Your Money or Your Wife . . . Take the First Wife, Please . . .

“Of course there’s a catch! You have to spend the thirty million, but after thirty days you’re not allowed to own any assets. No houses, no cars, no jewelry. Nothing but the clothes on your back! Now, you can hire anybody you want, but you have to get value for their services. You can donate five percent to charity and you can gamble another five percent away, but you can’t give this money away, and that includes buying the Hope Diamond for some bimbo as a birthday present.” – Brewster’s Millions (1985)

Thankfully, they won’t let me down.

I’ve spent quite a few posts talking about money.  Money is important, because they won’t give me beer and PEZ® without money, so that’s why I write about money and the jobs that will get you money.  Money is also the underpinning of the financial system that runs the world that brings me that beer and PEZ™, so I get to write about that, too, and it’s fun since I’m an economics nerd.

But wealth is more than a 401K and a stock portfolio and stacks of gold coins hidden in a fake plastic pipe in a building somewhere downtown, though those are a good start. (And with a blowtorch and some pliers I managed to get the old man to tell me where that fake pipe was.)  Wealth, true wealth, mainly involves you.  And a blowtorch.  But don’t forget the pliers because you never know where their weakness will be.

If you’re satisfied with what you have, you’re wealthy.  It’s that simple.  And it doesn’t need to be as much net worth as a typical Congressman has ($900,000 in the House, $3.2 million in the Senate) to be wealthy.  Your wealth is determined by what you need.  If I could tattoo that phrase on every kid in America on their forehead (backwards, so they can read it every time they look in the mirror), then my kids would not look so out of place with their forehead tattoos with that same phrase.  I’m sure that interviewers for future jobs will be impressed by their dedication to personal financial management.  Or, you know, the blowtorch and pliers will convince them that these kids are a great fit for the position.

But the biggest determinate for wealth for many people is simple.  I’m surprised that I haven’t gotten to this topic in all that time, since it’s so very basic.

Your choice of spouse is the most important factor in being wealthy*.

*This doesn’t apply to Bill Gates or Elon Musk.  Nor, really, does it apply the really, really wealthy people in the world.  If you have so much money that your spouse can’t spend it all, you’re fine and you can skip the rest of this post, though there will be questions on the final about it.

Less than $15,000,000 or so net worth?  Keep reading.

Why is a spouse so important?  A spouse often determines the minimum lifestyle the family will accept.

• Keeping up with the neighbors isn’t a factor with your spouse. Overheard story:  “I’m so jealous of Sheila, she’s rich enough she doesn’t have to drive a brand new car.”
• The spouse may make the majority of the spending decisions in the house. In my case, I bought our present house without The Mrs. ever having been to it.  The Mrs. only saw a few dodgy photos from my cell phone, which was a really cool Blackberry® with a keyboard.
• Open and honest communication about money is crucial. And I assure you that money conversations can be brutal when you don’t have a bunch of cash in the bank.  The conversations can be brutal even when you have money.  Conversations about money are conversations about values, about choices, and can be the most emotional conversations outside of who gets to pick the next movie on Netflix®, since we all agree that Netflix™ is serious.

Way back in the 80’s, there was a movie called “Brewster’s Millions.”  A guy (Richard Pryor) had to spend $30,000,000 in thirty days and have nothing to show for it so he could get $300,000,000, which was exactly like my first marriage, except that it didn’t involve John Candy and we didn’t get $300,000,000 if we got ourselves into debt servitude forever.

My first marriage, in a movie involving John Candy.

I’ve been married once, even though the law says twice.  I’d say that the first marriage was an assignment in creating as much debt as possible in the shortest amount of time while leaving nothing to show for it, but that minimizes the hate and discontent.  Let’s put it this way – it was like a Mad Max® movie, but with less civility and shotguns, and more lawyers and spreadsheets.

As the marriage unwound, we both agreed it would be best if X moved while we had a nice meal at Taco Bell®.

X:  “I think it would be good if I moved out.”

John Wilder:  “Yes, I think it would be good if you moved out.”  (Inside John Wilder’s head: OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD YES, SHE’S GONE!  GONE GONE GONE!)

On her last day at the house, she put a plastic grocery bag filled with bills on the kitchen table.  She then handed me a checkbook.  “I have no idea how much money is in there,” and walked out.

Several hours later, after going through eight inches of bills (this is not an exaggeration) I realized that I was, outside of my mortgage, more than a year’s salary in debt.  Adding my mortgage? The debt went up to everything I made for three years.  And that didn’t included all the other bills like food, water, power, bubble bath, and PEZ®.  And you, Internet, know my maxim is:  “if you can’t solve it with a spreadsheet, you can solve it with a shotgun.”  The spreadsheet was gloomy.

The spreadsheet may be gloomy, but wine never lies.  Until the alarm goes off at 6AM.  Then wine is a big cheating liar.

All in all, I guesstimate that the first marriage cost me $250,000 directly, and more than that indirectly when you count up the money I could have made if I could have saved that money.  A lot more.  Let’s just say that it’s not a lie to say that my first marriage probably cost me $1,000,000 in the long run.

But Henny Youngman answered the question of, “Why are divorces expensive?”

“They’re worth it.”

X did not see eye to eye with me on a lot of things, and money was one of them.  Spending now for fun now that you had to pay for later, was okay with her.  It wasn’t so much with me, and that was not good for either of us.  We didn’t agree.  Divorce eased a lot of stress.

When I met The (soon to be) Mrs., I was curious about her relationship with money.  The fact that she managed to live in a tiny apartment with minimal needs, infrequent and small purchases of frivolous items like PEZ® dispensers, made me pretty sure that we were on the same page as far as money and PEZ™ went.  If you don’t need it, don’t buy it.

And in our relationship, we eventually set up spending rules – if it wasn’t food for dinner or at a cost of $20 or less, we had to confer.  Yes.  $20.  Amazingly small for 2018, so let’s call it $60 today.  It’s not our current limit for buying stuff without conferring, it’s a bit higher, and, honestly I’m not sure it’s defined at this point.  But that limit, back then, was important.  We had mutual accountability, and we had to want something enough that we were willing to pitch it to the other.

“Really honey, I need a framed poster of Daffy Duck©, and look at the price!”

Yup.  Miss that poster.

So, we drove used cars for years.  Just kidding.  We still drive used cars.  They’re nicer used cars now, but still they’re used cars, even though we stopped being in debt outside of our mortgage after only three years after being married.  We haven’t bought a new car . . . this century.

We go out to eat more than once a month now.  A lot more than that – often between picking up kids from practice and the other million things we do in a week, well, we end up eating dinners of fast food that cost more than ribeyes for everyone grilled to perfection at home.  These are tradeoffs.

But we don’t have as many “needs” as we did even a decade ago.  The Mrs. gets a very nice bottle of scotch for Christmas and manages to snort it down during the year – The Mrs. even shares that scotch when The Mrs. is in a good mood.  If I didn’t get any presents for Christmas?  I’d be fine with that.  If I had enough time to devote to the hobbies I already neglect, that might be the nicest present.  One day I’ll build my own ICBM.

I’d call it Johnny Wilder Blue™ but they never asked me.

But if The Mrs. needed a new BMW each year?  If we had to have the nicest house in town?  If we had to have furniture that was new and coordinated?  If The Mrs. needed the newest fashions from whatever place in New York?  If the elastic waistbands in our underwear needed to work?

We’d be poor.

Because we don’t need those things, we’re wealthy.  An example:  I bought The Mrs. a new car.  It was actually used with 28,000 miles on it, but it was new to us.  The Mrs. hadn’t even seen it, outside of a crappy cell phone picture I sent to her.  When it arrived at our house, The Mrs. liked it.  Mostly.  Then I told The Mrs. that it cost 25% less than she thought it cost.  I’d put the car on my credit card, and got six hotel nights, too, as long as we were willing to spend the night in Albania.

“I love it.”

Tonight, I was driving one of our cars across the state to go watch The Boy wrestle tonight.  I realized I had more cash in my wallet than the car was worth according to the Kelley Blue Book®.  I’m thinking that if you can say that and you’re happy?  You’re wealthy.

Oh, and The Boy won.  He didn’t even have to use the blowtorch.

See how wealthy I am?