Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Financially Fragile. What do those words mean to you?

A few months ago TeamEOD writer Dr. Cabler wrote a post addressing the subject of being financially fragile. He gave the example that the majority of Americans would have to sell some of their possessions if they had to come up with $2000 within 30 days. I identified with the post because that described me for a very long time.

Something happened this week that made me think of this post again.

Major layoffs occurred within the company I work for. As the week progressed, the names of those affected spread. These layoffs hit very close to home as several people on my team were affected, as were many more within my immediate organization.

The close proximity of the layoffs has left me shaken.

I couldn’t help but wonder what the effect would have been had I been selected. Those laid off are given a substantial severance package which would keep my family afloat for a few months while I searched for a new job. While there are no guarantees, I’m fairly confident that I wouldn’t be out of work for long as there are several technology companies in my area that are hiring.

I felt a little better until I remembered that about 18 months ago I took out a loan from my 401K to consolidate a handful of smaller accounts. If my employment was terminated for any reason, I would have to pay back that loan immediately. I could default on the loan, but there are penalties associated with that, and the outstanding balance would then need to be counted as income on my next tax return.

Both of those options would put an impossible strain on our finances.

To make matters even worse, I can’t pursue other opportunities without having the same issue with the repayment of the 401K loan. Not that I feel like I want to take that route at this moment in time, but even if I did my hands are currently tied.

I suddenly feel very fragile financially.

Our goal is clear, we have to pay off that 401K loan as soon as possible. In the meantime, the only other thing I can do is to rededicate myself to my job (which I do enjoy immensely). I must do so to make myself as valuable to the company as possible as to reduce the risk of being selected if another round of layoffs should occur in the future.

How are YOU financially fragile?  What are you doing about it?

Happy Friday, EOD Nation!

A strange thing happened to me during the week.  Before the last payment to our debt management program, we had 11 months left.  So naturally I thought after the funds from May’s payment were distributed to our creditors there would be 10 months remaining.  To my surprise the program tracker now says there are  NINE months remaining.   If that’s accurate, that means our DMP would be complete in February of next year!!!

If that doesn’t get you fist pumping, I know what will, check out my favorite posts of the week:

Posts That Make Me Fist Pump

•  How To Talk to Your Kids About Family Debt  from The Heavy Purse
• Happily Squished: Learning to Live in 270 Sq. Ft. from Budget Blonde at Budgets Are Sexy
• Let’s (Please Never Ever) Do Lunch! from Our Freaking Budget
• 4 Warning Signs That A Person Will Never Get Out Of Debt from Bible Money Matters
• How come my back hurts? from Live Real Now
• Remembering the Embarrassment in the CareOne Community
• I’m Debt Free*!   from Frugal Portland
• Duke Grad Student Secretly Lived In a Van to Escape Loan Debt from Yahoo Finance

Shameless Self Promotion

• Can You Picture Your Spending? is my post in the CareOne Community
• Booomer’s Rock Radio Show Interview at Cosozo (My interview starts at the 19:40 mark)

Kick Ass Giveaways

• Who Wants to Win an iPad Mini? from Money Crush
• Secret Safe Full of Cash & Jewelry from Take Our Stuff

Is it better to buy or rent” when it comes to finding a place to live?  If you read my last post “Buying a Home, Is It a Good Investment?’ , you discovered that buying a house is not always a good investment if you’re looking for investment-like return for building wealth.

There are some cases where you can make a decent return over 30 years, but in many cases, the increase in value of the house doesn’t come anywhere near keeping up with the ongoing expenses such as maintenance, mortgage interest, insurance, and property taxes, which can actually result in a negative return on your investment in a home.

The old mantra says that buying a house is a good investment, and that renting is just throwing money down the drain.  So when it comes to the question of whether to buy or rent,  what’s the best route?

Buy or Rent, What To Do?

The absolute best way to find out whether buying or renting is better is to take a look at the numbers.  First, let’s look at the numbers  I presented in my last post.

We discovered that if you bought a $200,000 house with a 30 year mortgage at a historically average 6% rate, and spent $125/month in property taxes, $125/month on maintenance,  and $45/month for insurance, at the end of 30 years you’ve spent $519,876.

However, at a rate of appreciation of 3% over 30 years time, your home would only be worth $491,368.  The result is that over a 30 year time frame, you lost $28,508, or about $950 per year on your investment.

That doesn’t sound like such a good investment.

What About Renting Instead of Buying?

Now let’s take a look at some of the numbers when it comes to renting a house instead of buying.  Let’s start with some good news.  When you’re renting you don’t pay property taxes, you don’t have any maintenance costs, you don’t pay any mortgage interest, and renter’s insurance is pennies on the dollar compared to homeowner’s insurance.

Renting sounds like a pretty good deal so far!

To run the numbers when it comes to renting, we will need to make some assumptions.

Let’s assume that right now you pay $500/month for rent, which is a low estimate for many areas.  Of course, over time, rent increases.  So we’ll assume that at the end of 30 years you will be paying $1,500/month in rent.  Over that 30 year time period, the result is that you’ve paid an average of $1,000/month in rent during that time.

So over a 30 year time period (360 months) you have spent a total of $360,000 in rent ($1,000 x 360 months).  Factor in renter’s insurance at $15/month for 360 months and you get $5,400.

That comes to $365,400 spent on rent and insurance over those 30 years.  Not too shabby!  That’s $154,476 LESS than you would have spent if you had bought a house and had a mortgage.

Those numbers show that you save a lot of money!

Nice.

That means that over 30 years you would have spent $429/month less than if you had bought a house.

That’s definitely food for thought.

Now let’s evaluate what you have at the end of 30 years.

If you were a renter for 30 years, yes, you spent over $154,000 less over that time, but you really have nothing to show for it other than 30 years of someone else’s roof over your head.

You still have a rent payment to meet every month and the rent still continues to go up over time.

If you continue renting into your later years, in 25 years you will end up spending another $450,000 on rent ($1,500 x 300 months) at a point in your life when income is usually pretty limited. That number also assumes the rent never goes up over that 25 years, so that $450k figure is actually very low.

However, when you own a home instead of renting, at the end of 30 years you have no more house payment to pay and you have a physical property worth $491,368 that still continues to appreciate over time.  You’ll still have expenses to pay such as property taxes, maintenance, and insurance, but they are much less than rent and are actually offset by the appreciation of the value of the house.

Your Future is at Stake

I’m not going to bore you with anymore numbers, but I believe it’s pretty obvious that owning a home instead of renting is much better in the long run because you’re building equity as long as you own the home.  You set yourself up for a financial future that can be a lot easier to deal with in your later years because you own an asset that’s still appreciating, instead of paying rent payments that will only continue to rise.

If you ever reach a time in your life when you can no longer maintain your home or live by yourself, you have a physical asset that you can sell that can help to provide for you in those later years when lower income and high health care expenses tend take a toll on your finances.

Renters don’t have this option.

It’s obvious that the housing market has been pretty bad over the last few years, and a few uninformed people might try to convince you rent a home and never buy because owning a home is too “risky”.

But when it comes down to it, long term homeownership is far less risky than renting will ever be.

Additional Reading:

“I Bought a House!” series (Read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 , and part 5)

12 Wise Steps to Buying a Home (Part 1)

12 Wise Steps to Buying a Home (Part 2)

Serious about getting out of debt? Read these!

In my role as Social Media Manager, I wind up conversing with all kinds of people looking for information about debt. Some of these folks have already enrolled in CareOne debt relief plans; some are just looking for resources to do it on their own.

I like to send a variety of resources to people to help them find their way with personal finance.  Although we have a ton of proprietary resources available through CareOne, I have found that the personal finance blogging community provides a constant stream of new content that can make the whole debt thing feel less intimidating.  I believe that most of us respond more favorably to change when we can see other people who are similar to ‘us,’ making it happen.

It is very important for me to state that I have a deep and profound respect for all of my personal finance friends.  We are all fighting the good fight one blog post at a time.  It is not an easy thing to put your entire life out there for public scrutiny and trolls, #RESPECT.

The posts that I have selected offer financial life lessons or just fundamental tips that I believe are essential if you are serious about getting your finances under control.

I could actually make this a list of 100 quite easily, but this is a blog and they are not supposed to be that long.  I will likely milk this and create a reoccurring theme too (wink).

Number 1.

The Envelop Method by @HoboNora

Nora Dunn is a regular contributor to www.WiseBread.com, and CareOne. Nora is best known for her travel blog, The Professional Hobo.   This blog details a very simple yet extremely effective method to organize your bills and budget and I wind up sending this link out a few times a month to prospects and customers looking for a simple way to get started with a budget.

Number 2

56 Things to do Instead of Spending Money by @AndThenWeSaved

Anna from www.andthenwesaved.com is just hilarious and always finds a unique way to serve up solid financial and money management ideas. This particular blog is just plain fun and actually offers some cool ideas for those who think they will tank their social life by giving up their credit cards. It’s another I share frequently with our customers.

Number 3

Socializing on a Budget by @DebtChronicles

Clearly Travis Pizel is near and dear to my heart since he is a CareOne customer and blogs for CareOne. So you know I will have at least one of his posts on this list.  This particular post addresses the reality of people, who just want to have a life, but worry that tackling their debt will end their fun.  Travis offers a great way to have fun, socialize and rock out some amazing food, while not blowing the budget.

Number 4

The entire side hustle series from @BudgetsAreSexy

Jay Monee is kind of a founding father for personal finance bloggers.  No big surprise that he would make budgets and finding new ways to make money, kind of hot.  Not that I am crushing on Jay or anything…but come on, he did make budgets sexy.  Anyway, Jay devoted an entire section of his blog, www.budgetsaresexy.com  to innovative and just freaking awesome ways to make extra cash.  What’s not to love here?

Number 5

Kids, Were in Debt from @EnemyofDebt via Tori Pizel

Yes, that adorable yet quite astute young author is the prodigy of one Travis Pizel, but this is not about nepotism folks. Tori earned her spot on my list fair and square.  If you can read this blog and NOT be struck by her maturity and the depth of emotion…you are made of wood.  I also feel that through Tori, we learn just how very important it is to include our children in the financial conversation as a family.  This is the foundation for their financial future.  Getting out of debt is fundamentally a family affair.  I doubt Tori will ever be late on a bill let alone fall into the trap of debt.

So this concludes my personal finance ‘fandom‘ for the day.  I hope that you guys approve like my selections and that you take some time to read them.

If you have a blog that you think I should add to my repertoire, by all means leave it in the comments section below!

Have a fantastic Wednesday!

Image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I wasn’t happy as I walked into Applebees to purchase a $50 gift card. A well liked member of the staff at the elementary school where Vonnie worked was leaving and her coworkers had come up with the idea to have everyone pitch in and get a gift card as a going away present. Vonnie volunteered to get the gift card even though some people weren’t going to give her their share of the funds until the next day.

Past experience told me that we were going to get the shaft because someone wouldn’t pay up.

The bartender handed me my debit card as well as a green gift card with an apple on it. After I signed the sales slip I was surprised to have her hand me another card and said, “You get bonus $10 gift card with your purchase. Have a great day.”

Cool!

The goal here is fairly obvious. Applebees wants me keep the $10 gift card for myself. The bonus card creates a good probability that I’m going to bring my family into the restaurant and certainly spend much more than the $10.

But then I thought to myself, if I really liked Applebees, what’s stopping me from purchasing a $50 gift card, getting the $10 bonus card, and keeping them both? I could come in at a later time and have $60 to spend, when I only paid $50.

Seems like a pretty good deal.

I wondered how many other restaurants have a similar deal I could take advantage of. My curiosity prompted me to call some popular restaurants in my area to find out if they had a similar bonus gift card deal.

• Applebees : Buy a $50 gift card and get a $10 bonus card.
• Outback : Buy a $50 gift card and get a $10 bonus card. (Just ended,coming again soon)
• Red Lobster : None right now, but they do commonly have a similar deal around Christmas
• Buffalo Wild Wings : Buy a $30 gift card and get a $5 bonus card.

None of these are earth shattering deals, but it’s easy free money that can be used towards an infrequent dinner out.

A word of caution, however, as there may be some special restrictions. For example, my Applebees bonus card explicitly says that it cannot be used on the same date it was purchased. If you do get your hands on a bonus card read the fine print carefully.

OK, EOD Nation, I have two questions for you:

1. Do you think it’s ethical to purchase a gift card for your own use just to get a bonus card?
2. Have you ever received a bonus gift card from a business? If so, help your fellow readers out by telling us about it!

Public transit is an economical option.

One of the keys to avoiding debt is to know how it overtakes us. Without a doubt, debt has many helpers in the form of large and recurring expenses. I’d like to share with you a few pages from my own playbook when it comes to handling large and recurring expenses. Specifically, I’m interested in speaking to the issue of motor vehicles. It’s a good topic to address because transportation is typically 15% of the household budget of Americans…often more than what we spend on food. Cars tend to be a large expense, and even without a monthly payment, they’re a recurring expense. And, as we’re all aware, the price of insurance, fuel, tires and maintenance continues to climb.

There is nothing quite like examples from our own experience to help with understanding, so here are three from my past.

Starting Out Without a Car

This might sound a bit odd, but after I graduated college, I bought a one-way ticket to California, packed up several bags, and flew to my new home with no immediate intention of owning an automobile. For the first year in my new home, I walked to work or took public transportation. I can remember hiking home from the grocery store with a heavy pack on my back. Friends of mine used to give me a lift every now and then, or I’d ride my bicycle.

I’m certain that I was the only person in the office who didn’t own a car. Every now and then someone at work would learn that I didn’t have a car and their mouth would drop open. I’m sure many wondered “How can anyone get along without a car?” Well, I did, at least for the first year. Even when my office moved and I moved from an apartment to a place of my own, I was able to take public transit, walk or ride a bicycle to wherever I needed to go.

As you can imagine, I had considerable savings with no car payments, and no money going out for fuel, insurance, maintenance and repair. Of course, as a guy just out of college my income was rather limited too, so I had plenty of incentive to save money where I could.

Is this something that others can do? I think so, especially for people who live in urban areas where bus transportation, light rail, commuter trains, subways and cabs are available. It’s anyone’s guess as to how much money can be saved, but it’s certainly a practice that can preserve your earnings, and that’s a great way to go about avoiding an unnecessary financial burden that can contribute to debt.

The California Beater

The big LTD was my first California car.

About a year after my move to California, I learned of a vehicle that my boss was going to trade in, so I asked him if he’d consider selling it to me. He hesitated, but agreed to sell me his used car for whatever the dealership was going to give him for it. It was a 1974 LTD and I purchased it for less than $900.

This represented a good buy in many ways. First, he had taken good care of it. Second, the low price allowed me to be much less concerned about others costs of operating the vehicle.

The only drawback to that 4,300 pound car was the fuel economy. It had a big V-8 engine, so it sucked gas rather eagerly. I was able to keep that expense to a minimum because I didn’t drive much at all. I only kept liability insurance on the vehicle, and because of its age, the cost of registration was perhaps $40 a year. I had it for nearly 17 years, and I don’t think I put more than 50,000 miles on it.

Like I said, I didn’t drive much at all.

Along Comes Peer Pressure

When I changed jobs, one of my supervisors was regularly bugging me to get rid of that 1974 land yacht and get a new sexy sports car. I was making more money by that time and I assume the idea was that I should be spending more too. Well, that’s okay for some, but not for me. I pointed out to my supervisor that my car is popular when a group goes out to lunch (it held six passengers), and all day at work or at the airport or after I get home from work the car simply sits outside where whatever sex appeal it might offer does nobody any good at all. After hearing that, I think the sexy new sports car my supervisor drove started to sound like a poor investment all the way around…to both of us. To top it off, I didn’t really care much if someone dinged my LTD, banged it, ran into it, or otherwise damaged the beast. It was nearly bulletproof.

Here’s a quick story that’s completely true. A guy slammed into my LTD from behind while on the freeway and his car was totaled. He looked at my car in astonishment and said, “There’s no damage.” I replied, “You can’t hurt this thing.” I shook his hand and told him “It was nice running into you” and continued on my way.

Can people be satisfied with driving a “beater” to work? Can they put up with peer pressure about how they really should be driving something that has a much higher cost of ownership? Some people can, but many people just can’t.

Wheels of Today and Tomorrow

The little red scoot has been great, at least for the first 200,000 miles.

My current vehicle is a 2001 Saturn, and it’s the first vehicle I ever purchased new from a dealership showroom (with no recurring car payments of course). When I made the purchase I thought long and hard about what kind of vehicle to buy, and one of my biggest interests was fuel economy. I faced the plain truth then as I do today, we’re never going to see the cost of fuel go down appreciably and stay there, it’s always going to climb higher. At 38 miles per gallon, I think I bought one of the most fuel efficient vehicles on the market at the time.

I also made a commitment to myself that I’d run it about 250,000 miles before I went looking for another new vehicle. Well, I’m at 203,000 miles now, and I just don’t see me getting rid of it anytime soon. In fact, I’ve pushed back the replacement schedule to at least 300,000 miles. As they say, I’m “running the wheels off of it” although that’s really not the case at all. Instead, I’ve recently made strategic replacements of parts that are designed to keep me from running the wheels off of it. So far I’ve replaced struts, hubs and the front-wheel drive axles, and I have a fuel pump, water pump and fuel injectors sitting in the garage just waiting for me to install them. Eventually, the engine may need to be rebuilt, but for now it’s running great.

Could others pay cash for a new car so they have no monthly payment? I think so. Could others care for their vehicles such that they get good service for hundreds of thousands of miles? I think that’s entirely possible too. And, all of those kinds of actions can help in avoiding debt when it comes to our vehicles.

Avoiding Transportation Induced Debt

I don’t want to suggest that paying for transportation is a sure way to get into debt, but minimizing your overall cost of transportation is certainly one way to stop feeding the cash monster that’s eager to consume your money. Based on my experience, there are at least three ways to go about avoiding the contribution to debt that might be associated with our need for personal transportation:

1. Use alternative transportation for getting around.
2. Buy a good used car and wring the life out of it.
3. Buy a new car and take good care of it to lower your overall cost of ownership.

There are certainly more ways to reduce the expenses associated with personal transportation, but these three stick in my mind as good first options to consider. Now, might there be other areas where we could whittle down our expenses? How about housing, food, utilities? I think this all hinges on what we’re willing to endure, all in the name of avoiding debt.

photo credit

Yesterday was the last day of school for the kids, so summer vacation is officially underway.    I think I’m just as excited as they are as I get three months of not having to go through the morning routine of pulling kids out of bed, making sack lunches, and making sure they get to the bus stop on time.  We all get to sleep in a little longer, and our daily pace can slow down just a little bit.  I’m looking forward to some lazy afternoons by the pool at our health club, and evenings sitting on the deck with friends.

Maybe I’ll also get just a little bit more time to read blog posts too.  Here are my favorites from the last week:

Posts That Make Me Fist Pump

• Why Some Decisions Don’t Make Financial Sense from Boomer and Echo
• How Sexy Does Debt Make You? from Lbee and the Money Tree
• Teach Your Children This One Skill to Help Them Financially for the Rest of Their Lives from My Personal Finance Journey
• How Much Do You Save Eating Leftovers? from ImpulseSave
• The Road to Misery is Paved With Good Intentions from We Only Do This Once
• June Challenge: Use That Sh&T Up from Daily Money Shot

Shameless Self Promotion

• Financial Advice for Newlyweds is my post this week in the CareOne Community

Blog Carnivals

• Carnival of Money Pros at Master The Art Of Saving
  
• Finance Carnival for Young Adults at The Happy Home Owner
• Carnival of Financial Planning from Budgeting In The Fun Stuff

Image courtesy of FrameAngel / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

“Are you making yourself old again?” I heard Tori’s friend say to her from behind me as we headed off to dance class.

I had never heard the phrase before, but I immediately understood what she meant. She was referring to the scrunched look on Tori’s face which was a result of the unusually rough time that just occurred at home as I had to continuously poke and prod her to get dinner eaten, dressed, and out the door on time for class.

The wrinkles on her face made her look old.

But even more than just making her look old the wrinkles weren’t serving any purpose. They were simply a showing of emotion reflecting her feelings of a situation that was over. They weren’t helping her resolve anything, nor were they helping her accomplish anything productive.

It reminded me of the times I would lay in bed staring at the ceiling worrying about how I was going to juggle things around to make sure we would have enough funds to make it to the next payday. Did losing sleep and making my stomach turn by worrying make anything better? What did it help me accomplish?

Not a damn thing.

Worrying didn’t improve my finances. It didn’t help me improve my communication with my wife, nor did it help us change our spending habits to live within our means. It certainly didn’t make a budget and spending plan magically appear out of thin air.

I had to take action to make those things happen.

I once heard a motivational speech in which the speaker stated that in almost all cases we know exactly what we need to do to be successful. We fail simply because we do not execute. That was the exact situation that I was in. I didn’t take action until I was forced to, but once I did life immediately began to improve. Now, gone are those sleepless nights and those stomach turns. They have been replaced with financial discussions and teamwork with my wife.

Let me ask you a few questions:

• Are you struggling with debt, or some other challenge in life?
• Is it eating at you, worrying you constantly, and causing you to lose sleep?
• Are you scrunching your face, unnecessarily making you old?
• Is it doing you any good?

Exactly like my daughter’s scrunched up face, worrying is simply an emotional reflection of the situation.  It’s not helping you move along the path to making things better.  When I was young, and I would make that grumpy, scrunched up face my mom would tell me that if I kept making that face it would stay that way. If you are stressed out, struggling, worrying and you don’t take any action, your life is going to stay that way.

Chances are you already know exactly what you need to do, you’re just not doing it.

Why not?

Our spending the last two weekends have been all about celebrations.  Two weekends ago our son got confirmed, so we hosted a celebration with family and friends at our home.  Last weekend we hosted our 17th annual Memorial Weekend party.   In June the focus will shift towards purchasing some things for the family.  Vonnie and I made a list of things that we need and/or want.

• First up, this weekend both Vonnie and Tristan will be getting some much needed new tennis shoes.
• The entire family is due for eye exams.  Vonnie will get new glasses and Tristan a fresh supply of contacts.  Most of this will be covered by insurance, thankfully.
• New bikes for both the kids as they’ve outgrown the ones they have.

The best part is that we can fit these things within our discretionary spending during the month of June as long as we pay attention to our spending and remember that May’s spending was largely on “fun” so June’s spending is concentrated on these needed items.

Check out my favorite links of the week, then leave a comment telling everyone what YOUR spending goals are for June.  Have a great weekend!

Posts That Make Me Fist Pump

• Save Money: Get Rid of Cable! from Get Your Life Straight
• How I Paid Off $30,000 of Debt in Two Years from Blonde On a Budget
• How to Save Money When Hosting a Barbecue from My Personal Finance Journey
• What Would You Have Done? My Coupon Code Confession from Three Thrifty Guys
• Excuses Are Just Going to Hurt You from Plunged In Debt
• Mortgage Rates Jumping From My Money Counselor
• This Simple Budget Tweak Helped Me Save Thousands from Money Life And More
• Why Owning Up to Ourselves is the Most Important Step from Man Vs. Debt

Shameless Self Promotion

• Retirement Planning While on a DMP? Yes You Can! is this week’s post in the CareOne Community

Kick Ass Giveaways

• Coupon Chief Site Review Plus $50 Old Navy Giveaway! from Frugal Portland
• City Skyline Prints from Take Our Stuff

The view from the lovely wine shop

My Husband and I will be celebrating our 10 year anniversary this Friday.   To celebrate we went away this past weekend and stayed in downtown Baltimore.

Clearly we had two goals with going away

1. Go far, far away from our darling children

2. Spend quality uninterrupted time together

Originally we had big plans lined up to celebrate this particular anniversary; we had a trip to South Carolina or NYC planned and budgeted accordingly.   After several discussions my husband and I agreed to not spend too much money and play it closer to home.

We settled on our two night get away and I promptly started planning.

Our first night was a huge success, we saw a comedian we really liked and hung out at a cool beer garden.   It was a winning formula for the two of us, seeing a show and having a few cocktails.

But this was our 10 year anniversary and I was dead set on the two of us having the weekend of a lifetime.

My vision for this weekend included dining at as many cool restaurants as possible.  Good food is kind of a hobby of mine…as in I like to eat great food as much as possible.  A few weeks before our weekend away I was able to score reservations to one restaurant that was getting great buzz and I could not be more excited.  This was for our second night.

Here is where things fell apart.

My husband does not share my hobby or interest in good food or restaurants.   He would be just fine if we rolled up to a diner for our big dinner date night, as a fancy restaurant.  In fact I think he would prefer it.

I had already dragged him to a specific place for breakfast and then another specific place for lunch.

I did not take my husband’s preference into consideration when making plans and as a result, felt let down as his lack of interest and enthusiasm grew with each new place.   He felt we were spending way too much money on not quite enough food.

I was hurt that he could not push himself to try and enjoy the experience more and offended and that he thought the food was “Meh.”  (Insert dagger to my heart!)  This of course made me resentful of having spent the money since he did not appreciate it.

Needless to say, we wound up canceling our big dinner plans as he was officially ‘done’ by our 3 pm cocktail at yet another specialty restaurant.

I could have saved us the trouble and the money

My husband is not a stranger; I have known this man for over 13 years.   His lack of excitement over great restaurants is not a new thing.   He is an amazing man and does many sweet and thoughtful things for me on a routine basis.  I did not need to force a restaurant gauntlet on the guy just to prove he loves me.

The reality is, I should have dialed down my expectations and made one cool reservation at one hot spot versus four.

Had I remembered who I was married to, I could have saved us both a lot of money and probably had an even better time.   But that is not to say that we had a bad weekend; despite my restaurant expectations, we had a lovely time and succeeded with both of our goals.

I was also able to learn a valuable lesson.  In ten more years we are going to stay home and send the kids away!