The Art of Not Being Governed

[Fish]

We continue to have our joint account where his salary is deposited and from which household bills and child care expenses are paid. He also uses it for all his personal expenses and household expenses, with which I may or may not agree (usually, a new perfect something instead of an old functional something). I have my own account, from which I pay my personal expenses and expect some day to have money to invest.

For the longest time I thought that you negotiated a very favorable deal... but now I see that you have simply decided to contribute your income only to areas where you are allowed influence and control over spending decisions. He wants full control over spending for the household and himself, but because you are not involved in making these decisions, he pays for all of it. Your rule is that decision-making authority and responsibility for cost are intertwined. Is that a correct assessment? What did it take for your husband to agree to this arrangement?

There is a logic to it, but I imagine I would ruffle some feathers if I pulled my direct deposit out of the joint account. I commend you for having the guts to pull off such a tactic... and I guess it even worked to your advantage since the gambit was declined? (What I mean by that is you are off the hook for your share of common and childcare expenses... this allows you full control over your entire income, though at the family level there's still a lot of unchecked monetary waste due to your husband's lifestyle decisions.)

I'm following your story with interest and it's giving me some ideas. Thanks and please keep up the journaling Clarice!

[Clarice]

@Fish:
Thank you for reading my journal. A separate thank you for your feedback. The fact that my journey resonates with someone else makes it more meaningful for me. I feel that your assessment of my situation is somewhat inflated. The reality is way less flattering. I stumbled upon the concept of FIRE while having a bunch of pre-existing conditions including (but not limited to) the following:
1. At the time I was almost a stay-at-home mom - my per diem job income was next-to -nothing. In our household I was contributing time and labor and DH - money.
2. I was (and still am) the only child of very old and sick parents who live 10 times zones away from me.
3. I lived (and still do) in the thick of Silicon Valley.
4. DD was (still is) at a Catholic school. I (not DH) put her there. He had his doubts.
5. DD was (still is) at a ballet school. I (not DH) put her there. He had his doubts. I didn't mean for her to have such an expensive hobby. I was a dutiful mom exposing my child to various activities. I took her to a soccer practice. Her instinct was to run AWAY from the ball. I took her to a swimming class.
Me: So, honey, did you like it there in the pool?
DD: No.
Me: Why?
DD: It was wet.
I took her to a ballet class. For me, it was immediately apparent that in that bunch of random 5-year-old girls she was the best, kind of by far. For her, it was the love at first sight. Fast-forward 7 years to today. She is not the best anymore. She is too short for professional ballet. Her arch, while good, is not ABT-level good. But she still loves it. And I (not DH) let her take it as far as she wants to. So, when I voice my objections to a new couch, a new dining set, a new garage door, and a $1000 wedding gift for DH's nephew he points out that this is a background noise compared to a Catholic School+Ballet school. Mathematically speaking, he is correct.
So my separate expense account is my very humble exercise in tracking my personal expenses. A separate score card helps me do it. The process went like this:
1. Increase my per diem hours.
2. Get a separate bank account.
3. Inform HR of a new bank account.
4. Provide DH with all the info regarding the new account: #, pin #, password, etc.
Nowhere in this process someone asked DH, "Do you agree?" and gave him the opportunity to say, "I don't". Did it "ruffle some feathers"? You bet!
As a rambling side note... during our marriage ceremony many, MANY years ago a guy who performed it screwed up his speech. You know, how they ask you the question, you say, "I do." and they marry you? Our guy worded the question in a way that the correct answer to it was, "I don't" (Do you have anything that precludes you from taking this...). We both chuckled and said, "I don't". With that, he married us. Was that a foreshadow of things to come?
There is another rambling side note... As a native Russian speaker, I keep being mesmerized by English oxymorons: clearly misunderstood, act naturally, exact estimate, found missing, small crowd, fully empty, pretty ugly, seriously funny, only choice, original copies, and the mother of them all ... HAPPILY MARRIED.
If you disagree go ahead, chime in - make me jealous...

[Jason]

You and Suomalainen should get together, rob some convenience stores, have sex with a young cowboy/girl and then hold hands and drive off a cliff together.

[Clarice]

My May earning were meager, which prompted me to make a leap and take on a part-time job. Starting Monday, July 2, I will be a staff speech-language pathologist. It won't be 40 hours, but it will be very different from being per diem and working once in a while when someone else is sick or on vacation. Now it's gonna be a Monday though Friday thing. Real accumulation phase - here I come. I've already worked this way for 7 days - God help me! I came to a skilled nursing facility as a per diem speech therapist. It turned out that they were looking for someone permanent. It was in or out. I took the job.
For now, I am taking a break and mostly on DH's dime embarking on very un-ERE activity - flying to East Coast, leaving DD in a sleep-away camp, and going on a road trip with DH with a stop for my cousin's wedding. My plane takes off in a few hours. I am apprehensive and exited.

Here my May numbers

Autonomous Net Worth: $3,780
Total Pay Checks: $350.04
Total Expenses: $829.60 spent in the following manner:

Girl's Stuff - $145
Cloth at Target for the trip - $145

Education and Entertainment - 218.92
Girls Night Out - $76.92
Amazon Membership - 14.16
Book (Financial Reporting and Statement Analysis) - $5.84
Psychologist - $100
2 Opera Tickets - $22 ( got a $100 gift certificate, had to add to buy 2 tickets for DD and myself).

Transportation - 465.68
Gas - $201.60
Car Service (oil change, transmission fluid exchange, tire rotation) - 264.08

I've been doing this financial autonomy thing for 5 months now. Your questions and comments made me realize that this whole thing feels... somewhat teenagery... like a 14-year-old being really smart with her allowance... Starting in July, I am going to pay for groceries that I buy and take upon myself extracurricular activities of DD. I've made my choices and for now I am locked into a certain lifestyle that I can undo only at a huge cost to myself and others (and I don't mean money). I am not going to blow up my entire ecosystem. I am going to pay for my choices. I am going to pack now. My house looks like a bomb went off - covered in my summer dresses, swimsuits, and sandals. Thanks for reading and for your comments.

[Jason]

I'm not sure I fully understand what's going on here but I will be look out for the You Tube video titled "Amped up, unhappily married woman causes plane brawl after calling flight crew cheap corporate bitches when request for extra bag of peanuts is denied."

[Peanut]

Congratulations on the new job! That’s fantastic. I hope the adjustment is smooth. I hope to find pt work in a few years. It’s great you’re in a field with possibilities for that.

I’m still confused and curious about what prompted you to ‘strike out on your own,’ if you will. You were not fully happy with the family savings rate? You are worried about your daughter and the future?

Have a great trip!

[Clarice]

I'm not sure I fully understand what's going on here but I will be look out for the You Tube video titled "Amped up, unhappily married woman causes plane brawl after calling flight crew cheap corporate bitches when request for extra bag of peanuts is denied."

@Jason:
Ha-ha! I wish I could be that entertaining... but no such luck!

My very un-ERE trip was interesting. I went through Deep South for the first time - got really scared of an alligator 30 feet from our kayak, ate grits, and saw a Confederate flag in real life. The trip included flying from San Francisco to Charlotte, NC, renting a car, driving to Winston-Salem and leaving DD at a math camp there. After that DH and I completed the following loop: Winston-Salem, NC -> Durham, NC -> Wilmington, NC -> Charleston, SC -> Savannah, GA -> St. Augustine, FL -> St. George, FL -> New Orleans, LA -> Dallas TX (attended my cousin's wedding) -> Memphis, TN ->Nashville, TN -> Waynesville, NC -> Winston-Salem (to pick up DD) ->Charlotte, NC. Then 3 of us flew back home.

Here is my June accounting:
Pay Checks: $2,504.66
GOGET expenses: 1,298 (added categories of Groceries for the 3 of us and Other Family Obligations)
Autonomous NW: $5,040.84

GROCERIES - $108.10 (regular groceries and a few meals during our trip)
OTHER FAMILY OBLIGATIONS - $1000 (cousin's wedding gift)
GIRL'S STUFF - $115.36 (mostly grooming for the wedding)
EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT - $32.87 (cell phone charger and Amazon membership)
TRANSPORTATION - $41.96 (gas at home)
Everything else was courtesy of DH.

I have to go to work. Happy 4th of July to everybody!

[7Wannabe5]

My budget is similarly "teen-agery", and I am not even married Which is why I am once again wondering about the entire notion of financial autonomy. What is the point of pointing your metrics towards a single bed lifestyle, if that is unlikely to ever be your ideal? (I mean the universal "your" here.)

[Jason]

I went through Deep South for the first time - got really scared of an alligator 30 feet from our kayak, ate grits, and saw a Confederate flag in real life. The trip included flying from San Francisco to Charlotte, NC, renting a car, driving to Winston-Salem and leaving DD at a math camp there. After that DH and I completed the following loop: Winston-Salem, NC -> Durham, NC -> Wilmington, NC -> Charleston, SC -> Savannah, GA -> St. Augustine, FL -> St. George, FL -> New Orleans, LA -> Dallas TX (attended my cousin's wedding) -> Memphis, TN ->Nashville, TN -> Waynesville, NC -> Winston-Salem (to pick up DD) ->Charlotte, NC. Then 3 of us flew back home.

Discounting a few anachronisms, this sounds like a voice over reading of a Union soldier's postcard to his mother in a Ken Burns documentary.

[Clarice]

My budget is similarly "teen-agery", and I am not even married Which is why I am once again wondering about the entire notion of financial autonomy. What is the point of pointing your metrics towards a single bed lifestyle, if that is unlikely to ever be your ideal? (I mean the universal "your" here.)

@7wb5:

You are absolutely right. I've came to the same conclusion and am moving away from "single bed" metrics. It is false for me. I can blow up my ecosystem only at a huge cost to myself, DD, and DH. I am not gonna do that, therefore, I am locked for the foreseeable future in a suburban mom lifestyle. That's my preexisting condition. I am going to own it. I've taken a new job - with much more hours. Now I am paying for the groceries for the 3 of us. My goal is $250 a month. I can leverage that with my decent cooking skills. I am also paying for DD's activities. I am in a partnership. I am the only member of this partnership pursuing late retirement extreme. For the first 6 months, my situation was lacking internal consistency. By making more money and shouldering my fair share of the partnership I've fixed it. I can not change DH. He is not perusing anything, just going with the flow. As I'm writing this I am in peace with it.
Unlike mine, your situation has always had internal consistency. Your children are adults. You don's owe to anyone "until death do us part". If some guy wants to buy you dinner or enjoys your company while letting you stay rent-free why not? For you it's not teen-agery. You are for real free from the obligations that I have. Teenagers are notorious for insisting on their rights while ignoring the reality of their responsibilities. I am ashamed to admit, but that's exactly what I've done for the last 6 months. Now, if I could I would name my journal, "How My Marriage Will Affect My Late Retirement Extreme?"

[SavingWithBabies]

Well the silver lining is you can rename your journal. Just go to the first post, edit it and change the subject.

[suomalainen]

@clarice thanks for sharing. I find it fascinating to see emotions and experiences similar to mine play out from a different perspective. It somehow helps to broaden my own perspective. Hard to explain. Anyway, I hope the peaceful feeling persists.

[Earlybath]

What is the point of pointing your metrics towards a single bed lifestyle, if that is unlikely to ever be your ideal?

(Quietly) Plan for the worst, hope for the best ?

[7Wannabe5]

@Earlybath:

I typed the word "ideal", but "lot in life" might have been more apt. I couldn't even maintain the boundaries on my garden space/project. I always partner up. I don't want to hijack Clarice's journal, so I won't go on endlessly, but I think this is a tendency that should be taken into consideration, just like the tendency to create value. Clarice has an extant partnership contract with her husband which resulted in her only cash flow categories being mostly personal items. I have an innate tendency towards entering into partnership contracts which resulted in my cash flow categories being mostly personal items. It seems "teenagery" to be spending money mostly on personal items, because that is what you do with your babysitting money when you are 13.

[Clarice]

I have a money question. I am posting it here because it's too low-level for the general money discussion. I hope for some kind soul to type "yes" or "no".
Clarice is 102 years old. She thinks that she just might match Jeanne Louise Calment's record and live until 122. Clarice lives on $20K a year. She needs 400K and her SWR is 5%. Is that roughly correct? I want to make sure that I understand the concept of SWR correctly.

[ThisDinosaur]

Yes.

$400,000 * 0.05 = $20,000

But if you are only looking to live twenty more years (from 102 to 122), you can try to spend it all down to zero.
Look here:
viewtopic.php?p=28301#p28301
If you only need to live twenty years, and your return rate is 5%, then you only need thirteen (13) years of assets. Or 260K.

$20,000 * 13 = $260,000.

[chicago81]

Maybe you just need to put those feminine wiles to use. Like set up a date night where you cook him a home made meal made from scratch, show yourself off in a dress you made by hand, prop him up be letting him beat you in a game of chess, and then when you are relaxing in your newly decluttered living room, coyly whisper in his ear "You know what really turns me on, baby? A man who re-soles his twenty year old work boots."

[Clarice]

Maybe you just need to put those feminine wiles to use. Like set up a date night where you cook him a home made meal made from scratch, show yourself off in a dress you made by hand, prop him up be letting him beat you in a game of chess, and then when you are relaxing in your newly decluttered living room, coyly whisper in his ear "You know what really turns me on, baby? A man who re-soles his twenty year old work boots."

@chicago81:
Thank you for reminding me that quote from infinitely quotable Jason. When he wrote it I laughed too. Today I have a short story to tell. The shoe laces on DH's Keens got torn. I KNOW in my heart that 1 year ago he would treat his Keens as indivisible, determine them non-functional, and throw in the garbage. A couple of weeks ago, when it happened, he started tinkering with the shoe laces, somehow fixed them, and proudly announced that he saved $10 on Keen shoe laces. I was pleasantly surprised.

[Clarice]

So... I've started working since July 2nd. It's not quite a full time job, but it's a real Monday through Friday thing. I am responsible for my area of expertise - very different from keeping a seat warm while a responsible party is on vacation. This new real job is better than I remember my old one to be - better boss, better caseload. DH has also started a new job 2 weeks after me and now responds only to conversation starters with the phrase "optical transponders" in them. I've started a new hobby - biking, and compensated with money for the total lack of any skills in this area. Another new thing this month is paying with my hard-earned money for groceries and DD's expenses. My expenses do not feel teenager-y anymore. For the 6 months before July I was pinching pennies with my own expenses while buying groceries and paying for DD with the money linked to OUR account financed by DH's salary and our rental income. Not anymore. It's been a sobering experience. I've been living a double life (NO-O-O-O, not like in The Americans ): pinching pennies for myself while giving my conventional, extroverted, and ambitious 13-year-old quite a mainstream Silicon Valley upbringing. Here is my July:

Total Pay Checks: $4,136.55
Total Expenses: $6,342.45
Autonomous NW: $2,706.32

The details are as following:

GROCERIES - $405.32

OTHER FAMILY OBLIGATIONS - $4,111.78

DD's daily pass to an amusement park - $47.99
DD's birthday gift - $100
DD's birthday party (food and decor) - $168.66
DD's math tutor - $350
DD's ballet school tuition through December - $3.372.50

GIRL'S STUFF - $28

Dry Cleaners - $28 (messed up my 2 fancy silk dresses at the June wedding);

EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT - $1,647.03

Work-related expenses - $39.48 ( an alarm clock, a therapy tool, and a pack of new socks);
Book on Amazon - $7.97
Amazon Prime Membership - $14.99
Bike - $999.91
Hitch - $205.74
Hitch Installation - $100
Rack - $278.94

TRANSPORTATION - $150.31

Gas - $150.31

I am looking forward to August with optimism: No one among my relatives is getting married, all tuitions are paid, even DD's math tutor has gone to Ukraine to visit her mother. I'm hopeful.

[Clarice]

August 2018

MARRIAGE
Not easy. We've always gone though periods of extreme alienation, leading parallel lives. We slip there because of this disagreement or that, and then it's weeks or months. Cold. Ice cold. I am always the one who has to make the peace. DH is not a peacemaker. He is not a maker in general. He is a reliable, disciplined follower. Every time, in order to end this ice age I have to fake it until I make it. It doesn't come from love. It comes from grit. But love follows. Right now I do feel love. It took a lot of grit to get here. That was my August.

WORK
It's been 2 months of this Monday through Friday thing. It has taken away my freedom and my time for introverted intuition to roam free, and taxed my extroverted thinking a lot. It's given me money (duh...), some social capital, exposure to a lot of Millennials, and opportunities for people watching among other things. It feels very different to be in the trenches as compared to observing from afar this "insert tube - collect rent" healthcare racket.

MONEY
Keep tinkering with categories, which I spend "my" money on. Charging groceries on "my" credit card did not work. DH realized that if he wanted certain things he had to go and buy them himself. DD also learned quickly who to turn to if she wanted something ridiculously expensive at a grocery store. All I accomplished was making myself a less effective shopper and obscuring from DH the grand total of our family's grocery budget. No more. "No responsibility without authority." Who am I stealing it from, @7wb5 or @suo? I am sticking with most of DD's expenses. I owe them. They are my creation, not DH's. So, here are my August numbers:

Total Paychecks: $7,263.96
Total Expenses: $2,161.31
Autonomous Savings: $8,013.83

Groceries and Supplies: $408.10

DD: $1098.23

Ballet - $921.22
Math Tutor - $70
Entertainment - $97.01
Back-to School - $10

Girl's Stuff: $83.99 (mostly clothing)

Education and Entertainment: $262.35

Bike gloves - $18.24
Eating out with DD - $51.82
Amazon Membership - $14.16
Online access to Beachbodyondemend.com - $10
A set of tools for work - $54.77
2 Theater tickets (DD and me) - $105
Book - $8.06

Transportation - $308.94

Uber - $51.10
Gas - $194.15
Car things at O'Reilly Auto Parts - $63.69