Smart Couples Finish Rich Chapters 6 & 7: Boring Money and Awesome Money

Sundays are State of the Union days in our house, when sweetie and I sit down to talk about how we're doing relationship-wise. Sometimes they're quick check-ins, sometimes we get into a little more depth, depending on what we've got going on. In this year leading up to our wedding, we've decided to make finances a central part of our State of the Union talks. Over the next couple of months, sweetie and I will be reading Smart Couples Finish Rich by David Bach and discussing the latest chapter at SOTU.

OK, so David Bach does not call them "boring money" and "awesome money," those are just the helpful captions I have appended to Chapters 6 and 7. Chapter 6 covers boring money: emergency funds, life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance, and wills (your security basket, in DB's terms). Chapter 7 (your dream basket) covers awesome money: anything your little heart could desire.

I didn't blog last week about boring money because frankly, it's boring. But here's the quick and dirty summary: by the time we get married we will have (unless things go very awry) over three months of expenses in an emergency fund. I'd saved that before the end of 2007 and then had (surprise!) an emergency. And of course, our shared expenses will be higher than mine are alone, with two cars to insure, two sets of student loans, his credit card payments... Both of us have life insurance through work, and some cash value policies that were bought for us by family members when we were kids--not a choice I would have made myself, but also not my money. We both have health insurance through work, and we've got plenty of time to figure out whether we'll consolidate that after the wedding. I have long-term disability insurance (though I could use more), and Shiner doesn't--not something I'm concerned about, though, since I'm the primary wage earner. We need to figure out what we're doing for a will, but I'm willing to wait on that for a few months or a year. Put that on the to do list along with the health care directive.

Now for the awesome money! Awesome money is for all the fun things that aren't strictly necessary but that you want just the same. First on the list is the wedding, probably because we're in the thick of it and it's easy to see the light at the end of that tunnel. Man, it will be nice to acheive a goal. Some of the others are standard: travel, house remodeling projects, certain specific toys like Shiner's dream motorcycle and my dream Vespa, or his ever-expanding homebrew setup that produces delicious things I like to drink.

The one I am most excited about, though, is the cabin. For years, my earth nerd long-term dream has been to buy a piece of land in the woods and build my own small straw bale house to be a vacation home and family retreat, and possibly in time a primary home. Luckily, Shiner is on board with this goal, and bonus points because he's handy, too. First steps will be to buy the land and volunteer one one or two stale bale house-raisings, and then to try it for ourselves. It's a very long-term goal--the biggest, most expensive, and most daunting goal on the list--but one I'm so excited about.

One thing this chapter doesn't do a very good job of addressing is how to balance the competing interests inherent in saving simultaneously for multiple goals. I have been keeping two awesome money goals in the air at the same time: wedding savings and travel savings. I'm also saving for emergency money and retirement, and paying down debt as well, but add in many more goals and all of a sudden it becomes too diffuse. There's so much less money to go around, and progress on any one of them seems so slow. Personally, I do much better focusing hard on a couple of goals in sequence rather than consistently putting smaller amounts of money in lots of little pots. But I have a feeling that's not going to get me my cabin.

Smart Couples Finish Rich Chapter 5: Retirement

Sundays are State of the Union days in our house, when sweetie and I sit down to talk about how we're doing relationship-wise. Sometimes they're quick check-ins, sometimes we get into a little more depth, depending on what we've got going on. In this year leading up to our wedding, we've decided to make finances a central part of our State of the Union talks. Over the next couple of months, sweetie and I will be reading Smart Couples Finish Rich by David Bach and discussing the latest chapter at SOTU.

We are running late on SOTU this week. I have been crazy busy at work, Shiner has had training for his new job, and tonight we were Super Tuesdaying and watching the returns. But tonight before we headed off to vote we had a really excellent conversation about the retirement chapter.

Our retirement savings are vastly disparate. I have had a Roth IRA since they were invented, when my dad opened one for me, urged me to contribute, and matched most of my contributions until I was making enough that I could max it out on my own. I opened a 401(k) as soon as I was eligible at my current job, and have been maxing those contributions out ever since. I was an early adopter of the Roth 401(k). This year I opened a traditional IRA with after-tax money in anticipation of converting it to a Roth IRA in 2010. I'm the girl my coworkers come to when they have questions about retirement accounts, the poster girl for retirement planning. As you may imagine, this makes me a lot of fun at parties.

Shiner is a different story. He's nearly 30, with very little saved. He had a small amount a few years ago in a 401(k) but he cashed it out before we met so he could go back to school and finish his degree. He doesn't have a Roth IRA or a traditional IRA. His current employer, a nonprofit, has a mandatory contribution of 4% or 5% to a 403(b) (they're in the process of ratcheting up the minimum amount over the next month or so). There is a 100% match at that minimum level, but no more. Shiner contributes at that minimum level.

His new part-time job does offer a 401(k) he'll become eligible for in a couple of paychecks, with some level of match. He plans to contribute 3% of that paycheck to the 401(k).

So while he's putting some portion of his income toward retirement savings, most of it is focused on debt repayment. He's going to be focusing on debt repayment at least until we get married. We'll probably be paying some of it off after we get married. What can I say? Debt is a dead weight. He's making great progress, but it's just really hard.

But there's good news. Once his credit card debt is paid off, and hopefully that will happen within our first six months of married life, we should be well able to hit Bach's goal of saving 20% of our combined income for retirement. We ran some numbers, and we should be able to start maxing out my 401(k) and his 403(b) once that debt is gone. If we do enough of it on a pre-tax basis, we may get our AGI low enough to each contribute to our Roth IRAs. At the very least, he will be able to contribute to a Roth IRA, and he's the one who needs the most catching up. We might not be able to max out our 401(k)'s in 2009, depending on how much credit card debt has lingered around, but we'll be able to do it in 2010. Man, that feels good to say.

One other thing we talked about is that so far as it is possible, we both want to contribute the same amounts to our retirement accounts. This will mean that to max out his 403(b) contribution, he'll have to withhold upwards of 30% of his salary versus my less than 15%. We've already established that we want a yours-mine-ours account system but I think this means we're going to have to favor the "ours" portion over the "yours" and "mine."

Of all the chapters so far, this is has been the biggest help to me. It's not that the information was so new or so fantastically presented, but now that we've established that we both value long-term stability and flexibility, we know we've got to prioritize retirement savings. This chapter gave us an opportunity to talk about how to do that in a much more structured way than I imagine we would have done on our own. There will be some more tweaking as we go along. Should he contribute 3% or 6% to the 401(k) at his part-time job? After we get married should we rush the debt repayment, or draw it out (it'll all be on low- or no-interest cards) so we can start maxing out our retirement accounts as soon as possible? But that's just nit picking, and we're not there yet. Right now, Shiner's plan is debt repayment, and my plan is supporting him in that. But it's a big relief to me that we are able to see a long-term plan shaping up.

Smart Couples Finish Rich Chapter 4: Latte Schmatte

Sundays are State of the Union days in our house, when sweetie and I sit down to talk about how we're doing relationship-wise. Sometimes they're quick check-ins, sometimes we get into a little more depth, depending on what we've got going on. In this year leading up to our wedding, we've decided to make finances a central part of our State of the Union talks. Over the next couple of months, sweetie and I will be reading Smart Couples Finish Rich by David Bach and discussing the latest chapter at SOTU.

David Bach seems to think we all spend wantonly on caffeine, takeout, and booze. OK, maybe not booze, but if he knew us he might include that on his list of frivolous expenses.

To be fair, his premise is sound: if you piss away money on things that don't matter, you'll never get ahead. And you can figure out where you're pissing away money by tracking your spending. We are instructed in Chapter 4 to track our spending for seven days. The idea is that you can identify your little purchases--your "latte factor"--and cut them out, tucking that money into investments instead.

So I have a confession to make. Shiner and I did not track our spending for a week. Neither of us uses cash, so it was pretty easy to reconstruct our expenses by pulling up our credit card and debit card statements online. Not a latte on one of them.

To be sure, there were purchases that were not strictly necessary. Like beer-making gear for Shiner's ongoing love affair with his basement brewery. Or a few deeply discounted fancy work shirts for me, since I'm trying to end my fashion-backwards ways in the office. But that's it. Nothing that I would cut out after reading about the supposed power of the latte factor. Nothing I looked back on and thought, "why did we spend money on that? I know exactly why we spent money on what we did, and what's more, I'm glad we did.

Here's the thing, and why this whole latter factor business gets such a bad rap from so many folks: you're not going to turn your life around by foregoing all frivolous purchases, investing all your savings, and making a return of one bazillion percent over 50 years. You will die of boredom or gouge your eyes out of deprivation before that.

Instead of guilting people about mortgaging their futures by buying a cup of coffee, it would be far more persuasive to look to your priorities and make a choice based on them. I can make my own coffee at work with very little effort. It tastes better than what I could buy in a coffee shop, and it's far less expensive, so why prioritize coffee shop coffee over saving for a rainy day, or a vacation, or a retirement account? We pack lunches because we make good food at home and usually have leftovers, so there's no good reason to buy lunches at work except laziness and habit.

But spending in accordance with what you value doesn't always mean being frugal. We value our time together, so I have no problem paying for us to eat out once or twice a week: that's one or two meals where we can eat a leisurely meal together, have a "date"-type experience, where Shiner can have some meat (I don't eat it or cook it so we rarely have it in the house), where we can get out of the house (very important in the Midwest winter when the urge to hibernate is strong!), where we can have food we're not very good at preparing ourselves, where neither of us has to worry about doing dishes. Even though I could theoretically invest that money and end up with however many thousands of dollars in 20 years, I'm not going to do it. That is not the purpose of money in my life. The purpose of money in my life is to make me--and us--happy. Sometimes that will mean not spending money now in order to make our future better. Sometimes that will mean spending now in order to enjoy today. A sane approach to money doesn't mean always choosing "the future." It means always choosing consciously and in line with your values.

This should not be a hard concept for a man who has just spent the last two chapters trying to get you to suss out your values as they relate to money. Chapter 4 maybe serves a tough love function for people who currently spend without thinking. But the "scared straight" approach doesn't necessarily get people to a place where they are both saving and spending in accordance with their priorities.

When Shiner first got really serious about dealing with his credit card debt, I bought him a used copy of Pay It Down!: From Debt to Wealth on $10 a Day by Jean Chatzky. He reports that her approach was a much saner way to find "extra" money for debt reduction or investment, because it identifies places to squeeze that will have minimal impact on your lifestyle before asking you to make changes that feel more like ongoing sacrifices and that you are more likely to come to resent. And her book doesn't rely on guilt the way that Bach's seems to--if you want a latte, have a latte. There's nothing wrong with that, so long as you're being consistent with your values.

Smart Couples Finish Rich Chapter 3: Organizing and Goal Setting

Sundays are State of the Union days in our house, when sweetie and I sit down to talk about how we're doing relationship-wise. Sometimes they're quick check-ins, sometimes we get into a little more depth, depending on what we've got going on. In this year leading up to our wedding, we've decided to make finances a central part of our State of the Union talks. Over the next couple of months, sweetie and I will be reading Smart Couples Finish Rich by David Bach and discussing the latest chapter at SOTU.

Chapter 3 Summary
Chapter 3 breaks down into two different sections. The first section lays out Bach's system for getting your financial files in order. When I read Smart Women Finish Rich a couple of years ago, I set up Bach's filing system as my own, and it's served me well. It sometimes takes me longer than I should to get new papers filed. Instead, I stack them on top of the lid of the file box. But my time management shortcomings aside, the system works well for me. I can always find what I need fairly quickly. Doing my taxes the last two years has been a breeze, with all the receipts for charitable deductions, W-2s, interest earnings statements, and energy tax credit receipts all in one place. When sweetie moved in, I shared my filing system with him, so his financial files are all in this system, too. After reading Chapter 3, it was a good reminder to file the items I've been procrastinating on.

The second section (which should probably be a separate chapter) is about setting goals based on the values we each identified last week with Chapter 2. For each value, this chapter asks us to establish a goal with a twelve-month timeframe that in service of that value. Goals with a longer timeframes (retirement, a vacation home, an around-the-world vacation) get addressed in later chapters, which I find to be an artificial distinction. I would love to see more integration of the goal-setting material in Chapter 3 the chapters on retirement, security, and dreams. Because I tend to think big-picture, I had a hard time settling on goals that could be attained within the next twelve months. It was much easier when I thought about my big-picture goals and broke them down into smaller steps and thought about which of those steps I could take in the next year. Bach doesn't address this, though, he seems to assume that his readers are such financial neophytes that their initial set of goals will be simplistic, short-term, and attainable in a short period of time.

It's not all irritating, though. When I read this chapter last time, I was struck by the steps Bach encourages readers to take in order to make their goals specific and actionable. Those were very helpful components for me in setting my last set of goals, and considerations that I've continued to use as my goals have evolved.

What Are My 1-Year Goals?
Before sweetie and I met up to talk about what goals we should set as a couple, I sat down to figure out what goals I would set as an individual in service of my individual values. Since sweetie's and my values are so similar, I thought that we would have a good jumping off point if we each took a stab at it individually.

1) Stability/security: Save three months living expenses in my HSBC account. I had nearly achieved this goal at the end of 2007 when I had to replace my furnace. I chose to replace the air conditioner at the same time, since it was also nearly 20 years old. The energy savings and tax credit (which expired at the end of last year) make it worth it, but it took a bite out of my savings, and I need to replenish my emergency fund. Eventually, I will probably want to save more, five or six months of living expenses. But I can't save that much this year, with wedding expenses, a home equity loan still in repayment, and a other targeted savings goals to reconcile. Three months is a realistic amount. The direct deposit to my HSBC account will probably need some tweaking later this year when I am able to project my after-tax monthly takehome pay for 2008. But for right now, I don't need to do anything to my direct deposit to make progress toward this goal.

2) Flexibility: I can't pay off the balance of my home equity loan this year, but I can get close. I think I can get it down to 25% of its original balance, maybe even a little lower than that, and then knock it out in 2009, well before the balloon payment comes due. Reducing my monthly debt load will give me more flexibility in my current budget, more flexibility in terms of future job options and the ability to absorb a pay cut, and will have a psychological benefit, too, of helping me feel more free. Those first two benefits won't kick in until the whole thing is paid off, but seeing that monthly balance shrink each month always gives me a psychological boost even if the monthly minimum payments stay the same.

3) Marriage/Primary Partnership: This one is a no brainer. Get married! In just under a year! And don't go over budget in the process!

4) Fun: Sweetie and I are taking a big vacation this year. We kind of did it backwards, buying plane tickets for a beachy getaway before deciding to get married. So basically we are taking the honeymoon before the wedding. We both love to travel, though, so we'll probably find a way to take Honeymoon 2.0 in 2009, but right now we have just the one trip planned. The goal is to stay on budget. Speaking of which, we need to make accommodations reservations today.

5) Giving Back: This is a hard one for me to monetize. I have committed to pretty sizable volunteer responsibilities with two different organizations whose work I admire. Of course I plan to continue my donations to those organizations, and to a few others that I've been giving to for a while, but for this year, my focus will be on my time commitments because those are the new, squeaky wheels. I'm going to serve on at least one sub-committee for each group in addition to the steering committee positions I've accepted, with the goal of improving the youth outreach for each organization. Sorry, folks, don't expect to hear much about this goal this year. This is an anonymous blog, after all, and I don't think I can say much more without getting dangerously specific.

I think this is not what Bach had in mind with Chapter 3, but it's the way of looking at it that makes the most sense to me.

What Are Our 1-Year Goals?
Since our values are so in synch, we had a lot of overlap in our goals section, too.
1) Stability/security: We are each going to focus on savings, me on replenishing the emergency fund and him on--ahem--having an emergency fund, and on starting a Roth IRA. This may be his last year eligible to contribute to one because after we get married in 2009 we will probably be over the income limits. Sweetie, god love him, has saved crap for retirement, so I think he put this on his list largely to ease my worried mind. He may not be able to fully fund it with his debt repayment program (see below) but something is better than nothing.

2) Flexibility: We are both going to focus on debt repayment, me on my home equity loan and him on credit card debt. My goal is to pay off $10k of the home equity loan. His goal is to make $10k beyond his normal salary, either by taking on a second job or by changing jobs and taking a higher paid position. He's actively interviewing on both fronts and has a couple of good leads, though the economic downturn is not doing him any favors, unfortunately. The $10k he's shooting for is in addition to the debt repayment money he can squeeze out of his regular paycheck, and would be huge help in helping him get it all paid off.

3) Marriage/Primary Partnership: Married, check. Also, continue to work on our communication skills. This includes the SOTU. We were remarking tonight that being so deliberate about this time has been nice, giving us a chance to reconnect and check in about lots of things, financial and not.

4) Fun: We are going to spend more time outside this year. This includes our upcoming vacation, working on the pergola and the yard, going on walks and "local vacations" around the city and surrounding areas. And although he is skeptical we will do it more often than not, I would like us to have more TV-free nights than TV-watching nights. I hardly watched any TV before I got together with him, and through the dual miracles of reduced time spent watching crap and the DVR (what? watching a Tuesday night show on a Wednesday?) I think this should be totally reasonable.

5) Career: Astute readers will notice that this is from his value list and not mine. Here's the thing. Sweetie's job sucks. He's very good at it, but it's a difficult working environment in which his division doesn't get a lot of support from management, and he's not paid well. That comes with the territory when you work for a nonprofit, but for a lot of people working in the nonprofit world the low pay is made up for the warm fuzzy feelings they get working for a cause they believe in. Sweetie doesn't get warm fuzzies. His nonprofit doesn't save the world or feed hungry people or de-mine regions of the world recently terrorized by military or para-military mercenaries. It doesn't arm children, either, it's not like he's working for NAMBLA; they're inoffensive and in the aggregate a social good, but hard to get misty-eyed about, and the organizational mission does not speak to his heart. Think: The National Alliance for Show Choirs or Friends Of Anachronistic Colloquialisms. So anyway, it's a bad fit, and he's trying to transition to a position like his current job, but in a for-profit company where presumably the huge efficiency gains and triple-digit productivity increases he's eked out (on a contracting budget!) will be better appreciated.

A new job for him would be a good thing for the both of us. He gets a better job and makes more money, and I get a happier partner and less Playstation/decompression happening in the living room on the weeknights when I would prefer a conversation or some smooching.

So his goal is to get a job in the for-profit world. As first steps, he's going to try to find a mentor and learn a new set of skills, most likely through a relevant certificate program he can do in the evenings. That most likely won't happen until the Fall '08 semester, given the timing considerations involved. I'm not yet sure how I can be maximally supportive except by keeping him in hot meals on the nights he has class, but I'm sure we'll figure that out as we muddle along.

But the thing about talking about a big change like this in the context of joint goal setting is that it gives us space to talk about all the weird underlying issues that can be so unhappy to talk about. Things like I feel like I wouldn't be pulling my weight around here without a job and Being depressed and pissed off about your job but in paychecks is far worse than being on student loans and excited about your career again and I feel like I have so many responsibilities and no choices. And sometimes talking about the unhappy bits leads to much nicer things, like We are in this together and We may have to take turns carrying each other, and that's OK and We will be all right and things will get better. So all things considered, the goal setting has been a success. Next up: goal achievement.

Smart Couples Finish Rich Chapter 2: Our Values

Sundays are State of the Union days in our house, when sweetie and I sit down to talk about how we're doing relationship-wise. Sometimes they're quick check-ins, sometimes we get into a little more depth, depending on what we've got going on. In this year leading up to our wedding, we've decided to make finances a central part of our State of the Union talks. Over the next couple of months, sweetie and I will be reading Smart Couples Finish Rich by David Bach and discussing the latest chapter at SOTU.

This Chapter aims to help couples figure out what the purpose of money is in their lives. Bach asks us to each name our top five values we want to focus our time and energy on in the coming year. It's harder than it sounds, in part because so many of the values that came to mind for me are interrelated in some way. What is security, after all, if not the ability to meet the needs of yourself and your nearest and dearest--so should you really call it "loved ones?" Are "marriage" and "family" different enough values to warrant a separate listing? When you say "job," do you have in mind a particular career or set of skills ("My true calling is to be an actor" or "Particle physics gives my life meaning"), or is the thing you ultimately value be better termed "giving back" or "having fun" or "stability" in the form of a hefty paycheck?

Here's how things shook out for me:

1) Stability/security: I need to feel confident I'll have a place to live, food to eat, and all my obligations met. Knowing that even if my life goes to shit, I've got something of a buffer between me and real need is a huge chunk of sanity for me.

2) Flexibility: I have worked jobs I hated before, and that is a soulsuck I don't need. I like my job now, but with personnel changes, mergers, clients coming and going, present happiness is not a guarantee of future job satisfaction. Flexibility means having options in the event that I decide I hate my working life: quitting and regrouping, taking a more satisfying job that pays less, reducing my hours, or what have you. Since leaving school and being responsibile for student loans, mortgage, career, and the like, I am feeling a real lack of flexibility in my life these days and that's something I would really love to figure out how to change.

These days I think of flexibility mainly in terms of my job, but it's really broader, too. Should my parents ever need assistance as they grow older, particularly if they ever become very ill, I very much hope I will be in a position to help. Does this mean taking large amounts of unpaid leave on an ongoing basis? Moving states to be nearer to them? It would certainly mean some sort of lifestyle adjustment, as they live a day's drive away right now.

3) Marriage/Primary Partnership: This one's a new addition for me since the last time I worked my way trough one of David Bach's tradmark-laden books, back in the day when I was rolling solo. Since sweetie is the only immediate family member I expect to ever be able to pick myself, he gets special billing. I broke out marriage specifically rather than relying on the more generic umbrella of family because (a) the cats don't take that much work, and I didn't think their feelings would be hurt at being excluded--with no kids in the picture, I didn't think the broader term applied as well; and (b) even if sweetie and I do have kids someday, the families I most admire had parents who put their relationship first--a healthy balance seemed to flow from that. And if I ever change my mind about that, it's not like I can't revise the list.

4) Fun: Because otherwise, what's the point, right?

5) Giving Back: At first I was thinking about this as "career" but then I realized that although I love the law, and like the work I am doing as a lawyer, the real thing I enjoy about my work is feeling like I'm helping people. If I ever began to doubt that the work I was doing was, on balance, a social good, I'd find a different position or a different line of work altogether.

Sweetie's list was very similar. In fact, we had all items in common, except that he included "loved ones" as being rolled into "stability" with the rationale that his connections with family and friends are a big part of what make him feel grounded, and that instead of "giving back" he included "career." The way he explained it to me, that seems to be much less about his current industry or company or even professional field and more like "feeling useful" or "vocation." His example was that if he were to become a stay at home dad, or an entrepreneur, those roles would fill the same purpose in his life as his current job by giving him something to focus his productive energies on and allowing him to feel like he was accomplishing something.

We each made our lists independently before coming together to talk about them. It's a comfort to know that we're so much on the same page at this stage of the game.

The State Of Our Union

Sundays are State of the Union days in our house, when sweetie and I sit down to talk about how we're doing relationship-wise. Sometimes they're quick check-ins, sometimes we get into a little more depth, depending on what we've got going on. In this year leading up to our wedding, we've decided to make finances a central part of our State of the Union talks. Over the next couple of months, sweetie and I will be reading Smart Couples Finish Rich by David Bach and discussing the latest chapter at SOTU.

Sweetie and I have different approaches to money. Obviously, right? We're different people with different histories and different priorities. We have different incomes, different amounts and types of debt, different spending and tracking habits. We are still in the process of combining our finances, and we don't know yet what level of integration we expect to have after we get married, but even if we keep separate accounts and separate liabilities, we're hitched. For real, y'all! If his boat sinks, so does mine, and vice versa. It's kind of scary, actually, and would be more so if I didn't trust him so much!

Anyway, because money is so darn personal, we've never spent a lot of time thinking about how we might function together as a unit. I pay my bills, he pays his bills, we have a joint checking account out of which we pay utilities (split down the middle evenly), and each month he gives me a fixed contribution to put toward the mortgage, which is in my name. That contribution is a lot like rent, except we don't call it that since neither of us likes the implication that he's nothing but a boardinghouse tenant. It's been a good system for us.

But until we decided to get married, I didn't consider it my business how much money he was saving for retirement or how he was going about paying off his credit cards. That was his money, and therefore was his business. By the same token if he had ever suggested I might be better served putting the money I'd just spent on plane tickets toward paying down my home equity loan he may well have gotten an earful. It's my money. I earned it, I decide what to do with it. It's not that we never talked about retirement or debt or budgeting, just that we approached the topic like National Geographic narrators, neutrally gathering information, impartially observing, moving slowly so as not to scare off the one we were observing. That was a good process. It served its purpose. We were comfortable enough with one another's priorities and practices to decide that becoming permanently legally entangled (as opposed to permanently emotionally entangled, I suppose) makes sense to each of us.

Which is not to say that either of us actually likes the other's priorities and practices enough to adopt them ourselves, wholesale. Here's where the fun part begins.

On the agenda for this week's SOTU is Chapter 1 of Smart Couples Finish Rich, which addresses facts and myths about couples and money. Honestly, there's not a lot of content here, certainly nothing new or revolutionary to me--especially considering that I read Smart Women Finish Rich a couple of years ago, before I meet sweetie, and this is largely the same stuff. Compounding interest rivals the law of gravity in its power to control the universe, invest steadily if modestly over time and you'll come out ahead, maximize your tax advantaged vehicles, fiddle dee dee, fiddle dee da. You've heard it before, I hope.

The main takeaway from Chapter 1 is that couples who aren't on the same page about their finances are in for a rough ride, and couples who plan together and work as a team come out far ahead in the longterm. Point taken, David, that's why we're reading your book, and why I'm sitting through it for what feels like the second time. In fact, the true/false checklist exercise is nearly identical. However, where the Smart Women checklist left me feeling very self-satisfied indeed for knowing what my life insurance benefits were, and knowing precisely what my fixed monthly expenses are and how much the variable expenses vary, the Smart Couples checklist left me feeling like an underacheiver. I may know a lot about my financial state, but neither of us, as it turns out, knows very much about our financial state. OK, David, you've convinced me, maybe it's worth proceeding to Chapter 2 after all.