driving to L.A. we arrive at some weird place. I wander around a bit, and find Brandon. Then we all go to bed. A bright morning follows, with more people arrived. People overwhelm me with their presence, and I go for a walk. Nature overwhelms me, but I succumb to it. Some strange contraption flies by. I decide to explore nature, and scare myself. I don't want to die alone. Beautiful insect life. I head back to the party, finally. But it's not there. I try to maneuver through traffic.
[[this is summarized roughly paragraph by paragraph from a dream after I typed out the dream.]]
I love the zen-ness and amazing connectedness of the summary.
I had a dream the night before last, too: rickety elevators, giant worms, helicopters, random spy things, and pools made in lined culverts...
And, er--Amy and I are doing better again, but we really need to have a sit-down drag-out think about our finances, once we're less shaky. The short of it being--she wants to save for things, a house, yadda, and I want to save for things _and_ buy things. And the loss of the stuff is like me impulsively going out and buying a lot of crap, in her mind. And she resents that she essentially puts more of our money away into savings than I do--she's missing out and essentially then providing me with more. It's ... complex.
[[this is summarized roughly paragraph by paragraph from a dream after I typed out the dream.]]
I love the zen-ness and amazing connectedness of the summary.
I had a dream the night before last, too: rickety elevators, giant worms, helicopters, random spy things, and pools made in lined culverts...
And, er--Amy and I are doing better again, but we really need to have a sit-down drag-out think about our finances, once we're less shaky. The short of it being--she wants to save for things, a house, yadda, and I want to save for things _and_ buy things. And the loss of the stuff is like me impulsively going out and buying a lot of crap, in her mind. And she resents that she essentially puts more of our money away into savings than I do--she's missing out and essentially then providing me with more. It's ... complex.
Comments
I really understand this situation...it’s a doosey. Actually, this is a dynamic that was, until very recently, a huge point of conflict at home. I was raised to be very frugal, and spent a lot of time on my own struggling financially before we got married. J was raised in a more make-it-to-spend-it kind of home, and feels that money should be used to make our lives better/more enjoyable. Over the last year or so we have had some really...REALLY tense moments ironing all of this stuff out.
What has finally evolved is a multi-tiered system, where we have two levels of savings (optimal and required) for three different categories, long term (retirement), midterm (house), immediate (large fun stuff). Included in the ‘Immediate’ account is a cash reserve buffer. So in simple terms, we are shooting to save X% in each of these three accounts, but will tolerate a minimum contribution of Y%, and the ‘Immediate’ account will never be allowed to drop below our required cash reserve. (Can ya tell I work in finance??)
The upshot is, I feel good about the fact that we are continuing to save, and J has plenty of spending room if/when he wants it, and we can both breathe easier knowing we have a cushion for the next time we fall on our collective ass.
Just something to think about...