Money

I ran into a piece the other day where an author stated that women are more careful about their money because traditionally women have had less money than men and had to make their money stretch further.

I get it.

The way I look at money leads me to believe that I may be a woman.

I spent a fair amount of my time this morning balancing the family checkbook, making sure that what we have coming in is more than what we will have going out. For the record, I was successful. To the point, we have the resources to pay the bills for the rest of the month with money to spare.

It wasn’t always like that for me or for my current spouse.

When I met my current spouse, she was in the last stages of paying off bankruptcy with her former husband. Their second bankruptcy together. She made good money, but her ex found ways to spend every last cent that he could get his hands on. My ex had a similar problem. She would go overseas on business, charge up a storm and then ignore American Express when it came time to pay. She whined about my ruining her credit rating while I was pinching pennies to make sure our children had what they needed to live.

My current spouse and I were emotionally drained by our previous spouses and were determined that we wouldn’t fall into that virtual money pit.

And it has worked.

Not to say that we didn’t have moments where we wondered if we would be able to make it to the next paycheck… but we’ve made it work.

There’s something about making less money than other people we know. I can find it intimidating when someone makes a show of their ability to have lots of money. Not everyone makes me feel as being less than I am because of my modest means. A couple of my friends in particular are quite well off (thank you), but neither of them goes out of their way to rub it in my face.

At the same time, I can think of a few people who make a show of what they have. One person, call him Bob, loved to brag that he had $100 gasoline bills when gasoline was available at seventy cents a gallon! He always found and had the “best” of everything and wasn’t afraid to show it. Another fellow took me on a tour of his “Ranch” and openly bragged that he loved having people over and showing them what he had. I recently had a conversation with a woman living in Washington D.C. who decided that she wanted to meet me face-to-face and decided that she would fly to DFW the next day – demanding that I pick her up despite any previous commitments I may have had. Besides, I can’t afford to have a wife and a girlfriend.

I like to think that I’m like most people – making do with what I’ve got. There are certain victories I have on the way… heck, just last month I got a royalty payment of a whole two dollars when someone bought one of my books on Amazon. There are defeats, too, like an unexpected charge to remove and reinstall the solar panels on my house when a wind storm made replacing my roof a necessity, but we have managed to weather that storm… and have the means to weather other storms.

Anyhoo, the statement made in the first paragraph rings true. Women generally are better money managers. Gender does not necessarily predict how well people manage the means at their disposal, however. Some men can be good money managers. Some women can spend like drunken sailors on shore leave.

I’m just happy to be where I am – and hope to be at for some time to come.

Be Seeing You!