Member- phatkat811
- 11 years ago
- Wedding: June 2010
Holy crap. We’re just over 10 months out and we’re doing a family-only destination wedding. I thought that by keeping it simple, we could keep it affordable. Then I did our budget. SO not true! Even though we’re going to a restaurant for dinner instead of having a reception and not sending out invites (etiquette breach, but we’ve already notified all the guests via email so why bother?), everything else still adds up.
We both have decent enough jobs for people in their late 20’s, but we’re saving to buy a house; I’ve only been out of school for a year so I’m still paying off the credit card I survived on while in school. (I have $3200 on it. I want to get it paid off THIS YEAR (a) before the wedding and (b) before my low-interest balance transfer deal runs out in December.) I make enough money to pay the bills, put a few hundred a month toward the credit card (usually), put some into savings and a little leftover for fun if I’m lucky. Then we throw this silly wedding into that mix.
We’re trying not to spend as much money on extras in order to save, but after two weekends of sitting at home watching DVR and netflix, I’m ready to lose my mind. I am NOT a sitter or a homebody, even though Fiance is lucky enough to be one. But then I look at how my paycheck is pretty much gone by the next payday and then think about affording everything going into this wedding and…arrgh!!!
Plus, I’m very budget-conscious. Most of my clothes are from the Old Navy clearance rack. I have cocktail dresses that were less than $10. I buy store brand food. I look at our $12,000 budget (including honeymoon) and I can’t imagine spending that much. I look at how much our planner is charging (it’s pretty much a necessity as we’re having a destination wedding and just can’t do all the logistics) and I wonder if we really need to be doing this.
OK, actually, our honeymoon was $5000. We DO save for a vacation every year; this is a little more than we usually spend on one but it’s a special occasion so I’ve made peace with that. We’re trying to get our budget down to $10k total – so $5k for everything else – but that’s looking improbable.
I know part of it is my neurosis about money, but I’m partially afraid of being sucked into buying all kinds of stuff that we don’t need and regretting it later when we’re stuck in an apartment way longer than we want to be. But then, we don’t really NEED any of this so it’s hard to justify what’s necessary in the budget beyond a marriage license and a minister.
Honestly….I really hate spending money. So does Fiance. I used to live on $800 a month and I guess I’m still not past those days.
I know there have gotta be others here that are in our age group and income bracket. How do you deal with the finances???
