It has been a pretty crazy month for me, from arriving back from Europe and trying to get settled into my new hotel digs.

INCOME: $15,300

• All gross, not net and I still have to pay taxes on it (about 20%) so it’s really $12,240
• Then you have to factor in how much I am paying for business expenses as well

Update: This is for 3 weeks of work, I was on vacation for one.

EXPENSES: $4878.58 *cries*

• Business: $3940.60

• Personal: $937.98

Update: I should redo these numbers but I won’t.

I actually double-counted my rent and my hotel, and my very basic expenses (hotel, food, parking, gas, food) should really be around $2000 a month, but I am pre-paying for September as well as paying for August, which doubles my expenses.

BUSINESS EXPENSES: $3940.60

• Hotel is for all of August up until almost the end of September (YES!!)
• Had to switch hotels halfway through the month, that helped me save a lot of money in the end
• Have to think of the big picture: it’s cheaper than paying for a 12-month lease for something similar

PERSONAL EXPENSES: $937.98

• I have to calculate part of my “personal” living as my rent for my taxes
• Spent a little on self grooming this month
• Very difficult to calculate groceries in this case, as it’s included in my business expenses

NET WORTH: $112,230.05

15% increase or by $11,267.91

• Cash: $30.35
• Savings: $5076.96
• Emergency Fund: $25,649.15
• Retirement: $36,041.72
• Business: $45,431.87
• Emergency Fund: $25,649

Note: Still have taxes left to pay, so my net worth will drop next month.

A woman called into the radio the other day, and made me think about her situation for pretty much the rest of the day because of all the different perspectives this could be viewed from.

Basically, she said she was laid off in March, and even though she had 9 years of experience in a particular industry she had been searching since March and still hadn’t found a job.

It got to the point where she started to give up on the search, and felt like staying at home with her 3-year old son was a lot better use of her time.

She also mentioned that her husband was getting impatient (frustrated?) with her, and she just didn’t feel like looking for a job any longer.

She also asked if it would hurt her career-wise to take off 2-3 years to be with her son, and then try to re-enter the workforce.

FROM HER PERSPECTIVE:

9 years of solid experience and no one is hiring her? Wow, that is a serious blow to your career and not to mention your ego.

I really feel bad for her, because it seems like no one values her experience. I can see where you can get despondent and just give up on searching for a job.

Her husband getting mad at her is not helping, because it’s only been 5 months, and we are just starting to turn the economy around.

When you can’t find something — you simply cannot work. Heck, I went through a good chunk of 2009 without any income at all. I know how it is.

FROM THE HUSBAND’S PERSPECTIVE:

I’d be pretty angry and scared. I mean, I understand that since March, there’s been nothing for her. Zip, zilch, nada… but now everything is dependent on his income alone.

He now has to shoulder the burden and stress of being the sole-income provider, they probably have a mortgage, a car to pay and some consumer debt to cover, and she’s basically giving up after only 5 months?

If I were the husband, I’d encourage her to look into other industries, but I’d probably be pretty annoyed if she tried to say she didn’t want to do anything else, and she was just giving up.

Sometimes we have to do what we don’t want to do, just to get some money on the table and pay the bills.

To put it in another way, if it was the husband and not the wife who hadn’t found anything since March, and the wife was working full-time, would you feel differently about the situation?

I think we might be inclined to call him a lazy bum. I know it isn’t fair, but I think that’s what would first pop into people’s minds.

I really feel that her husband is reacting out of fear, basically worried that HE might be laid off next, and/or they just aren’t making by on what’s he’s earning, and they really need her income as well.

FROM A CAREER PERSPECTIVE:

Perhaps this is a positive thing, and if she can find a job in another industry, maybe the experience will be more enriching than trying to stay in an industry that doesn’t seem to be hiring.

I’d give a new career a shot, and if that didn’t pan out, try something else.

Being flexible and open to change, while not trying to let rejection get you down is kind of a must-have in today’s new world order.

I also think that if she took 3-5 years off to watch her 3-year old son, (I don’t think they’re planning on any more kids), it is definitely going to hurt her career-wise.

One year, maybe two.. fine.

But 3-5? It’s really too big of a gap for employers to wrap their heads around, and everyone who has been working for those 3-5 years will get the jobs first, and she might have to even start at the bottom again, which is really painful.

IN SUMMARY

My suggestion would be to look in another industry and perhaps take on a part-time job in the interim to help take the financial stress off of her husband.

I understand there are exceptions, but it doesn’t seem like this is one of those situations.

I am really the type of person who feels everyone should carry their own financial weight if they can, and I’m pretty sure I’d go crazy staying home with my kids without working or having any other outside adult interaction.

That being said, she has to broach this subject with her husband, and make sure that they are both in sync, they both agree to and understand the plan, and that no one feels resentful.

I really think that this is the type of situation that starts the seed of divorce proceedings, and if they don’t work out a plan together and compromise, they are going to be in deep trouble.

I am all for either parent wanting to stay at home and raise their child, in fact, I think it’s a great idea because of the personal touch that comes from doing that…. but if there are other options that may not be as rosy, but are better for the family from a financial standpoint, sometimes you have to bite the bullet and do it.

I know we are missing a lot of facts, and we haven’t heard all the sides of the story firsthand, but this is an interesting real-life situation.

What do you think?

Do you see another solution that might be a better compromise?

If you are online as much as I am, you tend to start shopping online just because things tend to be cheaper than if you were to buy it in store, or if you are Canadian and are always paying a 20% -30% premium just because you live in Canada, you can save even more if you shop online if you manage to catch the dollar at a low point.

That being said, there’s no sense in spending more than you have to, even online.

Enter: Coupons and Cash backs!

Who doesn’t love a free discount that requires very minimal work?

The one site I found for this is Coupon Cactus.

Not only is it also open to Canadians, but it works a lot like Retailmenot whereby it has coupons and codes for thousands of stores, and you can even get cash back for almost all of them.

Me, I’d much prefer cash in my pocket over any other kind of points or discount program

You just have to sign up for Coupon Cactus (free and easy), and you can earn extra cash if your friends refer to — up to 10% of the cash back that they earn, and it’s at no cost to them!

So if your friend bought something for $100, and they received a cash back of $3 (3% cash back), then you’d earn $0.30 on that.

It may not seem like a lot of money, but it adds up without you having to do any of the work.

The stores I’m interested in browsing right now are:

Benefit — 3% cash back — because I’ve been eying their liquid blush for some time now, and Sony Style Canada — 1.5% cash back but no coupon — I’ve been eying their laptops for a while now. My Dell is about to die, I can feel her wheezing and totally blacking out without notice, and it might be time for an upgrade.

Coupon Cactus — give a shot if you are in the market to buy something anyway, why not get a deal?

I read the “The History of Marriage” on the weekend, and started thinking about what she said about how marriage started.

Essentially, the history behind marriage is that it was not created for love — it was created for political reasons, religion, family fortune, etc.

Kids who got married were just pawns in a game.

Marriage was meant to ally families with one another, against others.

Now, we have this notion that marriage is the result of love, when that wasn’t the case in the past.

It’s why women get confused and think that pre-nups are unromantic, or a sign that they’ll get divorced, but they should see it as protection for themselves.

I am not advocating to get a pre-nup or to not. I’m just simply stating that if money is already a problem, and you don’t see eye-to-eye with your beloved, and he wants a pre-nup but you don’t.. then you need to sit down and talk out this money issue.

Money is the #1 reason couples divorce. Period.

If you don’t talk out this budding issue of how differently you two view money before you even get married for real, it will eat you alive.

He may be a saver. You, a spender. Or vice versa.

He may think a house is important, you, you want to travel or live in a condo so you don’t need to maintain a backyard or to be able to stay in the city.

Money is not the real and only reason why people fight and get divorced. It is just the rawest discussion or catalyst to start fights that don’t even relate to money, if that makes sense.

Fights can quickly escalate to: “And THAT is why you don’t put your socks away!!!”

Huh?

Yeah.

Money is just the match thrown onto bunch of dry wood doused in fire starter (your marriage).

Either you burn long and slow, until the end of your lives and last until the end of the BBQ, and everyone ends up happy, fed, fulfilled and content because they shared, they talked and they knew what the stakes (ohh! PUN!) were before they committed.

….Or you burn out fast within the first big flame of passion where you two are running around as naked newlyweds for the first 2 months, but after the big flame dies down, the lust is gone, the luster of being newly married has faded, the lack of commitment or the same values about life will quickly dissipate into a bunch of burned out charcoal with nothing left to show for it in the end, but a half cooked piece of chicken.

(Wow, why is everything I talk about strangely related back to food in awkward ways? I have BBQ on my mind.)

So a prenup? It’s just the beginning, if he or she asks for one.

If you feel uncomfortable signing it, then talk about it. But understand that people are skittish about marriage because they may have worked hard as a Saver all of their lives building a little nest egg.

And even if you think you will NEVER leave them, you can never say never.
Anything can happen.

If that Saver loses what she or he has built up for so many years, just because of a difference in personalities that was not immediately revealed until life and money issues came into play after the lust wore off… it becomes a nasty business, divorce.

Yes, I do agree that money should be spent and saved for the good of the family (being the two of you and future kids, if any), but sometimes a little reassuring paper can go a long way.

After all, love and romance are not what REALLY keeps a marriage going.

It’s what brings you two together and makes the partnership so wonderful and rosy… but cracks will appear in the foundation when real life issues hit you hard, like one of you gets cancer, or loses a job, or gambles away the house, loses a child or have to deal with a child that has special needs…

All of those situations have things to deal with money in some way or another, and that is why everyone says money is the #1 reason for divorce.

No no, I don’t mean prostitution or strip clubs.

Not this time anyway.

I just bought another pack of birth control pills (Yasmin if you are interested), and I paid $56.99 3 packs, which is 9 weeks of pills, not 12 weeks.

I take the pills continuously so that I never have to worry about a period again.

So I did a little math.

$56.99 is the cost for 9 weeks of pills (normally 3 months but there are 3 weeks missing because they assume a period a month).

There are 52 weeks in a year, and with 52 weeks divided by 9 weeks is a factor of 5.78.

5.78 times $56.99 = $329.40

And that’s the cost, $329.40 for pills a year.

And that’s without a company health plan.

I have heard that in the States, that pills can cost $50/month which is $600/year!

Maybe more.

Who ends up paying for that? The woman? The man? Split?

For me, $329.40 a year is a relatively small amount, and kind of the total that BF spends on gas and parking, so I just pay for it, and BF pays for gas and parking.

Works out relatively well since this is small peanuts quibbling if I were to ask for the money. He’d start keeping track of parking expenses and gas, and charge me half of that… it’d be too much to handle in the end.

We just split the major things: Rent, Utilities, Food.

But what happens when it is other items such as condoms?

Who pays for that? Man? Woman? Half?