Hello all!
Bit of a long post ahead (which is what I'm good at, lol), so thank you in advance for reading the whole thing! I will try to tell the full story.
So my father brought up an interesting point to my attention earlier today. We were talking about my boyfriend and his financial situation, because my boyfriend went to him with a mortgage question. Which is of big concern to my dad because he is very money-savvy and is HUGE on saving money (he was able to retire comfortably at 58).
Now, I know that finances are a big part of why a lot of marriages go bust. Yes, I admit that I'm not the greatest with saving money, either, but I am learning.
My boyfriend works two stable jobs, bringing in about $100k / year. He pays child support monthly for his 9-year old son, along with 2 mortgages. He is in his mid-40s, has been working at his current profession for 22 years, and has about $210k+ in his savings and 401(k). He admits to contributing the minimum amount to his 401(k), lives in a 1-bedroom apartment. His monthly bills take out about 80% of his paycheck. Combine that with the things that he buys for his son and the kind of money he spent before he met me, while out with his friends and ex-girlfriends, he doesn't really have a lot of money to play around with, at all.
My boyfriend has admitted to me before that he tends to live for the present and doesn't like to worry about the future. He's always saying how his coworkers comment on how poor he is, and even he makes jokes to me, his friends, and his family about how poor he is. He says he is serious about saving money. Yet he spends hundreds on his son for birthdays/holidays, and just took an expensive vacation with his friend, another with me, and another with his friend and their sons. In the past, as recently as just a few years ago, he admitted to taking multiple vacations a year with his friends and family to resorts in Caribbean, Mexico, etc... Now, his friends are big partiers. And partying is expensive.
His friend just got a free trip to visit his father and invited my boyfriend. But he has to spend money on food, drinks, and (possibly) transportation. Plus he will be taking 2 unpaid days off his second job. I guess this was finally the incident that got me thinking about his past, and his spending habits. What bothers me more is that he is asking financial advice from this friend, who is more than $30,000 in credit card debt and refuses to divorce his wife because he can't afford child support/alimony payments.
Yet, he harps on ME constantly about how both of us need to save more money, how I spend too much, how we need to have cheap/free dates, how we can't afford to go on vacation anymore for the rest of this year, etc etc. I just think he has no right to tell me what to do with my money, in the financial situation that he's in.
My father, and also my mother and brother are now growing increasingly worried that I will end up supporting him financially if he keeps this up. A lot of times, when we do fun things, I end up paying, even though I make less than him.
What I wanted to ask, was, is money really everything? Is this a normal situation for someone his age to be in financially? Even though my boyfriend and I are good together, and since we're not married, should I still be concerned about his financial situation? For a long time, I thought my dad was just too stiff and that all he cared about was money, but now I am afraid he might be right. And would you have married or stayed with your SO / spouse if you knew they had a very laid-back attitude about their finances?
