Comments on: What Tinky Winky Taught Me About Money

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:09:05 +0000

I actually went through this almost exactly a year ago. My wife is likewise the one that spends the money on a daily basis. We had always “made decisions together”, but for my part that mostly was the bigger decisions and the real-world implementation came down to her being extremely frugal and me spending money out from under her budget because I didn’t foresee the consequences. Needless to say, it caused more problems than was necessary.

So one day a year ago I just gave up my debit card for our main account and put it in a safe. Shocked her a bit. It was a little strange at first, but it turned out to be one of the best financial decisions I’ve ever made. We still make our decisions together, but I respect her abilities and let her manage the daily cashflow without interference, largely keeping to “here’s the end result I’d like” and it just magically happens. She doesn’t keep secrets or spend money like crazy, and we now have more money left over at the end of the month to save. I actually have more “slush money” available now than before, all with the same pay AND an extra car payment.

It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you are willing to think outside the box.

By: SAFTM

SAFTM — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:12:00 +0000

This post reminded me of two of the more frustrating/important parts of budgeting for me.

First, worry about what you can control. But you can control more than you think – you just need to ask “is there a better (or different) way”? If you cannot think of a way to control something, don’t stress. Just make the best of it.

And second, your priorities and what is valuable to you (and worth putting into your budget) change over time. Reevaluate your budget – that auto-renew subscription to Teen People magazine is probably not worth it anymore if you’re 30 – maybe it’s worth the time to cancel.

By: Neal

Neal — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:45:13 +0000

The policy was term – and the premium was over $6k a year!

Perhaps they could have sold the term policy – this is something I didn’t consider.

I’ll look into this….Thanks!

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:04:33 +0000

Were those term of whole life policies? $40k over 7 years seems to indicate the latter – in which case the mistake was made 30 years ago, not the last 7.

Since their probability of dying has gone up, but their premiums set 30 years ago, the policies probably had a positive expected value. I wonder if they could have sold them to some investor somehow?

By: Jolyn@Budgets are the New Black

Jolyn@Budgets are the New Black — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:00:45 +0000

Ah, yes. The age-old question: What is Tinky-Winky’s gender?

I guess your friends had “whole” life insurance? Yikes.

I recently read that most true-life millionaires read an average of one new (non-fiction) book every month. I’m guessing that would greatly contribute to their knowledge base and keep them from remaining stagnate in their thoughts and thinking that they already “know it all” and that’s what, you know, made them millionaires.

I personally think Tele-tubbies sucks brain cells out through the screen while you’re watching. At least, that was our excuse when we caught ourselves staring at the screen along with our children.

By: youngandthrifty

youngandthrifty — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:57:07 +0000

Great post =) Didn’t know teletubbies was still the “in” thing for kids now.

Wow, $40K in insurance premiums, that’s a hefty sum!