As I was saying in Part I the Hubs (Isaac) and I were at a pretty desperate point in our life. We had little cash flow, he was sleeping in the car and I was punching in my meager 15 hrs at the library. (Refresh me.)
One gorgeous blue sunny morning (you should have seen this day) Isaac was hit by a car on his way to pick me up.
He was winding down Route 1A. I was picking out my clothes. A white Ford Explorer was billowing down a side road. Isaac rounded the corner, I finished breakfast, the Explorer blew a stop sign. I picked up my backpack, Isaac stumbled out of a crumpled car, a witness called 911.
An ambulance came; I walked outside to wait at the curb. Five minutes, then ten minutes went by. I started calling his cellphone, hanging up when it got to voicemail, dialing mechanically over again. Finally he answered,
“Um…I am in an ambulance…I was…hit by a car,” he said.
Thankfully, remarkably, Isaac was fine. He was super sore from the exploding airbag but there were no major injuries, not even a concussion.
After reassuring family and friends that Isaac was ok, we began to understand that no matter how romantic it seemed to “be an island” even if it’s co-habitated, it was not a wise financial decision. Sure, we had made the decision to become a family, but doing so would be a process; and regardless, our decisions affected other people.
While our family was more than happy to help us out with ER Bills (who knew a ride to the ER was $5,000+?), all of the "splurge-dates" (seeing Inception. Twice) we went on during the school year seemed pretty silly. In the name of romance we had spent a lot of money entertaining ourselves (at my urging in particular) and the reality of our helplessness was hard to swallow.
It's not surprising that the number one thing couples fight about is money, and I believe that's because we put way too much pressure on ourselves to have it all together too fast, and we're not honest about where we're starting from.
Financial independence is a process and ever since our reality check, we've been taking it slow. We just started taking over car-insurance and student loans from the parentals, but we’re ok with it, we needed to work up to that point.
You'll be happy to know that Isaac is no longer homeless (though he does seem to have an affinity for accidents) and we're currently approaching our one-year anniversary but THAT, my friends, is another story.
Alysa Seeland
Community Manager
http://signup.impulsesave.com/
