Financial Opposites in a Life Together

The goal of our meeting was to try to reconcile their different money philosophies before they opened a joint bank account to handle their household expenses. They needed to figure out a way to track Mr. Bartones earnings, most of them in cash, which they were not entirely sure of. She also wanted a better way to track their spending (and overspending). And both of them had accumulated significant credit card debt, which had to be tackled before they could begin to think about saving for a house.

Financially, we are opposites, said Mr. Bartone, who has a sleeve of colorful tattoos that climb from each wrist to his elbows. Total, total, total opposites.

Both of them were honest about their financial behavior: Mr. Bartone acknowledged that he was the spender. Ms. Bartone described herself as determined and goal-oriented, and said she had saved significant sums in the past. But they now owe more than $30,000 on credit cards, a topic that Ms. Bartone said she had avoided broaching.You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth carparkmanagementsystem truck Descriptions. So they had not had the tough talk about how best to stanch the bleeding and work on a joint plan to get out of debt. I have been really cautious about not stepping on his pride, she added.

But they volunteered to put it all on the table for their personal fiscal health day, the brainchild of my colleague Ron Lieber, which involves setting aside a full day to fine-tune finances and make headway on the money-related tasks that never seem to get done. I asked readers on the Bucks blog to submit their pleas, with the promise that I would meet with the candidate with the most compelling story.

Nearly 100 readers responded, many of them needing something more like an overhaul than a financial tuneup. There were tales of paralyzing student loan and credit card debts and crushing medical bills, as well as pleas from single people and young families hoping to do better than live paycheck to paycheck. Some lost their jobs in the recession, and had gotten new, lower-paying work and were trying to figure out how to live on less.

I chose the Bartones in part because their financial issues are all too common. Ms. Bartone, who has curly brown hair and a contagious smile, wanted to make sure she and her husband were on the same financial page and to set priorities on their financial to-do list. She also felt it would help to have a neutral third party to walk them through the process given that they are financial opposites. She calls herself neurotic and keeps spreadsheets. He puts his cash tips in a kitchen drawer.

The biggest accomplishment, by far, was having the newlyweds sit down at their dining room table to actually talk about their financial life, their differing outlooks and how their views were influenced by their upbringings. This was a huge step. My suggestion, unromantic as it may sound, was to make the money talk a weekly ritual, at least until they learned more about their income and spending patterns and made progress on paying down their debts.

The couple have lived together for several years, yet each still did not know exactly how much debt the other had. So Ms. Bartone created two lists of each of their credit cards, along with the outstanding balances and interest rates. She has already started to pay down the cards with the highest rates first, and she said she would help her husband set up his own plan of attack. But she had a good question: since the interest rates on Mr. Bartones cards were more than twice as high as hers, should she focus on paying down his debt first?

I told her she could not enable his behavior,We offer advanced technology products and services for howotipper control. particularly if he did not start to control his spending. But I also contacted an expert after I left Kristin Harad, of VitaVie Financial Planning, who had seen this situatLaser engraving and laser customkeychain for materials like metal,ion many times before.

Creating healthy habits as a unit is paramount, she said, since they are building a future together.Shop wholesale bestsmartcard controller from cheap. So yes, they should focus on paying down Mr. Bartones debt first. But that also means Mr. Bartone needs to remove the plastic from his wallet.

Dust flavours the air here and coats everything in a patina of grime. Cars shudder along unsealed roads and leave a trail of smoke as though they're on fire or disintegrating before your very eyes. The landscape is wide swatches of single colours - blue, yellow, red - that destroy all sense of distances and time, so you are driving and going nowhere, or merely slouching into oblivion. I have come here to camp, which feels appropriately transient for a place in endless states of erasure. But first: that question of water. The machine beeps, regurgitating paper. The woman narrows her eyes. Then she hands over a pen with an impatient wave of the hand: sign here, stupid man. With a valuable lesson learnt, I've been granted the liquid means to stave off death for another few days.
Tsauchab River-carved canyons.

Even then, water is rarely far from my mind. The Tsauchab River, beginning in the southern Naukluft Mountains, is what is known as an "ephemeral stream", meaning it exists only in the rare instances of desert rain. While the Tsauchab may be an elusive sight, its effects have become legend: the ghostly salt pan of Sossusvlei, which fills up as a desert lake; Sesriem Canyon, carved by the river over centuries; and Deadvlei, strangest of all with its black, twisted trees and surrounding walls of sand. Devoid of moisture, this place is defined by it anyway.

Within hours temperatures have soared, but I am adamant about walking to the Tsauchab's most famous creation, the "dead marsh",A group of families in a north Cork village are suing a bestplasticcard operator in a landmark case. or Deadvlei. Unlike Sossusvlei, which attracts flamingos when filled with water, this salt pan has long since declined as a place of refuge in the desert. Hundreds of years ago the river flooded the area, allowing camel thorn trees to take root in the sand. When it stopped flowing, however, the ground cracked into dramatic white plates and the trees seared black beneath the unrelenting sun. The result is something like an abstract painting, other-worldly and baffling. In The Cell, Hollywood used Deadvlei to represent the mental landscape of a serial killer. Jennifer Lopez wandered around it in a daze. Walking into the gnarled grove, I find myself doing something similar. All signs of life quickly fall away: the springboks, the hardy shrubs, the beetles with legs long enough to hoist their abdomens above the roasting sand. All that remains is silence and a pervasive sense of dread that has me clutching my water bottle like a crucifix.

Indeed, one small mistake is all it would take to send a person to their death here. The dunes surrounding Deadvlei are a moving maze. Earlier, I passed a car that had become hopelessly bogged in the sand, resisting the exertions of a team of sweat-drenched volunteers. Even balloon expeditions, floating high overhead in the early morning, are careful not to tempt fate by drifting too far into the desert. Human interaction is the equivalent of people on a beach, enjoying the ocean without paddling any further than the shallowest surf. Except everything here is reversed - the ocean is sand, and the beach is the precious domain of water. After fitful sleep through the hottest hours, I re-emerge in the late afternoon for a final foray to Sesriem Canyon, a short distance from my campsite near Sesriem gate. From above it looks like a jagged slash in the desert floor, nearly a kilometre long and between 20 metres and 50 metres deep.

Carved by the Tsauchab River millions of years ago, this odd formation was once the key to survival by local inhabitants and passing travellers. Sesriem means "six ropes": since a rope was originally made from the hide of an oryx, it took six, tied end to end, to reach the canyon floor where water could be retrieved for the pack animals using buckets.