Financial Ninny

I come from a people that didn’t take out loans. My parents and grandparents didn’t believe in being in debt. They were the kind of people who paid cash (or check, which is as good as cash in their mind) for everything, including cars and houses. They were of the mentality that you had no right buying something that you didn’t actually have the cold cash for.

Having been raised in that culture, I naturally inherited their way of thinking. It took me a long time before I finally relented and got myself a credit card. As you can expect, I’m incredibly anal about paying it off in full every month.

Long story short, one of my husband’s buddies had a posh destination wedding a few months ago. My husband was adamant about our entire family, plus my cousin (to help out with our kids), going to that beach resort town in the north. And then, since we were already there, we’d take the hour’s drive up to a nearby mountain resort town.

I was dubious. I didn’t think we could afford it. He, however, said a bunch of things that got me convinced (I can’t even remember what they were), and two months later, we received a credit card bill that was more than double what we usually pay for.

I was pissed. I couldn’t grumble too much though. I could have put my foot down and said, “No, dammit! Your stinking friend can pay for our accommodation if he really wants you to be there!” Obviously, I’m a pushover who can’t say “no”. That, and the kids and I did have fun during that undeserved holiday.

Now, I received a small windfall last year. We already used some of it for our youngest child’s birthday party, so I was reluctant to tap into it once again to pay that dang bill in full, but I would have had if that was the only choice we had. Fortunately, I’d invested the kids’ Christmas money in something which netted a pretty good profit, so like every no-good parent in history, I took advantage of their blissful ignorance and used their money to pay off that bill their worthless parents had run up.

I’d say I know no shame, but it’s really eating me up. Every time I think about it, I feel like going out to puncture tires. Preferably, my husband’s tires, but that would just mean more expenses for us.

That would have been the end of it, except that it happened again a couple of weeks ago. Another of his blasted friends had a destination wedding. I offered to stay behind with the kids again. He wouldn’t hear of it again. I caved yet again. My cousin came along again because far be it from him to be stressed over minding our own God-given kids. And we didn’t run up bills from our trip this time because we withdrew directly from the account that had my windfall.

And yet the credit card bill reflected more than our usual purchases again. And boom, there they are — the great deal he mentioned on fire safety equipment, GoPros, and motion sensor lamps. I’m talking quality fire extinguishers too.

I remember something I heard from a podcast on financial wisdom. The guest expert said never to trust a man when it came to finances. I’m beginning to think that maybe she wasn’t just bitter.