First post about the "kids"

Here we all are!  The big one is Jack, the little one is Max.  I adopted Jack from the local animal shelter about four months before Aleece and I started dating.  Aleece had "loaned" Max to her mom while she was working on her master's in Maryland and had only had him back for about a month before we started dating.

As lovable as both dogs look, they can be pretty devious.  Both dogs are at times the most adorable animal you could ask for, but each also has moments where they are clearly just playing with my mind.

The Division of Labor: Husband Jobs and Wife Jobs (and a little Steve Jobs, too)

My wife and I have a very hectic schedule.  I work every weekday, usually leaving at about 6:45AM and coming home anywhere between 4:00PM and 9:00PM, depending on what I have going on at school. Musical season is even more intense.  As I have mentioned before, my wife is a PhD student and graduate assistant at MSU.  This semester, she had class/work Monday-Wednesday on campus, then worked from home and did homework Wednesday-Sunday.  Before we even look at concerts and festival performances for me and special campus events for her it is clear to see that our schedules are pretty tight.

Like any household, we have to maintain some kind of division of labor with household jobs that need to be done.  We have four animals to care for, which means vacuuming is a must.  We both eat and are committed to the Dave Ramsey budget, which means we do not go out to eat very often, so someone has got to cook.  And we still have to get the mail, take out the trash, scoop the cat litter, do the dishes, do the laundry and pick up after ourselves.  Keeping a household running takes some work!  In actuality, we take turns with a lot of jobs.  Who ever feels like cooking cooks.  Who ever feels like washing the pots and pans washes the pots and pans.

How I got from Sunday Jerk to Monday Fanatic

The short answer?  Being married.

The long answer? Read on.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my job.  Sometimes.  Sorta.  Some days I downright hated my job.

Before I got married, there were plenty of things about my job that I did not enjoy.  Some days it was a boss.  Some days it was a parent.  Some days it was a student.  Some days it was the politics of education, so recently put into the spotlight by conservative legislatures across the country.

Friday would arrive, and I was free.  I would spend the weekend with my fiance and our dogs, do homework, read, spend time with our parents, all of the fun things a weekend is for.

Then Sunday would arrive.  As Jon Acuff might say, I was a Sunday jerk.  All day I would stew, dreading my fiance’s return to school (two hours away) and my return back to work.

I would begrudgingly return to my “real” life, where my evil alarm clock was waiting.  (one of my first tweets ever was something along the lines of, “whatever advertiser decided to use an alarm clock in this ad ought to be shot.”  I seriously had a problem with my alarm clock!)

Why does it have to be this way?

I was determined to find out.

Wife Tax

The first thing you need to know is that my wife and I are on Dave Ramsey’s program, baby step #2 - the debt snowball.  If you are not familiar, hit the source link.  

The second thing you need to know is that my wife is a graduate assistant, which means she doesn’t have to pay tuition while working on a PhD. YES! AWESOME! HOORAY!  At roughly $1500 per class, this is HUGE!.  

What isn’t huge?  Her salary.  Her take home pay is about $15,000 a year.  The poverty line is where?  Before we got married, she would have qualified for food stamps!  Luckily, I have a job.

In my job as a high school music teacher, I make O.K. money.  I am not one of those teachers that thinks I am drastically underpaid.  My wages are fair.  Fair means that I use a budget and pack a lunch to work and eat leftovers for lunch.  The key word is budget. Before my wife came along and we got on the Dave Ramsey plan, this is what my budget looked like-

Monthly income, minus monthly expenses = roughly zero-ish, maybe more maybe less depending on what movies and xbox games I bought that month.

Now my budget is incredibly detailed.  My wife and I are both nerds.  We each have in-depth spreadsheets outlining every expense and every ounce of income before each month begins.  Over the top? Maybe, but it works for us.

Most importantly, it allows us to get a head and succeed with our debt snowball.

This is where the dirty word comes in.  Tax.