Don’t quit the good job for a start-up!!!! They go under so fast,and then what? I would consider consulting (for a nice fat fee) for the start-up company and see where it goes from there.

Pawn shops have nice ring sets that can be easily resized. But no, a ring is not a requirement to get married.

@ Hannah: I agree about the space, but not the cooking. If I want to have healthful produce on hand and want it to last, it basically has to be frozen; I have tried with fresh ingredients and stuff almost inevitably spoils before I can use it, which is not cheap. But while frozen food can be had for a dollar or two a bag, I have a tiny freezer and can’t fit that much. Unfortunately I cannot just run to the grocery store every day either depending on where I have to be and the logistics of getting around. Eating out is something I have grudgingly grown to accept as an accomodation, and try not to do so extravagantly.

I think a woman can be perfectly sensible and still be concerned about a partner who can’t (or chooses not to) afford to spend more than 50 cents on an important symbolic gift. Particularly if it’s accompanied by a promise that ten years from now he’ll have his financial head on straight, but he shows no evidence of moving in that direction.

Until one day I wasn’t.

Two years ago I had a condition that was very treatable through surgery, and correctable. But it was dangerous while it was happening and cost me >$80K in surgery fees. I still paid $12K out of pocket. I could afford $12K. I could not afford $80K. Through insurance I also had the choice of the best doctors to address my condition.

If you are self-employed, you NEED insurance. period. You could lose everything you have – and ALSO not have options for good care when sick if you don’t. Don’t be stupid.

However, I agree with the others that you need to stay in the town where the current better paying job is,& get your finances in order – & hold off on getting married. The commute is crazy & downgrading your job to relocate is the same. What if things don’t move forward with the girlfriend – wouldn’t you kick yourself for sacrificing there? She’s said she’ll give you some time, so use it!

That stuff gets old- I know a lot of people still don’t get it, but I like that Trent relates every day kinda stuff to finances.

However, if you have at a minimum a bachelor apartment of 200 sq ft or anything larger, you should be able to have people over. Maybe get a folding table and extra chairs that you can put in a closet/storage locker that you can bring out when you have company or get furniture that is more compact. Get a kettle/coffee maker and pick up baked goods from the grocery store that you can freeze and heat up when you have guests.

Also, it can be hard to entertain in a bachelor because everything is open and its harder to ‘hide’ your mess. This shows the importance of keeping the place tidy and uncluttered.

As for cooking/groceries, cooking at home is pretty much always cheaper. Cooking for one IS tough and gets some getting used to, but it is worth it. If you dislike your tiny kitchen, try cooking once or twice per week only and get some pyrex containers to freeze leftovers in individual portions that you can heat up like frozen entrees. Also, if living alone you can have things like pb & j, cereal, grilled cheese at any time of the day just like in college because you only have to feed yourself. For things like soup, its easier to just buy canned than making a big pot that will be a pain to freeze etc. Make sure you have a toaster, kettle, microwave and blender. Also, if you are trying to eat healthy then its easy to pick up veggies and fruits every 2 or 3 days so you always have just what you need and it doesn’t take a lot of room.

Obviously when looking for advice online, stay away from things like big containers of stuff, and bulk packages because in small apartments they take a lot of room and go to waste.

Q3 : I wonder if Trent is talking about the same TV show? Trent says: “no one seemed to reveal how much they were actually saving” If you watch the show called Extreme Couponing on TLC then the amount they save is definitely something they talk about a lot. They repeatedly say exactly about exactly how much the bills cost and how they save 95%-99% and paid $50 for $1200 of groceries or whatever the exact #’s are. They show the receipts. Its a major part of that show.
I have watched the Extreme Couponing show a couple times. I don’t recall seeing anything that I’d consider fraud or rude behavior.

Q6 : I don’t think that getting married right away is the solution to all your problems. It may just make things worse. Right now you have to decide if you want to keep the higher paying job in the city or move back home for lower pay. You could pay more for get another apartment in the city to reduce your commute and travel home on weekends, or you could live with lower pay and have no commute. I’d involve your girlfriend to see which she prefers. Maybe she wants to see you more as her #1 priority and maybe she isn’t as concerned with the debts. Maybe she is busy herself and ok with seeing you all weekend and thinks you need to get your finances in shape. Your girlfriend’s opinion matters more than the opinion of strangers on the interweb.

Q8 Fraser : I disagree with Trents advice to say you prefer homebrews. Thats just a diversion. Use open honestly. Tell your friends you want to save money for whatever your goals are. Are your friends calling you a cheapskate in other circumstances? Or is it ONLY when they want to go out and you balk at the high cost of $8 beers? If $8 beers are normal in your town and you and your friends have healthy incomes then they are likely just giving you a hard time cause they want you to go out with them. How about you go out and just drink free water or a $3 coke and be the designated driver? Or if your friends are just total spendthrifts and call you a cheapskate for anything and everything then there will be no easy convincing them that you’re not a cheapskate. If they’re the spendthrift and you’re normal then they’re wrong and you’re right. You can’t just fix that. Or maybe you are a cheapskate and they’re normal.

Plus, even more than a parent not wanting their daughter to marry somebody in Chris’s situation, there’s absolutely no evidence that the girlfriend wants to marry somebody in his situation!

Right now, the only thing we know about her is that she’s giving him time to get his finances in shape – “She has said before she’s willing to wait for me to get my finances squared away, but she doesn’t think she can wait a decade”

My own instinctive reading of that is that if he doesn’t get his finances squared away, she’ll seek a different relationship, because that makes more sense to me (possibly because of my own biases) than reading this as him insisting he wants to be financially secure but her wanting to get married now. And if she’s ‘sensible,’ as Trent mentions, she’ll turn down the cheap ring and/or an expensive one until Chris has things more figured out.

You need to move closer to your $66k job. You have too much debt to take a huge pay cut, especially when your girlfriend/future wife could lose her job.

Your debts are $1,300 a month right now. That’s before you eat, pay rent or drive one mile. I like the suggestion others made of moving halfway. An hour isn’t that much of a drive (though I live in California so that’s my perspective). Taking on the amount of debt you did limits the choices you have. It may not have been entirely your fault, but that doesn’t so much matter now.

I think Trent focused on marriage because it seems that the letter writer’s biggest problem with taking a lower paying job in his hometown is that he won’t be able to save for a ring. Trent’s advice eliminates that problem. However, while I agree with Trent that weddings and rings shouldn’t be expensive, I’m not so sure if that’s going to go over too well with the letter writer and his gf. From the tone of the letter, they seem pretty set that he needs a ring he has to save up for, and that mindset is hard to break. Also, if they’ve been talking about marriage after he gets his finances together, suddenly changing that to “now” might be a hard sell.

But, whether he gets married or not, he still needs to decide whether or not he wants to keep this job. Does he really like the job, or does he just want a job that he can save for a wedding ring with (which is a terrible idea, because either living long distance or being gone from the house the entire day are much worse for relationships than cheap rings). He also probably shouldn’t count on her moving with him. She didn’t in the first place, and she probably has a lease on her place that would be expensive to break. If I was him, I’d take the lower paying job and gradually talk to her about marrying cheaply.