, but that everything goes into a common pool. This works well for us; I can’t imagine trying to maintain separate finances. Finally, he makes more than I do and this makes me happy; I hated having the responsibility of being the primary bread-winner (especially since I was completely miserable in that job).
I guess I think that compatibility means more than current or potential earnings. Neither of us will probably progress beyond a bachelors degree. He doesn’t need to and I just got turned down by grad school. But it is OK because as Featherlou knows from this post (Possible new life plan -scared to death!) I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go down the grad school road anyway. I’m glad that we are just paying off debt and won’t be accumulating a huge new amount of student loans.
Your mom makes a good point, melangell (good to hear about the grad school helping you with your decisions ); staying power really does make a difference in finances. I don’t seem to have that, but my husband does, and I bless him for it.
Here’s the kind of attitude I’d be trying to avoid:
If you read Slashdot, you know that there really are people with this sort of attitude out there. I wouldn’t want to date one of them, no matter how much money he had.
My current SO makes very little money, while I have a job that pays quite well for my age and experience level.
He often tells me he wishes he could be a better provider for me. “You are,” I tell him. I don’t need monetary support – but he does provide me with affection, emotional support, an intellectual sparring partner, and other such intangibles.
Frankly, people with lots of money make me a little uncomfortable. My family was always strictly middle-class growing up. We worked and saved and sometimes sacrificed when we wanted things. I’m continuing that grand tradition. People who can just buy whatever they want, whenever they want… I don’t even know how to relate to that.
There is another really good reason for this. If you have kids, sometime they will be ready for college. Since we both went to good colleges, and to grad school, there was no issue with sending our kids to the best places where they got in and wanted to go. I see people without this attitude considering good colleges a waste of money. College is expensive, and I can see this as a big point of contention, even if there was enough money to not be a problem.
Yes, compatibility in how to spend money is a big issue-there have been plenty of times where I’ve noticed people getting very angry over the issue of whether or not one should pay for a kid’s college education on these very boards. But it goes beyond compatibility-isn’t it unrealistic not to think about your mate’s earning potential beyond just compatibility? Compatibility seems important to me (probably the most important), but no matter how compatible you are in spending or a financial vision, it seems that you also have to be realistic about the quality of life you’ll end up with on your mate’s earning potential. If one is happy about that reasonably predictable future, then there’s no problem…but if you have things you consider needs, a la paying for college etc. (or other expenditures that require stockpiling lots of money), then it seems to me that if one is choosing someone whose income in combination doesn’t lend itself to building up enough savings for said expenditures…it seems that there will be trouble in the future.
I’m a 47-year old bachelor, and I make a comfortable living as an electrical engineer. When I was younger, I didn’t care at all about a potential mate’s income, but now, I make some note of it.
As much time as couples spend together, they need to share values and goals.
Less important than how much money they have is what they’d do with money. And two people who’ve arrived at middle age with the same opinions on this are going to get along better.
This is unrelated to materialism – while I really enjoy being able to afford a new transmission or heat pump, the things I value most are friends, learning, music, etc. I was raised lower middle-class – my closest friends are people I knew growing up, and most of them make less money than me.
Interestingly, the woman I’m seeing now makes a lot more money than me – she’s a lawyer, and owns part of a successfull business that she built with her ex-husband. We discuss vacation plans in advance, because I feel uncomfortable going on some of the trips we take, even if she’s paying.
That’s true. But what is the limit of good earning potential? Above minimum wage, above average income, upper middle class, or a millionaire? It appears that there is less marrying up these days, as doctor types, say, can marry other doctor types - it is a side effect of women finally getting paid what they deserve. So probably the best way of ensuring a good income is to be making (or having the prospects of making) a good income.
Now, the first time I visited my now wife’s parents, her father asked me what my prospects were. “MIT, studying computer science.” Shut him right up.
Yes and no. When I have a bit more money I’ll be happy to pay disproportionately more of our total expenses–maybe 65%, unless I get filthy stinkin’ rich in which case I like to think it wouldn’t matter to me. Right now I’m living hand-to-mouth and if I can afford to go out or even drive to someone’s house it’s normally by serendipity and generosity. Anyone I dated right now would have to pay for all of her expenses and all of our dates plus some of my expenses (clothes, gas, food, etc.), which is part of the reason I’m single and not looking. But I’d be happy to “be poor” with someone special–go to the park instead of a movie, or watch a DVD and eat ramen instead of going out for dinner; that’s really romantic to me.
But once I’ve graduated from college, paid off my debts and have a steady and sufficient income, I’d stick to the 65% or less rule. IOW it doesn’t matter how much money my mate has; what matters is how willing she is to pick up her end. Like others have said, how much she values education is far more important than the raw numbers. Then again, I grew up in a household where my mom made a fair bit more than my dad–and I’m a Linguistics major–so MMV.
Yup. I used to be quite the computer geek, and I knew a number of people with this kind of attitude. Of the two primary examples, one actually made it happen by starting a Web business that catered to rich and famous porn stars in some way (can’t remember what the business did, exactly); the other has made and lost a lot of money and some sweet property since high school and as I understand it he’s learned his lesson and gone off to college. In both cases–especially the first one–they valued education highly, they just believed that formal education was a crock and they could be better educated people just by having their eyes and ears open. That’s true to an extent: just being a college graduate doesn’t make you educated. But unless you have the brains, the luck and the work ethic to build your empire on your own (which is extremely rare), you gotta go to college.
I used to not care if a potential mate made more or less money than me. I make enough to live the way I enjoy, and felt that compatibility, respect and shared goals were more important.
But I am female.
I make a middle-class wage for my area. My husband is an artist, and made less money then me. The things that does to a male ego can create serious hell.
someone said compatibility was everything. I agree. We’ve had maybe one argument about money in 28 years, because neither of us would ever buy anything expensive (over $100) without consulting the other. I’m very slightly cheaper than she is. We both hate debt, and don’t give a damn if we drive old cars - in fact we’re rather proud of it. However, we know people whose financial habits would drive us up the wall, but they’re compatible too and very happy. So it doesn’t matter who makes what or how much, but whether you both are okay with it.