Climbing Out One Family’s Adventure in Becoming Debt-free

“Hello?”

“Hey, man, my life just got a lot easier!”

“Oh yeah, what’s up?”

“My wife just got the first of three inheritance checks for fifty thousand dollars!”

“Oh no…”

My first reaction really was dismay when a dear friend called me with this news last week. I know his and his wife’s relationship with money and Stuff and I feared this could be the end of their marriage.

He assured me it was going to be great and we hung up as I offered my congratulations on their new found wealth.

Isn’t it funny when you learn a big life-lesson (like how to make money behave) how you desperately want to save everyone else from the mistakes you made? The instinct is so strong I want to shake people sometimes. That night my stomach was in knots as I agonized about whether or not to offer my opinion on how the inheritance could be a blessing to their lives and marriage instead of a nightmare.

Was our friendship strong enough for that? Was it my place to say anything at all? Or perhaps, as a friend who knew their typical motus operandi, was I obligated to offer a sane perspective?

The Wife let me ramble for a while and she agreed a very gentle email would be acceptable, but to be ready to shut up if it was unwelcome.

“Unsolicited Money Advice” was the subject line I wrote to the very short email. “I do not want to over-step our friendship, but I want to just love you guys and see the inheritance be something great for you that changes your lives for the better. I recommend listening to this whole call. Can’t wait to hear what you do.”

No response.

Ugh. I hoped the friendship was okay…

Then, two days later, the phone rings. They had a huge fight. “Biggest one we’ve ever had!” Reeeally?

Note my not-surprise.

He told me the details a bit, “She said it was her money and she was going to do whatever she wanted with it. I said, ‘Oh yeah? What have you been living off of for the last ten years then?!’”

Yikes. Seeing things as yours and mine instead of “ours” never worked well for us either.

“But we worked through it and we’re committed to being smart with this money. So — what should we do?”

Oh God. Wait. I wasn’t asking for this kind of responsibility! Well, I guess I was. I got my open door.

Then he listened. Really listened while I talked about never borrowing money again, living with a written budget, paying off all their consumer debts including the 401k loan (“Really? Why? I’m just paying back myself.” — sigh), putting aside six months of expenses for emergencies, funding Roths for each of them, giving some away, blowing five thousand on a vacation, and putting the rest toward their mortgage.

He had a bunch of questions like losing the “benefit” of writing the mortgage interest off on his taxes (I did the math for him and showed him why that was dumb) and we talked for quite a while. In the end what came out of his voice was gratitude. I was so thankful to be able to share what we are learning and help a friend — seeing as that has not gone so well in the past.

It is a big thing to suddenly come into money and it is so easy to feel like one deserves to blow it on Stuff. Taking the longer view is not nearly as fun, but they are doing it.

Guess I was afraid for no reason. I think this really will change their lives forever. Thankfully it didn’t change our friendship.

the Dad