My Recent Money Fight – Who WON?

I’m going to preface this blog by saying that sharing this is outside my comfort zone. I want to start sharing more about my personal life rather than straight, sometimes let’s admit, boring facts on how to invest or how to save money on your groceries. All I ask is that you please give me grace as you read along.

One thing that Jayme and I are working on in our marriage is communication. I have the thought process of, “It’s not worth a fight or for him to feel bad for a week. I want our home to be a happy home.” So, I tend to brush things under the rug. Unfortunately, when I do that the problems fester and I start to become resentful. 

We decided to get chinese takeout since we both had been craving it for over a week and were excited about some noodles. After we finished our meals Jayme packed up the leftovers in the fridge. 

The next day, I was starving around mid afternoon and asked Jayme what he wanted for dinner while he was watching Top Gun. He said the leftovers. I told him there was about a serving and a half left of the Chinese food and that I would have a snack to hold me over. He could have the full portion and I would have the half portion because I wouldn’t be so hungry after my snack. He responded, “Sounds good.” and kept watching Tom Cruise and Goose.

Evening rolls around and he goes to heat up his dinner while I was on the couch watching Catfish on Hulu. He ate his dinner into the office because he was working on a project for work. 

30 minutes later he brought the dishes to the kitchen and he could tell something was off immediately. He asked if I was okay and, as always, I said “Yes!” with a smile. 

As soon as he walked back to the office, my eyes welled up with tears. 

Umm… what?! 

I started crying because he forgot to save me leftovers? 

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why you don’t let issues fester– because you will start crying at the most random and often inconvenient times. 

I cried off and on for the next hour and decided to go out to the back patio to sit in the hammock and do some “brain dumping”. I’ve heard from a lot of people that brain dumping helps to process your feelings so it’s something that I’ve started to do for the past couple of weeks. A brain dump is exactly what it sounds like—a chance to get everything out of your brain and onto paper. You not only create room in that pretty little head of yours, you process and organize exactly what you need to do going forward.  I do a combination of brain dumping and praying. 

Typically my brain dumps are 100% confidential and private but I decided to share this portion with you: 

“I’m struggling with Jayme’s eating out. I feel that for me growing up eating out was always seen as a treat and for Jayme it’s just a way of life. I feel like Jayme gets way more “treats” than I do. And it’s not that we can just have me eat out more because then we aren’t going to hit our goals as fast. I already feel like we are hitting our goals slower than we should be. I also feel like I can’t just tell Jayme to not eat out as much because then he feels deprived. I don’t have a solution or a compromise“

This was a huge “Aha!” moment for me. I never really have been able to express how much I struggle with us eating out. We have two totally different views on eating out. I feel that it’s a treat and he feels that it’s just a part of life and totally normal. It’s not special to him, while it’s more of an ‘event’ for me. 

I was seeing that second portion of the Chinese takeout as a treat that he had deprived me of. To top it all off, he gets these treats all the time. I hardly ever eat out. It’s simply not fair. 

The “simple solution” would be to have me eat out more so that I can get more “treats,” but that really isn’t a solution because then it’s going to upset me in an entirely different way with our budget. If we did that compromise, we aren’t going to hit our goals as fast as I feel that we should. 

The other “simple solution” would be to have Jayme cut back on his eating out. But then that also doesn’t work because then he feels deprived. So it’s a lose-lose situation. 

20 minutes later, after my massive brain dump, Jayme finds me outside in the hammock. It’s now very obvious that something is off. He sits down and asks me to let it all out. 

This is hard for me because I don’t want to come off as pathetic for crying over not getting any Chinese food, but it’s also obvious that there is a deeper meaning for what led me to cry.

With very careful wording, I let it all out and explained to him my dilemma. He had so much grace and understanding.

Man, I married a keeper!

We talked through it and his solution was for us to have one date night a week where we could eat out, so that we will have that time together and both get our “treats”. 

Every Saturday he goes for a drive to listen to a podcast and gets Chick Fil A on his way. This has been something that he has done for years, so we agreed that his “Podcast Chick Fil A” self date was fine as well. 

I personally feel like Jayme is the one majorly compromising in this situation, but he understands that we both have big goals and sometimes with big goals come big sacrifices!

Ways to save money:

Here at Freedom In A Budget, I am all about saving money! Here are some of the EASY ways that I save money:

• Fetch Rewards is a free grocery savings app that rewards you just for snapping pictures of your receipts. That’s really it. Free gift cards on groceries on thousands of products every day, no matter where you get your groceries. Just scan your receipts and get gift cards from places like Amazon, Starbucks, Target, Ulta, Applebees. Use code QHKBH to earn 2,000 points ($2)!

• Hulu: Discover and watch movies, shows, Hulu Originals, past seasons, current episodes, sports, live news, and more with Hulu. Stream TV shows your way. Try for FREE for 1 month!

• Rakuten/Ebates: Rakuten is my to go way to earn Cash Back from over 2,500 stores like Macy’s, Amazon, Sephora, Walmart and much more. Join Rakuten today for free, and you’ll get a $10 Cash Bonus to get you started! Every three months, you’ll get a Big Fat Check in the mail or a PayPal payment just for shopping. 

• CIT Bank offers high-yield savings accounts that provide a safe, secure way to grow your savings.

• M1 Finance is an easy to use brokerage platform that allows you to invest in Fractional Shares and auto reinvest!

• Webull Get 2 Free Stocks on WeBull when you deposit $100 (Valued up to $1400).

• Honey: Stop wasting money- Honey finds you the Internet’s best discount codes. 

• Budget Templates: Excel budget templates with pre-populated categories and formulas to keep you on track with hitting your financial goals.