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Financial Trauma

October 19, 2022 One of the assignments our Project Money coach gave us, was an article to read called, The article was essentially about recognizing and working to heal the different financial traumas you have.  If you are like me, you might be thinking, what the heck is financial trauma, and do I even have any?! After reading the article, I believe we all have some sort of financial trauma and while you might be thinking all financial trauma is bad, I think there may be some good in it.                 While we didn’t use the term financial trauma, when Alisa and I started getting ‘serious’, our past relationships were brought up, and how we not only used to be the provider in them, but also still carried some debt from them. From the trauma we encountered, when beginning to talk about buying a house together, we decided we wanted to continue keeping our own personal accounts for our personal debts (student loans, credit cards, cars, etc.…), but would open a joint account for only house related items (mortgage, utilities, food, insurance). When joining Project Money, we talked with our coach about why we have separate accounts and why it makes sense for us. Both Alisa and I believe that having individual financial autonomy is not a bad thing and have faced that trauma by not only talking about it but also have moved past the feeling of each of us always feeling like we need to “pay each other back” when one of us buys the other coffee, lunch, drink, etc.…                An additional trauma I, Krystal, have is around monthly energy (heat and electric, specifically) bills. This trauma comes from when I was working for an energy assistance program for about 8 years and saw some really high monthly bills come across my desk. Not everyone’s was high, of course, but those very high ones, coupled with the fact that those applying were in the “low income” category and many recently lost a job, had me fearful as you just never know if you could find yourself in a similar situation one day. For most of the years I worked there, I was a renter and always had heat included in my rent, but when I bought my first house, the energy education and conservation tips I provided to my clients, I started using myself. However, because those high bills traumatized me, I was (and still am) far more conservative with my heat and energy usage, so much so that my budget bill for a 3-bedroom, 1,200 sq. foot home was around $65/month; the lowest amount most of the customer service workers had ever seen for my house size.                Fast forward to now, I am still very conservative with energy use, but it’s nearly a decade later, so costs have gone up and we are nowhere near $65/month. We have been on the budget plan since we bought the house three years ago and in those past three years, our budget bill has gone up about $55ish/month. That amount may not seem like a lot over three years, but we thought that since we installed a smart thermostat, replaced some drafty windows, and replaced old appliances with new ones, it would have gone down. However, since we now work from home and energy costs have risen, $55/month really isn’t all that bad. While my being aware and very mindful of my energy usage due to being scared of a high bill is clearly a trauma, I don’t view this as bad. I know where my reasoning and daily (energy) habits come from, which has helped guide conservations with Alisa; not only around the why, but also when sharing some energy-saving tips to keep the bills low for our household and budget.
Come back next week to learn some specific tips and tricks to save energy for your household! You might also be interested in Whew and wow! This has been quite a challenging and eye-opening process! It has been very hard to do this project as part of a couple when both of us appear... During the week of November 23, we wrote about how we were going to look into options for cost-saving measures. One of those measures was to analyze any... This past weekend, we took our annual trip down to Chicago, which was also paired with a trip to the theater. With being in Project Money, have been more... Something that stands out lately are the number of outlets competing for one’s time, attention, and especially our hard earned money. I don’t know about... If it wasn't so cold out right now, we might not believe that the end of the year is fast approaching, but alas – it is! With that, we have been starting... Initially, we weren’t sure exactly what to write about for this week’s blog post. However, the subject came to us this past weekend as we were reviewing... Many of us enjoy hosting parties with friends and family for seasonal activities and Holidays but don’t want to break the bank doing so! For me and Krystal... I don't know about you, but I, Krystal, grew up in a pretty cold house during winter. We lived in a rural-ish area where natural gas did not run, thus... One thing we’re still working through is being a bit more proactive about unexpected house costs. Sure, we have small savings account for house expenses...
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