hopefully the last of it

I hope that this is the last post I make about my frustrations with money, but I'm not making any promises. And for that matter, it just isn't likely. :)

When I met my wonderful husband, he had a nice little cushion of money. He'd been living at home most all of his 20 years (wow, I can't believe I knew him before he was legal, ha!). He never spent a penny, not because he was a tightwad, but because he didn't have to. He liked his parents and they took good care of him financially. Additionally, his grandmother's generosity had helped. Enter Cassie. Cassie had been struggling financially since she was 17 and moved out of her parents home. She felt the need to maintain her independence and dig herself into debt, just to "make it" on her own. I didn't do EVERYTHING wrong. I was never late on my rent or my utilities, and I bought both of my cars by paying cash for them (and stayed up to date on my insurance). I just never quite grasped that just because someone offered me a credit card, didn't mean I had to take it. Or use it for that matter. Anyway, I walked into our marriage with about $8000 in debt and I quickly brought him down to my level. When we wanted to get married and didn't have the money for a wedding, we did everything ourselves and put it on the credit card. When he didn't have enough money for his fancy private college, he got student loans. When we didn't have enough money to pay for a new car that I desperately needed, we put a pathetic $500 down and got yet another loan.

Yesterday I was doing the budget for February and it hurt to see the numbers. We DO NOT live an outrageous lifestyle, to say the least. And I have definitely learned a lot about the hows and whys of money. It just makes me so mad at myself for not being smarter earlier. We are not struggling, not even but, we aren't paying off our debts as quickly as I would like. And it is very frustrating to feel as though I'm responsible for getting us into this mess. On the bright side, the budget for has a spot for something like ten different debts (it's the Financial Peace University form) and we only have two now. I love doing the budget, but I just hate money...