One thing I wish I'd known before I got married...

I don't mean to catfish you into reading this blog post. I hate those stupid articles on facebook that are like
"10 things you're doing to ruin your marriage"
"You'll never believe this homeless man's reaction when  someone offered him a job"
"$10 and 10 minutes later, you'll never believe what this lady made!"
"He catches his wife crying while doing laundry. Then she tells him the shocking truth."

Anyways...you get the idea. I HATE these articles. I ALWAYS get sucked into them! I can't resist! And sometimes they are insightful things that could help my life, but I just HATE them. That's why I deactivate my facebook so often, strictly because I hate those stupid articles. But then I'll reactivate to check when a friend gets home from her mission, or because I heard someone got engaged, and then I'll keep it activated and three weeks later I'm spending my whole day reading those stupid articles on facebook! So then I deactivate it again for 2 weeks, or a month, or 3 months, and then it happens all over again. It's a never ending cycle! Anyways, I TOTALLY feel like the title of this blog is one of those articles, just trying to suck you in. It might be worse if I called it "One life changing thing I wish I'd known before I got married..." then it would DEFINITELY be one of those articles. But it's totally not. So I'm sorry if you feel like you got sucked into reading this article because of the enticing title. But it's not going to be heart touching, or life changing, or anything of the sort. It's just as surface level as all the other stuff I write about on here. So if you feel like you got sucked into reading this when you didn't want to. Go ahead and stop now. You'll survive if you don't know the ONE thing I, personally, wish I had known before I got married.

So here it is. I wish someone would have just sat me down and told me to SPEND MONEY before I got married. I wish someone would have told me that my money is ALL mine. That spending it doesn't effect anyone else but me! And that it's never gonna be that way again. So there's never a better time in my life to do a little splurging!

I'm a hardcore budgeter. I love finances, and budgeting, and saving, and making all the numbers add up so prettily, and being thorough. I'm always reading a new finance book. Budgets and finance comes up all the time in my conversations. And now that I'm growing up, I'm trying to learn more about investing, but I'm still pretty new in that area. So if you have any knowledge, I'd love to talk :) So this advice is for people like me. People who are penny-pinchers and like to save. I wouldn't recommend taking this advice if you already splurge on everything.

Anyways, I lived on a budget before I got married. I had a good sized savings account for a poor single college student. I didn't have any debt and I've never lived paycheck-to-paycheck. But I wish I would have known before I was married that this would be the LAST TIME that my money is ALL mine. That I can (and should) do whatever I want with it. That it's the last time in my life that splurging on the new purse can be a priority over the million other bills I will have once I'm married. And not that me and Sam even have a lot of bills compared to some people, but it's that getting-a-new-skirt-because-I'm-sick-of-all-the-ones-in-my-closet is not a priority on our list of things we need to buy this month. And now I'm realizing that I totally could have bought that skirt when I wasn't married and it wouldn't have made a difference at all! I just chose not to because I am such a budget nazi.

So whenever one of my single friends is like "should I buy this really expensive shampoo I've been wanting forever?" I'm like "YES!" because if you don't get it now, you'll never get it. Because even though it's a relatively unimportant thing to spend money on, it will become even LESS important once you're married.

And don't take me wrong. I LOVE being married. I'm not saying "oh marriage sucks, don't get married. You can't do anything" I'm just saying that I wish I would have bought that $100 hobo wallet I've wanted for YEARS, or splurged on a new swimsuit, or bought the new pair of shoes, because it wouldn't have effected anyone else but myself. But now that I'm married, splurging on something effects more people than just me.

So for all you single people out there like me, I just want you to realize that your money is ALL yours. That spending it doesn't effect anyone else but you! And that it's never gonna be that way again. So there's never a better time in your life to do a little splurging! That's all :)

PS- while I'm on the subject- Lately I've just been wanting to walk into a store and just buy my favorite thing. Not my favorite thing out of the clearance section, not my favorite thing under $20, but just my favorite thing in the whole store. Most my clothes (who am I kidding, most of EVERYTHING I own) comes from the clearance section of discount stores. So the clothes are already marked down, and I'm still shopping in the clearance section! I just look forward to the day when I can walk into a store, and buy what I want, not because of the price.