Money woes

[DollOnAMusicBox]

Just wondering how other couples end up dealing with money woes.

Anyone else in the position where visits often destroy your savings account and keep you from saving up for the long term CD funding? Maybe its just a "fresh outta college, establishing ourselves" sorta thing. He's working a dead end job, and Im a grad student living on college loans and we either spend the money to see eachother (roughly every 8-9 months) OR we put it into savings and spend another 8-9 months wishing we were together.

The way ts going it just feels like closing the distance will never happen because we'll waste too much time trying to see eachother...I know the simple answer is "skip a visit or two" but that makes life miserable for 18 months lol. Our next visit he will be here and we arent planning extravagent touristy things this time. Really its just a plane ticket and minimal spending money. But itll be enough to break the bank again. Bah.

[ioanna]

this totally rings a bell! my SO and I are in a similar situation.
we can only afford to visit twice a year, and after each visit our savings are back to nearly zero... we have other savings, but those are priorities for us, it's for funding our studies, so it's as if they don't exist... sometimes it feels as if we're turning into cold machines, just to be able to get our logical side to win over our emotional part but we both agree this is the best for us in the long run and we try to stick together through it...

i guess it all comes down to determining what is the minimum you can live with/ how long you can go and try and find a balance. easier said than done

[beckychan]

Me and my SO go through the same thing. Except he has no income at all, which is ok, because he focuses on school rather than a job.
As far as saving money goes, I do just about anything to get a separate savings going for trips to see him/see me. I sell clothes, items, etc... things I don't need anymore. I even got a holiday job to get extra money to see him. It might be a slow process, but it also keeps me from going broke at the end of a trip. I can't allow myself to use other money because I need it to pay for rent/otherbills so I have to be careful.
Fortunately I got a big break recently with a late scholarship coming in, so I should be getting a $900 check... ultimately I should pay it back right away... but I'm choosing not to lol.

[kittyo9]

We have that problem on one end and it's not his fault, he lives in Peru and the economy is very different there, and he is a full-time student and an athlete, leaving little time for a job where he would make about a third of what I would... And yet he still tries so hard and does research projects with his professors for a small income. He has been saving this money for almost a year now, and if he visits this winter (our first visit), it will all be gone. That kind of thing makes me feel guilty beyond reason. It's one of the things I argue with my mom about the most-- why would you make the person who has barely any money and little access to the kind of resources I have s ave for almost a year and spend more money on seeing me than I would on seeing him?

I have my own savings, and although I don't work during the school year, I at least work during the summer. I was fortunately taught good saving habits from the time I was a child, so I have savings built up from many years of birthday and christmas money, as well as my sumner and high school jobs. I also get many scholarships, which really helps. I want to at least be a TA next semester so I have a little a bit of income.

[Bethypoo]

I think that this is a normal thing for people who are in college really and saving for anything. Whether it is to go on any trip, to buy something nice for yourself or to go and see your SO. You just have to think into what works financially best for the both of you. I mean, my SO comes here to visit and we dont really go out and do anything. And it would be nice to go out and do something romantic or fun but the reality is that we just cant afford it.

Its a vicious circle of the world of reality... and its sucks!

[MadMolly]

I'm one who's decided to forgo visits and concentrate on the CD saving. I'm not in the mood for an extended LDR this time around.

[Haley53]

Would it be possible to sit down and map out a budget? I would sit down with a pencil and a piece of paper and separate the piece of paper into three categories: What you're spending now, What's necessary to be spent, and What you could sacrifice. For example, say you go out and eat fast food three times per week. Or say you go out with friends to the cinema once a week. Both are things on which you could cut back to, say, once a week for fast food and once every other week for the cinema, and that alone would save you at least 30.00 per week (assuming it's 5.00 per fast food run and 20.00 per trip to the cinema; unfortunately, it costs about that per one person these days). It's amazing what money you can save when you sit down and look at where your money is actually going.

If you don't tend to spend your money on leisure and instead, your money tends to be omnommed by bills, look at ways you can lower what you're spending. For example, my phone bill is looking like it's going to be 90.00 per month. Expensive as, but that's also with a plan that will prevent me from the overages I was using that brought my bill anywhere from 97.00 to 120.00. That's 7.00-30.00 per month saved there. If you have particularly high heating costs, you could consider using blankets or sweaters and thermals as opposed to always running the heating, or you could find some frugal ways to heat up your place (I believe it was lucybelle on here who listed some before on another thread). If it's your water bills that are getting you, then take shorter showers. Again, it's amazing when you sit down and actually look at what you could be doing that you're not. Even something like forgetting to turn off a light before you leave the house can run the bill up more than necessary, or leaving the porch lights on (consider investing in a mini-flashlight, or do what I do and use yer phone. :P).

But either way, sit down and map out a budget of how much you're spending and on what, and categorise it into what you need and what you don't. Look at what you have left over. Look at your projected income for the next month. Do you have anything left over that you can spare enough to put into a closing the distance savings fund? Even if it's only a couple dollars or a couple cents, it will continue to add up, if you're adding to it from each paycheque, from every time you go out and are left over with money you thought you'd spend, etc. Sacrifice a little bit from everything you put aside from your holiday funds (to see one another) and have him do the same. It will ultimately begin to add up, not to mention that the more you get the hang of cutting costs, the more it's something you're going to be able to achieve, and you'll begin to find new and more creative ways of saving. But I would honestly do a little bit of saving for both. Don't make every trip a trip to do the extravegant touristy things as you mentioned; have a laid back one every once in a while to off-set it and put the money you'd have put into, say, Disneyland (because nothing else comes to mind) and put it into savings for your CD fund. Things add up.

[greensweatergirl]

I'm sorry, this isn't a reply to OP. I just had to tell Eclaire that I am officially adding "to omnom" into my vocabulary.

[Sora1101]

Yeah every time my SO has visited I've gone from having money to having nothing at all, I don't have a job and so just to have enough money for my SO to visit I save money like a hoarder for a year and it's gone within 2 days. This has definitely put a dent in the closing the distance plan because I need to pay for my plane ticket for when I move and me being me I want enough savings to be able to help with rent. Kinda hard to do with no job and hardly any way to make money. I don't know how I'm gonna scrape up a good 500-600 dollars by the end of May >.>

[kat4301]

Yes, our money woes aren't as extreme because we are in driving distance not flying distance, but we are both in school, so really loans pay for most of my visits. I have been signing every "occupy" - type petition that comes my way, especially the ones to reduce student loan debt. I think student loans for college and grad school have gotton so out of hand. My parents are lower middle class so I didn't get any grants for college and they don't have enough money to pay for it all, so loans will be my life for awhile. But make sure you are maxing-out alll student discounts you can get and consolidating loans etc. it might at least make you feel better.

[Silvaria]

I hear you on this, Doll.

The only reason I was able to go visit him two years ago was because I was married-but-separated at the time, my STBE-husband got a monetary gift from his grandmother, and he knew how badly I wanted to meet my now SO, so he gave me the money to do it. The trip cost a total of $1,500.

Now that I'm divorced, I'm struggling just to keep a roof over my head and gas in my car...coming up with that kind of money again is simply out of the question anytime soon.

My SO is similar in that he barely stays ahead of bills.

I feel very, very frustrated sometimes, and very despairing...it's already been two years and right now, it's looking like it will easily be at least another 6 months or so. I'm lonely and I crave touching him so badly, and yet...I just can't see myself with anyone else, so, I will wait.

[BlueCat]

We've have some pretty big money issues in recent times. Part of the reason was because he had to move to go to college, he had to leave his job and the whole time he was at college, he couldn't get one. So we had to wait longer between visits so I could save up more money and stay longer. Then when I eventually did visit, I paid for pretty much everything we did, including paying for his grocery shopping, and by the time I went home, it was a couple weeks before I got paid again from work, and I completely ran out of money and had to ask my mum for money so that I could put petrol in my car just to get to work! Since I returned home, there were a lot of things I sacrificed doing so that I could save up for another visit, this time, I not only had more spending money saved, but my SO has a job so we're splitting the costs of things pretty much 50/50 so I'm spending a lot less than what I budgeted for, which is great.

I think money issues just come with the LDR territory. My friends at work wonder how I afford to go overseas all the time to see him, but I sacrifice a lot of things to be able to afford it.

[rubydissolution]

Money is kind of an issue for everyone now a days. This first year I have seen my SO four times. The way we avoid both of us going broke is to split the cost of the trips. Normally I will pay for my one way trip out and he will pay for my one way trip back (which is dangerous bc i worry that he will try to keep me there by not buying the ticket lol). That's about $183 for both of us. The first time he came to see me he stayed in a hotel but, he had saved his tax refund to take the trip and pay for the hotel. When I go there i typically stay at his apartment and we split the cost of food. It doesn't seem like it but it really saves in the long run. Right now, because him moving here didn't work I am saving to move out there. I work two jobs, one is my main full time job and the other is a part time job. The full time job covers all of my major bills, and day to day living expenses. My Part time job is basically my spending money and all i want to spend that money on right now is being with him. I plan to go see him in 3 months using my tax refund money this time, then we probably won't see each other again until its time for the potential move. Penny pinching is key...lol.

[DollOnAMusicBox]

Guess I'll find out what skipping a visit feels like after all. He canceled because of money. 15 months apart. Awesome.

[beckychan]

I wouldn't let that get to you so much.

A lot can happen in a year, and I'm sure if you stay determined enough you can save up the money sooner than you think! I know that when I let myself get depressed, I often overlook great opportunities. I'm sure something good will come both your ways.

---------- Post added at 10:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:35 PM ----------

I wouldn't let that get to you so much.

A lot can happen in a year, and I'm sure if you stay determined enough you can save up the money sooner than you think! I know that when I let myself get depressed, I often overlook great opportunities. I'm sure something good will come both your ways.