The Lean Years

Posted by: Michael S. | Jan 13,2008


The lean years are often thought of those years immediately following college when you’re single and struggling with a new career and low starting salary.  For the most part this is how it works, even if there are those anomalies of people who have it cushy as soon as they graduate college.  For the rest of us, it’s cinderblock bookcases and Ramen for dinner.  

By the time it comes to wed, you’d think you’ve outgrown this type of lifestyle, but even if you’re both better-off than you were when you were 22, this doesn’t mean that marriage might mean a trip back to the lean years of your younger years.  The argument is that your likely going to be bringing in two incomes so that you’ve got better earning power.  This is tempered a bit by the fact that you’ve also got more expenses: feeding two instead of one, higher electricity costs, maybe even a larger living space.  When you combine debt issues than it can really seem like a couple is going back to square one.  

If a person is in debt this is a clear signal that he’s having trouble paying it off.  If he or she could pay it off in full, s/he would.  Say you are combining two different credit card debts.  One person has $6000 on a mid-interest card, the other has $4000 in debt on a high-interest card.  That’s $10,000 right there, a sizable credit card debt problem that can really put a drain on collective finances.  

So what to do?  Realize that you’ve got a problem and deal with it – as soon as possible.  One problem is that it’s difficult to balance transfer in this situation.  You can’t balance transfer two different balances onto one card so you’re stuck with doing it one at a time.  The result would be four cards at once: two primary cards and two balance transfer cards.  This is pretty cumbersome and could actually elevate the amount of money you pay out every month, even if on two of those bills you’re paying the balance in full sans interest.  

Instead of applying for a cumbersome list of cards, you could at least balance transfer the highest-interest card first and then transfer the second balance after the first is paid off.  If opening up more credit accounts sounds too risky, the plainest advice is to budget.  Get a strict estimation of just how much you’re both making and spending every month.  Whatever you can afford should go to your current credit card debt.  Just be prepared for the fact that the years immediately following a wedding are not dissimilar to the years following a college.  Don’t expect to move directly into a mansion.

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