Welcome to Money Talks! New approaches to money have exploded. Yet, money remains taboo. Less than half of you share personal finance information with your friends and family.
But that’s all changing. Now more and more of you are talking about money because it leads to better outcomes.
In an effort to provide personal finance insights through transparency (and have a bit of fun), I’ve created a series titled Money Talks that showcases how real people in Charlotte approach money.
It’s an anonymous way for you to share your money experiences and insights with our city. Answers are lightly edited for clarity and privacy (ex, exact age). Want to participate? Take the Money Talks survey.
Here’s a look into the personal finances of a couple in their early 50s without kids.
Job:
Both of us now work in marketing. We had mid-life career pivots from other fields.
As a result of my industry imploding in the 2008 recession, living in my parents’ basement, and not working consistently for a few years while paying off student loans, I have been playing financial catch-up. My husband is self-employed.
Our combined gross annual household income is approximately $300,000, split evenly between us.
Salary journey:
I started my career by accepting a too-low offer in a HCOL (high cost of living) area. It took a long time to catch up.
In hindsight, I should have obtained multiple offers for comparison, availed myself of more salary data, and educated myself on regional cost of living differences.
Work-life balance:
Great. 8-5 WFH jobs with minimal overtime.
Living situation:
We own. When we married five years ago, we refinanced the mortgage on my husband’s “bachelor pad” to an <3% interest rate. In conjunction, we changed to a 15-year mortgage term, which will save us over $100,000 in interest.
Also, our mortgage payment is approximately 10% of our net income, which gives us a lot of flexibility.
Debt:
We have no debt other than our mortgage. As a former basement-dweller, I am highly debt-averse.
Credit card:
We seldom use credit cards (work reimbursables or travel only) and pay any charges back immediately. We do not play the points game.
Budgeting:
We budget our spending via direct-depositing our paychecks into four checking accounts.
- Bills account – all bills on autopay at a different bank in a different state with no ATM card. This way bills are permanently protected against any overages in other categories.
- Discretionary account – food, gas, household goods, etc. “When we run out, we’re done.”
- My allowance account – clothing, haircuts, friend expenses. “When I run out, I’m done.”
- Husband’s allowance account – same, but he never runs out because he only buys fast food and wears the same clothes for decades.
We loosely follow the 50/30/20 format for budgeting. Our “needs” are 55%, our “savings” are 33%, and our “wants” are 12%.
Best expense:
Counseling. This is a superior investment because character development translates to better relationships and better career growth. Without it, I would never have been capable of marrying my husband.
The recurring expense on my mind is the love/hate relationship with my Club Pilates unlimited membership. It’s too expensive, but the advance reservation on the calendar plus the cancellation penalty has resulted in the only exercise habit that I have consistently maintained. If my job didn’t reimburse 50% of the cost I would have a hard time justifying it.
Splurge:
International travel. It unravels the “I’ve always done it this way” type of assumptions.
Any bonuses we may receive are earmarked for travel and/or renovations. If money were no object, we would buy a house in the mountains.
Charlotte Money hack:
$20 to go wild at Book Buyers or The Greener Apple is a fun Friday night on a budget. Seconded by the Airport Overlook. My other biggest money hack is buying clothes on eBay.
Restaurant pick:
This is one area of our lives with self-imposed ignorance. If I don’t know about fancy restaurants I won’t want to go to them. Our restaurant choices are pretty much exclusively fast-casual — a blowout for us is the Alley 51 Food Hall where my husband gets the short ribs.
Investment strategy:
We max out our 401ks and prioritize Roth 401ks. We have about $1M saved for retirement and 6 months of living expenses in an investment account, which are managed by our financial advisor.
Additionally, we save $600 a month in a HYSA (high yield savings account) for “oh $hit” type of expenses and/or a future car purchase.
We are eyeing the back-door Roth IRA route but haven’t pulled the trigger yet.
Net worth:
$1.25M generated by salary savings over our careers.
My No. 1 piece of advice is get comfortable with looking like a dork. Get new friends, move, and change jobs if you need to, but if your wardrobe/car/interior design/vacation/beauty regimen game is stronger than a C-, you are spending too much trying to impress other people.
I made the mistake of having an identity that required a fancy lifestyle to maintain. I’m thankful for having to eat the proverbial “humble pie” and get over myself.
Retirement:
I don’t know that we have a set timeline planned, it will probably be more of a gradual transition.
We are keeping our overhead low so that we can live on one income if one of us stops working or wants to do something other than paid work.
How much would you need to feel financial freedom?
I always have the freedom to make choices, and I can always choose to feel content with what I do have.
Even when I was so broke that my only food for the week was a box of pasta and a canister of oatmeal, I could still check out books at the library and enjoy nature, to experience freedom and as a hedge against feeling victimized.
What’s “rich” in Charlotte?
Not having to care about how much other people make, or how much you make.
Best financial decision:
Marrying my husband. Besides the fact that he is awesome, we share similar beliefs, which permeate into every aspect of how we make everyday choices.
We also learned incredibly valuable conflict resolution skills during premarital counseling which gives me such a great quality of life.
Worst financial decision:
Buying a BMW on my lunch break because I was too embarrassed to pick up a client at the private jet airport in my ten year old Volkswagen (this was before Uber was widespread.) There are so many things wrong with this scenario on so many levels!
On your mind:
With aging pets, we wrestle with the cost of veterinary care. We want to apply the Atul Gawande Being Mortal approach to animals, but there are still some expensive midlife investments to maintain the quality of their lives in the interim.
I also wanted to share that back in the Charlotte Agenda days, I religiously tracked every Cash Confessional article, and created a dashboard of the data to benchmark my spending and understand aggregate trends for Charlotte.
Money Talks is a weekly series showcasing how real people in Charlotte approach money. Participate.
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