How it's all going so far, Part II

By: LOUISE ESOLA - Staff Writer | Friday, August 5, 2005 10:39 PM PDT ∞

A little over a month ago, I wrote about one of the first battles in Newlywedland, a place sprinkled with everyday I love yous, Blockbuster movie nights, daily morning breath, and joint financial statements.

That column was titled "How it's all going so far, Part I" and highlighted the challenges of being recently married, 'til death, and having to therefore compromise on such treasured possessions as my circa-1989 VCR and his long-kept boxes of supermarket receipts to make space for walking about our overpriced, Southern California 700-square-foot commode, I mean, abode.

Today's sequel will dive into the taboo topic of the joining of husband and wife in holy matri-money.

Donkey Kong ---- my loving husband who, I will remind you, does not want his name attached to my musings although, curiously, he insisted that I take his name ---- and I just recently cruised past our fourth-month anniversary.

Realizing that had we been movie stars that we would be in divorce court by now, we celebrated in style by ... are you ready? ... creating a Microsoft Office spreadsheet to track our everyday expenses on our brand-new home computer. Come again?

Yes, you read correctly. A spreadsheet.

And even more romantic, eventually Donkey Kong wants to create colorful pie graphs of where we are spending our money ---- mortgage, insurance, food, clothing, trips to Starbucks, vending machine must-haves, hair-care products ---- to look for trends.

The last time I did anything remotely like this was while taking the college-prep SAT, when I was asked in the math section to calculate how much Richard will probably spend on gasoline this month if 6.2 percent of his $20,556 annual salary goes for gasoline. What I wanted to know was, what did Richard do for a living?

Anyway, these new elements to our marriage ---- a spreadsheet and a pie graph ---- are just parts of a greater picture, so states Donkey Kong, a financial planner in training. In addition to keeping an eye on where we spend our money, we are now implementing a plan for our financial future by investing in our retirement accounts. We are?!

This is a big step for a woman who once thought a good investment was a pair of shoes that went with everything.

It's not that I am irresponsible. I have never attempted to enroll in a sort of witness protection program to avoid my student loans or creditors, and I have never been evicted or had my possessions removed by sheriff's deputies. It's just that for all of my single, adult life I was just about, give or take a few, spending 6.2 percent of my salary on gasoline, if you catch my drift (wink, wink).

For me, it was always dinner or a movie, never both. Every penny in my paycheck was usually spoken for days before payday. Boo hoo. Poor me.

Donkey Kong, who fares better than me at the pump and has made a decent living most of his adult life, refers to the unequal household income contributions that often accompany any marriage a form of, well, socialism. While he may be able to afford a Porterhouse, and I Spam, in the end we eat chicken ---- and from now on we record how much and when on the computer spreadsheet every night.

Knowing that money matters are among the top factors that contribute to divorce these days ---- after extramarital affairs, "Monday Night Football," and bad hairstyles ---- I am happily going along with our plan to keep financial records and to ensure that we'll be able to buy Porterhouse by the time we are all out of teeth to chew our meat.

Staff writer Louise Esola covers Oceanside schools. She can be reached at lesola@nctimes.com.