Financial Planning in the Form of We

I don’t have a money market account or an IRA. I won’t pretend to even know what any of them are when brought up in conversations. My eyes just glaze over and I start to daydream about what outfit I’m going to wear the next day. It’s true.

When it comes to money, this is what I know: I have a checking account, a savings account and one credit card. The checking account is my go to. The savings account has enough in it to last me two months, on my lifestyle, if I should be fired tomorrow. The credit card is only used for big time purchases – mostly anything over $300. I always use my debit card and rarely have cash on me.

Recently, I went on a budget to save for a few major things that are coming up: any new decorations or furniture for the new place and all the expenses for my friend’s California wedding in August. Putting myself on a budget is a huge task. It mostly consist of not buying any new articles of clothing until September; not purchasing any magazines off the newsstand and curbing my restaurant habits. Most of my entertainment costs are provided by Cowboy, so I didn’t have to scrunch it there. And I paid all my bills ahead of time as to only owe as little as possible when it comes time to cut them off while moving. I generally save about $200 a month.

That’s it. Golightly’s finances. Very simple, no? I think its good for a single gal like me. Apparently, I will need to be doing more.

Last night Cowboy straight up broke down his finances and his bank accounts since I will be the one in charge of all of it when he is in Iraq. Basically, I will be taking his money for his half of the rent; paying his credit card balances and transferring funds. Simple, enough. Then he started talking about when he comes back what we are going to do with our money then. We and our? He thinks we should start a money market account for the both us. I immediately came up with my outfit for today: black pants and an ethnic patterned shirt with a red beaded necklace and black patent pumps. I’m not joking when after the outfit was planned, I kinda fell asleep. Then he said something that woke me the F up, “we should also start a college fund.” What? For whom? I’m not going back to school that’s for sure...
Our unborn child(ren). Who? The kid(s) that we’ve been naming but aren’t born yet. Uh huh.

This conversation would have a lot more merit to it, if, let’s say, we were engaged or married. No? And this conversation would also be more exciting, if I didn’t think that something-something was happening. I ain’t going to lie. I’m a girl and any fishy business makes me think there is an engagement nearby...fishy business like this.

Last week, his coworker came over to shoot the breeze. I just happened to be at Cowboy’s apartment. Shoot, I’m always there. Coworker settled in on the couch across from me and Cowboy decided that was the best time to start cleaning his room. Let me also mention, I have never ever met Coworker before, so this was unusual, in my eyes. Coworker is also recently engaged, as in two days engaged. For a guy I was shocked at how he was discussing it at first. Then he went into TMI. He started off telling me how he went and picked the ring – asking me a lot of questions in between.

Questions like, what cut do you like? How big of a carat is big enough? What’s the deal with color diamonds? And at first, I thought he was asking me this because of my previous experience in the jewelry business. Oh yeah, you’d be shocked, apparently working for a jeweler makes you all sorts of expert and awesome to people once they find out. That was a perk when I worked there, I’ll admit. Buuuut then I remembered whoa I never mentioned I worked for the jewels in this conversation. Then I did. He was impressed and then he went on asking the questions and I went on answering.

This conversation became very dull because I knew he already had the ring and proposal, done. Why did he need confirmation? And let me tell you how discussing diamonds is not my most favorite thing in the world, even when I shelled out for them. Yeah, when I worked there, I was probably the biggest enigma ever. I just don’t like diamonds. There, I’ve said it. It’s okay, too.

It has to do with the markup, value, origination and my fashion sense. I feel that there will be days when I’m wearing something and it just won’t go with a diamond. Plus, they’re not my style. If you know me, you know. Coworker was shocked and appalled – he wanted to know what talisman could I get that would show the world that I was engaged, where was the sign of commitment? My answer was if a guy doesn’t have to wear one until the ceremony, do I really need to? It’s not that I don’t want a ring. I want a band given to me on my wedding day during the ceremony. A band is so much more me. So much more. That conversation happened.

A day later, I replayed it in my head and was convinced I was getting engaged. Convinced. Since I don’t do disappointment well, I had to confront Cowboy and call him out on his cleaning during the diamond convo. He admitted it was odd for him to play maid at that moment in time but there are no plans to be engaged before he leaves for Iraq. Whew?

If that’s the case – what’s up with the joint money market account and college saving plan for unborn children? I’ve sworn off using the M and W words in any conversation with him. It gets me too worked up in a fantasy. So I didn’t ask him when he brought up all that talk last night about our financial future.

But, I sure do have a week’s worth of outfits all planned out.