Married and Bored: Joint Checking and Savings
In the first month of joint accounts you thought it was nice when you went through the bank statements and the list of payments and deposits. That ninety dollar charge at Nordstrom didn’t make sense so you asked your wife about it and she said, “I bought a pair of shoes.” Then you thought to yourself, “From now on woman you get your shoes at Goodwill,” but you didn’t say it; too early in the relationship yet; you were in love, remember?
Then month two came around and the bank statement arrived in the mail. She opened the statement before you could get home from work. You enter the front door after a long day and you can smell suspicion wafting in the air. Since you are a new husband, you don’t really know what that sensation is yet, but the feeling has permeated the whole room. Her suspicion is like nuclear radiation; you can’t see it but you can feel it in your bones deconstructing you. She waits until you are comfortable before she nicely brings up the topic that is on her mind. She’s acting coy until you sit down for dinner and just as you take a big mouthful of peas she says, “Oh, baby I meant to ask you something. What’s this hundred dollars right here that was spent on April 12, 2005 at 2:15 in the morning at a place called ‘Beansnappers’?” You spit out the peas. After nearly choking to death you try to stutter an answer to her question and then you tell a lie to her. You tell her that ‘Beansnappers’ is a family place and it was your friend Rick’s birthday. Big mistake – your wife already knew Beansnappers was a titty bar and now you just dug a deeper hole by lying, dummy. Now you went to a titty bar AND you lied to her, meaning dinner will not be followed by coitus uninterruptus.
You know it’s true; she does the same thing as you using her personal credit card. She spends quietly, and pays on the lowdown. What you want is a certain amount of fiscal privacy. You don’t want to deal with the “Did you really need to buy that Ichiro Suzuki jersey for one hundred nineteen dollars and fifty-seven cents?!” Of course you had to buy it, but she doesn’t need that level of detail. Both you and she will be happier if the jersey just shows up on your back someday and she never sees the price. These are little things you want in your life to feel better, to feel enriched. You are enriched by Ichiro Suzuki. She doesn’t understand what a good hitter he is. You feel good putting on that jersey, even if you bought it one size too small and you can barely connect the last two buttons around your spare tire. It would be different if you bought a Cadillac without her consultation, but you just want to support the team and maybe, just maybe on occasion also be enriched by seeing a titty at Beansnappers while high-fiving your friend Rick.
If this sounds like you, one thing you have to do is remember the golden rule of being married, which states: “It doesn’t matter where you get your appetite from, as long as you eat at home.” Commit that proverb to permanent memory and you can overcome any obstacle in your marriage, including the checkbook. Follow the golden rule, don’t cheat, and the checkbook is not a problem, it’s just an adjustment. Certain techniques can be used to facillitate your extramarital spending.
1.) Slush Funds: You’ve heard of the Pentagon having illegal slush funds for selling weapons to foreign nations. It’s time you created your own slush fund. Find a shoebox, open a Paypal account, steal your son’s piggybank – anything to get started. Sell your autographed DJ Quik CD on eBay – it hasn’t been touched in twelve years, get rid of it already!
2.) Bird in the Hand: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. That means a ten dollar bill in your pocket is worth twenty dollars in the ATM. Stop buying three cans of Coke at work each day; pack a lunch. Don’t tip your barista – ever. Better yet, stop buying coffee altogether. Make your coffee at home before work or force yourself to drink the dirty water your employer wring outs each morning. No cookies, Coke, or coffee expenses saves at least $20 to $40 a week in cash flow. That way when the weekend comes and you go get live with your honey or friends, you don’t need to withdraw so much from the ATM. Cash is your lifeblood. If you and your wife go to a movie or out to dinner, don’t EVER touch the cash in your pocket. Use the joint account debit card. Keep your cash at all times. Cash is fluid, cash is freedom. And always keep at least one last dollar in your pocket so you can call your buddy Rick on the day that she changes the locks on the door.
3.) Prudent Credit Card Abuse: A modest credit line on the side is entirely appropriate. For instance, imagine that Ichiro gets traded to the Cincinatti Reds next year but he’s still your favorite player. Clearly you need an updated jersey, but you know that your wife has an indelible memory that remembers “Ichiro is equal to $119.57.” She’s like an elephant – never forgets a thing. Here’s where the silent purchase comes in, followed by the extended payout. You payoff the credit card over a few months instead of all at once. That means you pay a little interest, but that’s better than getting no sex. And take a minute to make sure the credit card has a low interest rate. If you have an 18% APR on the credit card, you might as well go to Don Corleone and risk the threat of having your legs broken by a mafioso, because anything over 10% interest is just plain organized crime. Seek out the locked-in low interest rates and make those payments on time every month.
4.) Timing ATM Withdrawals: The withdrawal of $100 at 3:00 in the morning has to come to a stop or your privileges in the marital sack will come to a quicker halt. Do you even remember what you were doing when you withdrew that money at 3 AM? Probably not, but if you do recall, it wasn’t to make an investment for your family or feed starving kids in Colombia. You think it is no big deal and none of your wife’s business. Now imagine your wife out on the town drunk, with her recently divorced friend, a few hours before sunrise withdrawing money to continue partying in a hotel room, and now imagine her not telling you why she needed that extra money. Make your withdrawals before the sun goes down, not before the sun comes up. If you can’t stop boozing or need that extra lapper, start donating plasma twice a week for extra cash. Remind your wife that you’re just lovably irresponsible, or as country folk would say, you’re just a good-timin’ man. You are mature, dedicated to her, sober most of the time. Just don’t tell her about the VIP lounge at Beansnappers.
You will find other ways to squirrel your dollar bills away for your personal enjoyment and you will feel a loss of control about having to do it, but at the end of the year there will be more money in the bank for your family’s future. Without question, joint accounts accomplish one thing: accountability. Accountability makes you into an adult. That’s why everyone was so mad at ENRON when the company went bankrupt; they spent too much time at Beansnappers and not enough time in accounting. You never know – you might find out that she is the wastrel and you are the responsible one. If she blows cash like Jenna Jameson does Ron Jeremy, you will have a lot of relationship bonus points once you bail her out of debt. Joint accounts are a good idea if you plan on staying together forever, and since you got married you should really plan on forever. You can always look at your friend, old Single-n-Lonely, and see he’s got a new shiny car but not a damn dime in savings. Either way, just remember, it sucks.
I ain’t mad at ya honey, I’m just,
Married-n-Bored
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