I have a dilemma.I’ve been working like a dog to save money for the wedding.I have a big chunk of change saved up.Then when we pulled our credit reports and added everything up. (part of our marriage planning) We realized that we would be debt free if we used our wedding fund.Both of our parents will help out with wedding BUT if I wanted something that was out of the budget I would have my fund.Now I’m torn.Debt free Marriage, which is forever.Or exactly what I want on my day.I was thinking about whatever was left after the wedding would go to debt.But what a wedding gift to each other to be “free at last”.Oy!Any thoughts?
This is really a personal decision! but..... I'm all for debt-free. Honestly in five years - would you rather have the freedom being debt free provides - or be glad you spent that extra $500 on the caligraphy, or the flowers, or the favors, or your hair. etc. Will you even remember in 10 years what it was you just 'had to have' for your wedding? Will anyone else?
Really though. Life is all about choices. The choices you make will create the life you live. What is the most important to you?
I'd pay off the debt today. Then start a new savings fund for any wedding must haves. It may be smaller - but I'm sure it will still give you a little freedom. I'm not sure what your budget is like now - but skip a couple meals out and trips to Starbucks and I'm sure that savings fund will bounce right back :)
It's a great question to ask - and one many people face!
I know in my heart it's best to pay off the debt. We're down to bear bones as it is. We even got rid of cable. We both worked at UPS over the holidays to earn some extra cash. That's how we saved so much money. I called UPS my gym. We're on the Dave Ramsey Plan, which has helped greatly. I have 7 months to save. I can do it! Back to the gym I go.
As a newly wed, I say, go for Debt Free. When it comes down to buy a house down the road, you'll really love that you have a great credit score! Since you already have your parents paying for most of your wedding, I suggest keep your wedding simple and elegant, so you have a brighter future financially!
People are probably going to roll their eyes at me... but I say go both ways. Because it all depends on the type of debt. If it is all consumer credit card debt... PAY IT OFF. However, if these are federal student loans with locked interest rates (done only by consolidating, but NOT by just paying them), then I would say pay some, but keep a little big of those funds for "mad money"... Also, make sure you keep some of that money for an emergency fund (health care/insurance deductable, auto deductible, accidental pregnancy and then kids are in the picture- lol, etc) and about 1 mo of your earnings JUST IN CASE anything happens... layoffs, etc.
Even better, set aside 80% of what is saved and use that for debt. and take the other 20% to keep in savings (house, car, eventual kids, etc).
But don't use the mad money all for the wedding either. Set a budget with your parents. Discuss it at great length. Set that number. Then start budgeting- use the knot or brides.com to give you a start and before booking or buying ANYTHING, PUT ASIDE 10% of that budgeted amount (from your parents) for overages. Do not consider that amount part of the budget. This way... you'll come in under budget.
Being debt free is a great feeling, I can't wait until I get finished with grad school and pay off those loans, so I understand your dilemma. Discuss the options with your FH and see what he thinks.
If you want to keep the actual amounts your parents are contributing and what you have saved personal, that's totally understandable, but I think it's hard to give you good advice on your question without knowing what kind of amounts we're talking here. I mean, have your parents given you a big enough budget to actually have a complete wedding (if not as elaborate as you might want) or is it just a contribution towards a portion? If they're giving you $2000 then you maybe need to supplement that with some of your own money. But if they're giving you $15000, then you could do a wedding for that amount. It might be tight, but it's do-able, so I would use your own funds for your debts and I don't think you'll regret it.
It also depends on how much you have saved for the wedding, how much your debts are, and the rate at which you are able to save money. This depends on your income, your regular expenses, and your spending habits. If you want to use maybe $2000 of your own money so that you can have the dress of your dreams and you can pay that off within 2 or 3 months (or even 4 or 5 months), then I say go for it. I would not, however, spend so much of your own savings that you will remain saddled with debt for years to come, because that is what I think you will really regret. Use an amount for the wedding that you could save up and put back into your debt within a year and you're not being excessive.
My mother handed me a check with an agreed upon amount. Since it was about a year from the wedding, I put half of it into a CD and upon maturity was able to roll it over again.
The first go round provided me with an extra $125 from the interested earned. I know that $125 may not seem like a huge amount but it may help towards postage, or something else.
Maybe you could do that with part of your savings. But debt free is always good.
Having a debt loom over your heads starting out in a new marriage wouldn't be something that I would suggest. It's best to pay off everything such as credit cards with fluctuating rates. If you have a good fix rate installment for your student loan or car, that can probably wait, but definitely pay off the rest. Your wedding day is a very special day, but do you really want to spend the price tag of what you would pay for a car for one night only? It's really the marriage that will last a lifetime and yes paying off all that debt can really give your credit a big boost and help you towards purchasing a new home. good luck!
it really should depend on the characteristics of your debt. if you got a low-interest loan, then it might not make sense to just pay it off, if you have a higher yielding savings account. for example, if you got a special on your car for 2.9% interest over the life of the loan, but you earn 5% interest in your savings account, then it doesn't make sense to pay off the car since you would be making more in the long run. like melbride said, you could wait for school loans as well.
if you have something like credit card debt, you definitely want to pay it off because of the super high interest rate. at any rate, you want to make sure that you are aware of your partner's debt before you get married.
and there's also no reason why you can't just pay off a bit more of the debt instead of hte entire amount, and have most of your dream wedding, to compromise. the marriage is most important, but if you have your heart set on something on your wedding day, there's no reason you need to necessarily forego that either.
We’re getting married on Labor Day.Getting married in Southern California can be expensive, so we went with a Monday to give us leverage with our vendors.We’ve saved $8000 in year.His parents are giving us $4000 and my parents are giving us $15,000.Part of the issue is that the photographer I fell in love with is stretching the budget www.theimageisfound.com/wedding/Did I mention I am also in school?
My fiance and I are paying for our wedding mostly ourselves. Meaning less than $5000 from all our parents combined. We have been saving and scrimping like mad people. We live in washington state and are hiring a so cal photog. His price is our biggest expense, however we both decided from the beginning that photography was the most important thing to us because you get to keep it after the wedding.... And even though not a moment goes by where I don't stress out about money and the wedding I am still totally happy with my photog choice.
So ask yourself is it worth it to go out of budget to have the photog of your dreams? I did and I'll make it happen some how.
As for the debt. If it was me, I'd go halfsies. Pay off half and don't get anymore. Then make it a priority to pay off the rest after you get married. If you saved $8000 in a year, you can save $4000 in six months. It's win win.
Ultimatly, you should do what you and your fiance think will be best for you.
Tax Refunds and Annual Reviews are on the horizon.Maybe the Santa Bunny Fairy will be good to me this year.
Nejgne, I agree about knowing your partner’s debt.That’s why we pulled our credit reports before we sent STD’s
Andromeda, in a perfect world we could save $4000 in 6 months.But we were sprinting to save.I don’t think we could keep that pace going.I’m sweaty and starting to get a stitch in my side.
We should start a thread on ingenious ways to come up with $100 or even $50.That’s what kept me going.I would wake up at 2:30AM to go to UPS (before my full time job) and I had to tell myself “you just paid for your invitations”.“You just paid for Anna at the reception”, “I just worked off at least 1000 calories picking up that box.”
A little off the subject...If you want to get in shape for your wedding. Load trucks for UPS. I lost 10 pound in less than three weeks.
Debt free all the way! The wedding is one day, but if you have plans to buy a house, have a kid or even take a nice trip in the next few years, you will be MUCH better off with a clean financial slate.
I'm not sure how much you have saved, but if you wanted to set a LITTLE bit aside for one wedding "splurge", then go for it, but I'd put 95% of that cash toward eliminating the debt burden. Money is the NUMBER ONE thing married people fight aboout (then sex and children-lol) so wouldn't it be nice not to eliminate that topic?? And then you are more likely to feel like having sex, which can of course lead to the arrival of fight-topic # 3--- but hey, you'd be 66% less "fighty" than most couples!!
I've been married twice and had a HUGE (400pp) white-tie wedding for the first marriage and a teeny (16pp) wedding for the second and believe me, the phrase "it's only ONE DAY" is totally true. You can have a lovely meaningful wedding no matter what your budget it, but starting your life together under a cloud of debt is a really bad idea.
Invest in your MARRIAGE not the 6 hours you spend making it legal-- you won't be sorry!
I don't know the circumstances (i.e., how much your parents are paying, what kind of wedding you want), but as someone who has always been debt-free, I can tell you, it's the way to bee (pardon the pun, I had to!).
Both my DH and I were debt-free and had quite a bit saved away before we got married. This helped our marriage start out on the right financial foot. :) We have always been financially secure and that makes for great peace of mind and it also makes it easier to start planning for the future (house, children, retirement, etc.).
I know you want your wedding to be perfect, believe me, I did too. But just focus on making the day about the love that surrounds your wedding, not the "things." As "beanchar" said, invest in the rest of your life together, not the details that nobody will remember about your wedding day.
Currently our debt is about 10 grand so nothing ridiculous. For our wedding we're putting $1000 a month into a "wedding fund" to pay for the wedding (in addition to money from my parents). Sure, we could scale back our wedding a lot and use 10K from the fund to pay off our debt. But we're keeping our wedding as is and will keep putting $1000 a month aside after the wedding. So 10 months after we get married, we'll be debt free. For us, it's worth it.
On the other hand, if our debt was 100K instead of 10K, we would definitely use the money for debt instead of a wedding.
It sounds like your debt isn't too bad - unless it's all on high interest credit cards. You can transfer to lower interest cards to help a bit. I say pay off some of the debt, but use some to splurge on a few important to you wedding things too. As long as you both keep your focus on paying off the debt after the wedding - and possibly use some of the money you get from the wedding gifts to help with that, it's okay to start with a little debt. Yes, of course, debt- free is great, but so is almost debt-free, on the right track, and happy with your fabulous wedding.
i think i'd partially pay off the debt, particularly high-interest stuff like credit cards. if it took you a year to save $8000 using all your might, i'm going to guess you could probably save another $4000 with less effort in another year. so you can use half your savings now toward debt and the other half toward the wedding. then after saving more money after you get married, you could be debt free in another year. that's just a guess...if your entire debt is from credit cards, then i'd pay it all off now.
I have to say DEBT FREE! Debt/money issues WILL BE a very huge strain on a marriage. It's wonderful that your parents will help you out. If there is stuff you want out of budget, ask them if it's okay to "borrow" from them and pay them back with your wedding gift money.
Lots of great advice. Personally I would pay off the debt. When you think about it you can recoup some of the savings amount much more quickly if you are not paying on the dbt and you won't be paying interest. This way you will still be able to have some extra money for the wedding even if it's not as much as you had saved. If you has been saving $250 per month and paying $600 on your debt, now you can save $850 per month. If you had been saving for 12 months you can recoup that savings in 5 and you aren't paying interest! Plus, you can earn interest. Many banks have rates as high as 4.5% right now.
I guess I may be a bit more fortunate than others may be, as my career (IT / Web development) allows me to do work outside of my day job
I have taken on some side work that actually pays as well as my day job, sometimes better, so I am striving for both
My debt is a little more significant than my Fiance's as due to my career, my computers tend to be on the bleeding edge
We have 3 years till the wedding so i definately have time, but its going to be tough - who wants to work from 6:30am till 11pm 5 days a week ? ...
Because we're planning so far in advance, its making it difficult to decide where to put money - do I pay off the ring or put the money towords a school loan... down payment for the photographer or wait another year and put the money towards a credit card ?
Its definately a personal decision - debt does no one good (i work for a collections agency so i know) - but this is your wedding, and if you don't do it right, i'm sure you'll regret it.
I have a dilemma. I’ve been working like a dog to save money for the wedding. I have a big chunk of change saved up. Then when we pulled our credit reports and added everything up. (part of our marriage planning) We realized that we would be debt free if we used our wedding fund. Both of our parents will help out with wedding BUT if I wanted something that was out of the budget I would have my fund. Now I’m torn. Debt free Marriage, which is forever. Or exactly what I want on my day. I was thinking about whatever was left after the wedding would go to debt. But what a wedding gift to each other to be “free at last”. Oy! Any thoughts?
posted by MissRojoOso 9 months agoThis is really a personal decision! but..... I'm all for debt-free. Honestly in five years - would you rather have the freedom being debt free provides - or be glad you spent that extra $500 on the caligraphy, or the flowers, or the favors, or your hair. etc. Will you even remember in 10 years what it was you just 'had to have' for your wedding? Will anyone else?
Really though. Life is all about choices. The choices you make will create the life you live. What is the most important to you?
I'd pay off the debt today. Then start a new savings fund for any wedding must haves. It may be smaller - but I'm sure it will still give you a little freedom. I'm not sure what your budget is like now - but skip a couple meals out and trips to Starbucks and I'm sure that savings fund will bounce right back :)
It's a great question to ask - and one many people face!
posted by jilian 9 months agoI know in my heart it's best to pay off the debt. We're down to bear bones as it is. We even got rid of cable. We both worked at UPS over the holidays to earn some extra cash. That's how we saved so much money. I called UPS my gym. We're on the Dave Ramsey Plan, which has helped greatly. I have 7 months to save. I can do it! Back to the gym I go.
posted by MissRojoOso 9 months agoAs a newly wed, I say, go for Debt Free. When it comes down to buy a house down the road, you'll really love that you have a great credit score! Since you already have your parents paying for most of your wedding, I suggest keep your wedding simple and elegant, so you have a brighter future financially!
posted by chill 9 months agoPeople are probably going to roll their eyes at me... but I say go both ways. Because it all depends on the type of debt.
If it is all consumer credit card debt... PAY IT OFF. However, if these are federal student loans with locked interest rates (done only by consolidating, but NOT by just paying them), then I would say pay some, but keep a little big of those funds for "mad money"... Also, make sure you keep some of that money for an emergency fund (health care/insurance deductable, auto deductible, accidental pregnancy and then kids are in the picture- lol, etc) and about 1 mo of your earnings JUST IN CASE anything happens... layoffs, etc.
Even better, set aside 80% of what is saved and use that for debt. and take the other 20% to keep in savings (house, car, eventual kids, etc).
But don't use the mad money all for the wedding either.
Set a budget with your parents. Discuss it at great length. Set that number.
Then start budgeting- use the knot or brides.com to give you a start and before booking or buying ANYTHING, PUT ASIDE 10% of that budgeted amount (from your parents) for overages. Do not consider that amount part of the budget. This way... you'll come in under budget.
Being debt free is a great feeling, I can't wait until I get finished with grad school and pay off those loans, so I understand your dilemma. Discuss the options with your FH and see what he thinks.
posted by babagrlshell 9 months agoIf you want to keep the actual amounts your parents are contributing and what you have saved personal, that's totally understandable, but I think it's hard to give you good advice on your question without knowing what kind of amounts we're talking here. I mean, have your parents given you a big enough budget to actually have a complete wedding (if not as elaborate as you might want) or is it just a contribution towards a portion? If they're giving you $2000 then you maybe need to supplement that with some of your own money. But if they're giving you $15000, then you could do a wedding for that amount. It might be tight, but it's do-able, so I would use your own funds for your debts and I don't think you'll regret it.
It also depends on how much you have saved for the wedding, how much your debts are, and the rate at which you are able to save money. This depends on your income, your regular expenses, and your spending habits. If you want to use maybe $2000 of your own money so that you can have the dress of your dreams and you can pay that off within 2 or 3 months (or even 4 or 5 months), then I say go for it. I would not, however, spend so much of your own savings that you will remain saddled with debt for years to come, because that is what I think you will really regret. Use an amount for the wedding that you could save up and put back into your debt within a year and you're not being excessive.
posted by smartl 9 months agoMissRojoOso
When is your wedding?
My mother handed me a check with an agreed upon amount. Since it was about a year from the wedding, I put half of it into a CD and upon maturity was able to roll it over again.
The first go round provided me with an extra $125 from the interested earned. I know that $125 may not seem like a huge amount but it may help towards postage, or something else.
Maybe you could do that with part of your savings. But debt free is always good.
J
posted by JanainCO 9 months agoHaving a debt loom over your heads starting out in a new marriage wouldn't be something that I would suggest. It's best to pay off everything such as credit cards with fluctuating rates. If you have a good fix rate installment for your student loan or car, that can probably wait, but definitely pay off the rest. Your wedding day is a very special day, but do you really want to spend the price tag of what you would pay for a car for one night only? It's really the marriage that will last a lifetime and yes paying off all that debt can really give your credit a big boost and help you towards purchasing a new home. good luck!
posted by melbride 9 months agoit really should depend on the characteristics of your debt. if you got a low-interest loan, then it might not make sense to just pay it off, if you have a higher yielding savings account. for example, if you got a special on your car for 2.9% interest over the life of the loan, but you earn 5% interest in your savings account, then it doesn't make sense to pay off the car since you would be making more in the long run. like melbride said, you could wait for school loans as well.
if you have something like credit card debt, you definitely want to pay it off because of the super high interest rate. at any rate, you want to make sure that you are aware of your partner's debt before you get married.
and there's also no reason why you can't just pay off a bit more of the debt instead of hte entire amount, and have most of your dream wedding, to compromise. the marriage is most important, but if you have your heart set on something on your wedding day, there's no reason you need to necessarily forego that either.
posted by nejgne 9 months agoWe’re getting married on Labor Day. Getting married in Southern California can be expensive, so we went with a Monday to give us leverage with our vendors. We’ve saved $8000 in year. His parents are giving us $4000 and my parents are giving us $15,000. Part of the issue is that the photographer I fell in love with is stretching the budget www.theimageisfound.com/wedding/ Did I mention I am also in school?
posted by MissRojoOso 9 months agoMy fiance and I are paying for our wedding mostly ourselves. Meaning less than $5000 from all our parents combined. We have been saving and scrimping like mad people. We live in washington state and are hiring a so cal photog. His price is our biggest expense, however we both decided from the beginning that photography was the most important thing to us because you get to keep it after the wedding.... And even though not a moment goes by where I don't stress out about money and the wedding I am still totally happy with my photog choice.
So ask yourself is it worth it to go out of budget to have the photog of your dreams? I did and I'll make it happen some how.
As for the debt. If it was me, I'd go halfsies. Pay off half and don't get anymore. Then make it a priority to pay off the rest after you get married. If you saved $8000 in a year, you can save $4000 in six months. It's win win.
Ultimatly, you should do what you and your fiance think will be best for you.
posted by andromeda 9 months agoTax Refunds and Annual Reviews are on the horizon. Maybe the Santa Bunny Fairy will be good to me this year.
Nejgne, I agree about knowing your partner’s debt. That’s why we pulled our credit reports before we sent STD’s
Andromeda, in a perfect world we could save $4000 in 6 months. But we were sprinting to save. I don’t think we could keep that pace going. I’m sweaty and starting to get a stitch in my side.
We should start a thread on ingenious ways to come up with $100 or even $50. That’s what kept me going. I would wake up at 2:30AM to go to UPS (before my full time job) and I had to tell myself “you just paid for your invitations”. “You just paid for Anna at the reception”, “I just worked off at least 1000 calories picking up that box.”
A little off the subject...If you want to get in shape for your wedding. Load trucks for UPS. I lost 10 pound in less than three weeks.
posted by MissRojoOso 9 months agoDebt free all the way! The wedding is one day, but if you have plans to buy a house, have a kid or even take a nice trip in the next few years, you will be MUCH better off with a clean financial slate.
I'm not sure how much you have saved, but if you wanted to set a LITTLE bit aside for one wedding "splurge", then go for it, but I'd put 95% of that cash toward eliminating the debt burden. Money is the NUMBER ONE thing married people fight aboout (then sex and children-lol) so wouldn't it be nice not to eliminate that topic?? And then you are more likely to feel like having sex, which can of course lead to the arrival of fight-topic # 3--- but hey, you'd be 66% less "fighty" than most couples!!
I've been married twice and had a HUGE (400pp) white-tie wedding for the first marriage and a teeny (16pp) wedding for the second and believe me, the phrase "it's only ONE DAY" is totally true. You can have a lovely meaningful wedding no matter what your budget it, but starting your life together under a cloud of debt is a really bad idea.
Invest in your MARRIAGE not the 6 hours you spend making it legal-- you won't be sorry!
posted by beanchar 9 months agoI don't know the circumstances (i.e., how much your parents are paying, what kind of wedding you want), but as someone who has always been debt-free, I can tell you, it's the way to bee (pardon the pun, I had to!).
Both my DH and I were debt-free and had quite a bit saved away before we got married. This helped our marriage start out on the right financial foot. :) We have always been financially secure and that makes for great peace of mind and it also makes it easier to start planning for the future (house, children, retirement, etc.).
I know you want your wedding to be perfect, believe me, I did too. But just focus on making the day about the love that surrounds your wedding, not the "things." As "beanchar" said, invest in the rest of your life together, not the details that nobody will remember about your wedding day.
Good luck!!
posted by CSinTX 9 months agoCurrently our debt is about 10 grand so nothing ridiculous. For our wedding we're putting $1000 a month into a "wedding fund" to pay for the wedding (in addition to money from my parents). Sure, we could scale back our wedding a lot and use 10K from the fund to pay off our debt. But we're keeping our wedding as is and will keep putting $1000 a month aside after the wedding. So 10 months after we get married, we'll be debt free. For us, it's worth it.
On the other hand, if our debt was 100K instead of 10K, we would definitely use the money for debt instead of a wedding.
posted by AmandaRyan 9 months agoIt sounds like your debt isn't too bad - unless it's all on high interest credit cards. You can transfer to lower interest cards to help a bit. I say pay off some of the debt, but use some to splurge on a few important to you wedding things too. As long as you both keep your focus on paying off the debt after the wedding - and possibly use some of the money you get from the wedding gifts to help with that, it's okay to start with a little debt. Yes, of course, debt- free is great, but so is almost debt-free, on the right track, and happy with your fabulous wedding.
posted by EK 9 months agoi think i'd partially pay off the debt, particularly high-interest stuff like credit cards. if it took you a year to save $8000 using all your might, i'm going to guess you could probably save another $4000 with less effort in another year. so you can use half your savings now toward debt and the other half toward the wedding. then after saving more money after you get married, you could be debt free in another year. that's just a guess...if your entire debt is from credit cards, then i'd pay it all off now.
posted by franola 9 months agoI have to say DEBT FREE! Debt/money issues WILL BE a very huge strain on a marriage. It's wonderful that your parents will help you out. If there is stuff you want out of budget, ask them if it's okay to "borrow" from them and pay them back with your wedding gift money.
posted by snowpea 9 months agoLots of great advice. Personally I would pay off the debt. When you think about it you can recoup some of the savings amount much more quickly if you are not paying on the dbt and you won't be paying interest. This way you will still be able to have some extra money for the wedding even if it's not as much as you had saved. If you has been saving $250 per month and paying $600 on your debt, now you can save $850 per month. If you had been saving for 12 months you can recoup that savings in 5 and you aren't paying interest! Plus, you can earn interest. Many banks have rates as high as 4.5% right now.
posted by tberry 9 months agoI am strugling with this myself
I guess I may be a bit more fortunate than others may be, as my career (IT / Web development) allows me to do work outside of my day job
I have taken on some side work that actually pays as well as my day job, sometimes better, so I am striving for both
My debt is a little more significant than my Fiance's as due to my career, my computers tend to be on the bleeding edge
We have 3 years till the wedding so i definately have time, but its going to be tough - who wants to work from 6:30am till 11pm 5 days a week ? ...
Because we're planning so far in advance, its making it difficult to decide where to put money - do I pay off the ring or put the money towords a school loan... down payment for the photographer or wait another year and put the money towards a credit card ?
Its definately a personal decision - debt does no one good (i work for a collections agency so i know) - but this is your wedding, and if you don't do it right, i'm sure you'll regret it.
posted by groomzilla 9 months ago