“I maxed out my credit cards on our $45k wedding”

There were definitely a couple of times where I had $10,000 in my savings account and then, like, frivolously drained it. That's. I think what freaks Tori out so much is that when we first started dating, like, it is like Jekyll and freaking Hyde. It's two different people. Last week, we brought in, I mean, truly, like, $5,000 just in one week. She still felt super guilty about. I don't know. I think we maybe spent $75 on a date. It definitely feels sometimes like a divided effort, not a united effort.

It is stressful, Very stressful.

If one of you were to become injured for three months, you couldn't bring in any income, what would happen?

I think we would lose everything. Credit cards are already completely maxed out. We would have to either sell or rent the house, and then, God forbid, the emergency bills and all that that comes with it. I mean. Yeah, and some deep. That's for sure. I could cry right now, honestly.

Meet Amy and Tori.

Amy's 28. Tori's 27.

They're recently married, and suddenly they feel like they are drowning with their finances.

We're going to start at how they.

Got married and how they spent tens of thousands of dollars on their wedding and put it on a credit card. Listen to what happened next.

Our wedding was approaching, and we were feeling the stress financially.

How many months out was your wedding when you wrote this application?

Our whole wedding planning process was only four months.

Well, I guess since it's only four months, you might as well just take me back to the beginning.

Okay, what happened? I had recently quit my job, so I went on a trip with my mom, and I fell in love with this wedding venue. So we'd been engaged for a year and a half. We hadn't really been planning anything. And then this wedding venue spoke to me. I called Tori while I was out of town. I was like, would it be crazy if we got married in September this year? She was like, no, that's not crazy. I'm like, perfect. And within a week of that tour, they sent a contract to us.

How much was the contract for the venue?

Just the venue. It was, like, about 25,000.

Okay. Is that what you expected.

For me? Yes. Because I have a degree in events, so I think I'm also very desensitized to, like, how much events cost.

Okay.

So I knew that it was, like, venue cost, food and beverage, open bar. I was thinking about all the things that we wouldn't have to spend the money on because it was all included with the Venue. So to me, it felt super logical, and I had a lot of hope for more contribution from family.

I didn't think that it was actually going to get to the contract part. I was like, ah, this is kind of going to flop. I was like, this is just her being super excited coming home. She saw the place for the first time, so I just thought she was just super excited. And then there was a contract.

All right, so you signed the contract. What happened next?

I'd say from my perspective, we started kind of reaching out to family to gauge how much they were going to be able to contribute. I know very specifically what I expected and how I kind of, like, pitched it. I was like, if my parents do 10 to 15 and my grandparents do 5, and then each of your aunts and uncles are able to do two to three, I felt that that would cover the majority. And then I was also like, if we do a registry that's only cash funds and we don't ask for gifts, we were only doing 50 guests. So I was like, if our 30 friends contribute a hundred dollars each, then that averages like 3,000. So I added it all up, and I was like, I feel like we'll have about 30,000.

We're gonna make a profit off this one?

Well, no, because I knew, like, the venue wasn't the only cost.

Okay, true.

I hoped that that would be covered, and then everything else would. Would only be our problem.

So you were thinking, like, 25 to 30k from family. And how much did family end up contributing?

Maybe like, 10, 15?

Yeah, I'd say about 15.

That's a lot of money, right?

It is a lot.

All right, so. All right, so you were expecting 25. You got 15. What happened next?

It just, as weddings do, was more than we could have anticipated, so it fell on us. And in such a short time frame, too. Like, I feel like when people are getting married and they plan a year or two years out, those deposits don't stack up like that. It felt like we owed someone $5,000 every week or two.

And the 35k that you both discussed, where'd you come up with that number? Oh, got quiet.

I think. Just kind of, like, observed averages. It wasn't really based on anything about us.

Well, I observed that billionaires have multiple mansions in multiple cities, as well as multiple private jets. So should I use that as my guideline?

No.

No.

Oh, all right. So you kind of just like, picked 35k out of the air.

I'll kind of go into it a little bit deeper because I Feel like we knew we could at least put 25 on credit cards. We were like, we know we at least have that.

What? What? What? Wait, that's not the direction I thought that sentence was going to go. You know, you can at least put 25. What is. Is that because your credit card limit was 25?

That's the limit that we had. And we're like, okay, well, maybe family could put towards the rest. It was not thought out, I will say. I mean, it was thought out, but it wasn't really written down and we didn't stick to it.

It wasn't saved for, like, no.

Bills started piling up. You signed the contract. Now you've got more stuff to sign. And then what were you feeling at that moment, Amy?

Overwhelmed. Like in over our heads. Like we were drowning. And just kind of like it was an inevitable drowning from how close the contracts were. Like, again, let's say that you booked your wedding out, a year out. Maybe you would only lose a $5,000 deposit and call it a day. But for us, it was such a quick turnaround that there was too much to lose to not move forward. So I was like, okay, now what do we do with this, knowing that we're going to be under this wave? Like, I feel like I was kind of calling out for help before drowning and hoping that, like, someone would pull us out.

How much did you end up spending total for the wedding?

I'd have to look at the budget again because I think we kind of stopped. You stopped updating it a month out?

Because you just know it's horrible. And at a certain point, I don't even want to look at how much it's costing because we know that it's way more than what we talked about two, three months ago, six months ago.

Yeah.

Like, if I pulled up our wedding app right now, I could tell you what it was as of probably a month before, but I think it would end up being maybe 5,000 more than that.

Sorry. You said the magic words. If you pulled. Pull it up, let's see it. Hold that thing up to the camera. What app is this, by the way, Zola? Tell us the number and then we add 5,000 to it. Go ahead. What do you got?

Okay, hang on.

She goes, if I pulled it up, like, it's the most unlikely thing in the world. I'm like, get that app out. Let's go.

Okay, let's see.

Oh, God.

So it was at 44,000.

Whoa. Okay, 44.

Yeah.

Uh huh. And what do we see beneath it?

So venue was 6650. Food and beverage, 18,000. Photographer, 3100. Florist. I will say I'm really proud of how we saved money on our florals. It was only a thousand dollars.

Wow.

Our minimum quote for florals was six. Violinist, 375. Hair and makeup, 750. Wedding planner, 2000. Videographer, 3500. Flight 200 saxophone. We didn't end up paying for. Someone paid for it from our family at 600 rentals. We didn't have to do cake, and dessert was included with the venue officiant. Our family member did. So that might be. Oh, then there's more invitations. 100.

Okay. Okay.

This is what's in there.

I think we get it. So 44. Did that number surprise you?

Yeah, because I stopped looking at this. But I will say this is actually. I'd say if it's off maybe by a thousand or two, it's pretty up to date.

Should we add another 5,000? Do it.

I'd say two.

Okay, so let's say 46. 45,000. Let's just say. Yeah, 45,000. All right.

That's a lot. That's not what I wanted to spend for sure.

How did you pay for it?

Where we could, credit cards. And when we needed, like, cash money, it was all of our resources.

What is that, savings?

No, um, just as we made money, we threw it at vendors.

Oh, yeah. Uh, how much credit card debt did you walk out of the wedding with?

45,000 for me. But I. I wouldn't say that's all from the wedding. Now, it's also.

A little thing called.

Interest and called not having a nine to five and steady income.

What you just heard is incredibly common with large purchases. I'm talking about weddings, travel, houses. I did this myself. I had a number for our wedding.

Remember?

I had been saving for over a decade before I even met my wife. When it came to the wedding, I knew that we wanted to have a beautiful big wedding with all of our family. And accordingly, I gave myself a healthy margin of error because everybody told me, take your wedding budget and double it. Well, in my case, it was more than that. And by the end, I simply stopped looking at it and I wrote a book on money. What's the lesson here? The answer is to acknowledge that you and me and all of us are mostly the same. Forget that phrase. Personal finance is personal. A better phrase is most of us are mostly the same. Once you internalize that, you're going to start planning for all the predictably large expenses you have coming up in the next 20 years. And what's important is, is to also add a healthy margin of error. Because once you start to overspend on these things, and you will overspend, because, again, most of us are mostly the same. You'll have money set aside, and even an extra $5,000 or $10,000 in unexpected expenses will not cripple you. Of course, this means you have to know your numbers, and it means that you probably need to economize on certain things today so you can feel comfortable tomorrow.

We'll be right back.

Now back to the episode with Amy and Tori.

There were just a few other clues.

That really stood out to me. They put their wedding on a credit card, which is insane. Do not do that. Amy left her job during wedding planning. Wedding planning is one of the most expensive times in a couple's lives. Bad move.

And finally, they didn't save or plan ahead.

They just booked a venue because it spoke to her.

How was the wedding, by the way?

It was amazing.

Beautiful.

I love a good wedding, and I love seeing. I love talking to couples. And, you know, a beautiful wedding is a beautiful thing. Every anniversary, we look back at our photos and videos and we see things that we didn't even know were going on at our wedding, and we love it. So congratulations to you.

Thank you.

So you walked out of there with roughly 40,000 or so of credit card debt. When did you realize?

I would say on our honeymoon.

Where'd you go?

We went to Greece.

Okay. Is that included in the 40k?

No.

How much did that cost? That's so interesting.

Is interesting.

I'd say it cost that. Well, that is part of my credit card debt. Yes, but that wasn't part of the wedding budget. 10,000, let's say between maybe 8.

It's never lower. It's always higher than you think.

Yeah.

All right, let's say 10k. So 45k for the wedding. 10k for the honeymoon. That's 55k. What else?

Let's say eating out. That was.

That was definitely while we were on the honeymoon. So, yeah, we were definitely thinking and talking about money and. And, like, as we were flying home.

It definitely got rough.

Yeah, we were stressed.

What happened specifically when you were flying home? What do you remember?

I just remember us being super on edge, like, just not wanting to really eat out or very conscious, like, of spending.

Anything else we're missing here? We got the wedding. I'm talking about everything related to matrimonials. Wedding, honeymoon. Oh, go ahead.

I mean, we just bought a house.

A year and three months ago.

And when did you leave your job, Amy?

May, this year. So we got into the house September 2022, left my job May 2023, planned the wedding two months after leaving the job and then got married September 2023.

All right, that's a lot of change in one year. How much were you making at your old job?

60,000.

All right. And as an entrepreneur, in the last 12 months or you know, since you left to when you came back from the honeymoon, how much did you make?

Say like 1500amonth. On average, 7000 total. And September was a complete wash. Like $0 in September.

All right. You took a huge pay cut, basically.

Becoming for sure, for sure.

So I was a firefighter. I was making pretty good living. Nothing too crazy.

What does that mean?

How much, how much was I making? I think around like 60,000.

Firefighting was not making 60,000. I can tell you that right now. You were make. She was taking home sixteen hundred dollars every two weeks. That's right. Yeah. I really, I think we used to say you're mortgage or your salary was about 40,000.

Wow, okay.

Big difference.

That's right. That's right. Thank you, babe, I appreciate that.

So we got to talk about this house.

We paid all of our debt off. We were very strict. We wrote smart goals, we, I mean every week we're budgeting, we got what we wanted. And as soon as we started to get in the house, babe, she was just like, all right, like, woo, we're done. We got the house. And I think finances just started kind of, they weren't as strict anymore. Once we got into the house, it was a little bit more like lenient I think, because we finally achieved our goal.

Let me ask a couple of questions. How did you decide how much you could afford for your house?

What do you. What is the process when you go to get a house? They tell you what you can afford. That's how.

Yeah, what'd they tell you?

Like 360.

All right, that's not bad. Back in the day, they would approved you for $1.1 million. Yeah. This is crazy. Anyway, thank God they didn't do that. So you said, sounds great, I'll go ahead and take that loan. What was the interest rate you got?

Yeah, I'd like to get into that.

Yeah.

We are in a new construction home. So one thing that we certainly didn't know is that when you go under contract, your interest rate is not locked.

Right.

We were very much unaware of that.

Okay.

And we were very much, I think, naive to the idea of interest rates going up quickly. So we went under contract November 2021. The interest rate at the time was 3.75.

Yeah.

Our mortgage payment was supposed to be 2,400. At the time, we were paying like 1800 in our one bedroom apartment. So we were like, okay, $600 more to own it. Three bedrooms, da, da, da. By the time that we were able to actually lock our interest rate, it had just been going up by like 0.25%. Felt like monthly. So now we're at 5%.

What's the payment per month now? Used to be 2,400. Right.

Was supposed to be.

Never Was supposed to be. Right, Right. And how much are you paying now?

Yeah, the mortgage is like 2970, and then the HOA is 200.

Oh, damn.

We only saw prices going higher. I don't know if you can remember November 2021, but the way it felt, something about the vibes in November 2021.

It was like, hurry up and get your house now.

That's literally. I don't know, maybe it was our friend group. It just, it truly felt like everyone was talking about it, like, if you don't get in now, it's just going to be way more expensive. So it felt urgent.

All right, so let me see if I get this straight, Amy. You left your full time job, became an entrepreneur, took a huge pay cut, you both spent $55,000 on your wedding and honeymoon, and then you have this house which is costing, like, way more than you thought, every single month.

Okay, yes, yes.

You missed one. So I left firefighting as well prior to her leaving. So we both left our job.

What'd you leave to do before this?

I was a barber, so I actually went back to doing hair.

How much did you make?

I was making 48,000.

I knew we were going to be in debt. I didn't know how much at the time. Now all of my credit cards are maxed out. We were kind of living off of mine and it's literally not possible.

Now we're trying to find what is the best thing to do because at this point now I think we are like suffering. You know, we have no credit cards to lean on. There's nothing to lean on. We have limited amount of resources as far as income coming in. So we, we've tried what we can. Like we stopped eating out and little things like that. So we are just like, you know, really looking for help.

What does it feel like when you talk about money today with each other.

It is stressful, very stressful. I think we just get so frustrated because I think we know how much debt we're in, and we don't know how to fix it. And we don't have, you know, much income coming in to save us. We not asking family because we already asked them. Right. So we are just. I think we get frustrated at each other.

It definitely feels sometimes like a divided effort, not a united effort.

And it sucks.

There's not a lot of planning going on here. It seems quite impulsive. The honeymoon they described is what really got me. If you find yourself on a trip and you're on edge because of how much the freaking shrimp cocktail cost, you have taken a very wrong turn. By the time you take a major trip, if you're following the I will teach you to be rich system, you should have already been planning it for months or over a year. You should have been putting money into a specific savings account named Greece honeymoon. You should have done an 85% estimation of the costs and then added 15% on top for things you did not anticipate. But you should never, ever get to a restaurant on vacation and worry about the price of a dish. If you do that, that is a haunting reminder to you that you got your planning wrong. And whether it's a pasta dish or whether it's buying a house you can't afford, it's very important for you to know that you can live a rich life if you plan ahead.

I understand the mechanics. You both left your jobs, you bought a house, you got married. I get that. Do you know why all of that happened?

Firefighting was making her miserable. And so as her partner, I'm like, you deserve to not feel that way. The moment that we closed on the house, literally that day, she left firefighting. I feel like I got pushed off of a cliff at my nine to five, where it was just becoming a toxic work environment, and I felt like I physically couldn't stay there anymore. I knew in the back of my mind that the wise thing to do before leaving your nine to five was to have three months saved up and no debt and all these things. We were not in the ideal position for me to leave my job, but it just felt no longer livable to be there. But definitely the wedding was like a frivolous, impulsive choice that put us way deeper down.

Talk to me about that. Why did it happen?

Just like excitement, honestly. We had started planning our wedding. We got. We got engaged March 2022, and we started planning Right away, we wanted to get married in Greece. And then we had family that said they couldn't travel. I, like, just could no longer see the vision of getting married. I was like, okay, if it's not Greece, I don't want it. So I think the fact that I was able to envision getting married anywhere again made me so excited that I just was like, let's go nosedive.

Tori, what about you?

When it came to the wedding, I was definitely more so. Like, I know this is not feasible right now. We just bought a home. I don't want to have this right now.

Say that. Did you say that to her?

I did.

And then what happened?

It was like things were just going so quickly, I think, you know, I wanted. I don't want to say my. I don't know how to say this. We were both really excited for the wedding, but I knew in the back of my head, and I don't think I spoke up as well as I should have. I think in that time, I really should have stood on my own two feet and just said, hey, we are not having this. We are not in the financial position. We do not have a lot of income coming in. Like, we know this is not happening. She was really, really excited, and so I was like, okay, like, you're a planner. We've done this before with the house. Like, you know, like, it's all worked out. You have a background in planning and you're good with money. So I think this would be a good idea. But in the back of my head, I knew that we did not have the financial means to go that far.

Because saying no would make you. What?

It would make me, like, look bad. It make me look bad. And I just feel like I. I didn't want her to be sad. I didn't want her to feel like we couldn't do it.

So is saying no about money, Will that make Amy sad?

No. So I don't know. I don't know. I just felt like, you know, I. I didn't want to crush her bubble.

And then the house. Why'd you buy the house?

Good question.

To stop wasting money on rent is what it felt like at the time.

Hold on, hold on.

Yes.

I'm about to rip my skin off, and devil is going to come out right now. Hold on a second. Just. Editors, make sure we get this. You're going to show my real side here. You were wasting eighteen hundred dollars a month on rent. Going nowhere. Building. No, finish the sentence for me, please.

No home and no equity.

No equity. Equity can't find a nickel after 30 years. All of your peers are rich, they own country clubs. All because they started by buying one single family home. That's the American dream. You have to build equity.

Like, at the time, my credit score was 800. I was making a comfy 60,000. She was in a steady job. Like, I had $25,000 saved and counting.

Can I ask a question? Because you said that we did it with the house and things worked out, but the house is costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars more than you thought it would.

Right?

Did it work out?

I would say no. Now. Now? Seeing, like everything that I see now. No.

At each step, it was just like turning the temperature up a little bit until it started boiling. And you didn't realize what was happening along. Am I correct? I don't mean to put words in your mouth.

Yeah, There wasn't necessarily a vision.

It was a lot of escaping from something bad, AKA jobs. It was, oh, my God, everyone's talking about this. I don't want to miss out. Fomo, let's go. And where do we get our information? We get it from the broker or the lender. Like the last places we should get information from. And the wedding. It's like, oh, you signed the contract. Like, we gotta go.

Yeah.

Less of a vision, more reactive. I wanna add a layer to that, which is affordability. Because the worst thing, financially speaking in a situation like this, to be house poor. Like, for example, how often did you used to eat out? And how often do you eat out now? Look at those big smiles.

We used to eat out and go on dates all the time. Yeah, we maybe once a month now. We really don't go out. We can't afford it.

And the mentality around it is we don't deserve, like, she used the words the other day. We don't deserve, uh.

Oh, yeah. Puritanical penance. Y' all made a mistake. You followed the American law and now just the da da, da. Part of that American dream is you rush into huge financial decisions without thinking them through, and then you spend the rest of your life doing penance, feeling guilty about it.

Last week we brought in, I mean, truly, like $5,000 just in one week. It was like the best week both of us had. The best week that we've had financially in both of our businesses. And she still felt super guilty about. I don't know, I think we maybe spent $75 on a date.

Tori, I'm curious about your money upbringing.

Okay.

If you had to describe it in a word or two, what would you say?

Money was actually not a topic in the household at all. If my parents were to talk about money or speak about money, it would say, hey, we're having a grown up conversation. You need to leave the room.

So you didn't. You weren't exposed to it. That's a adult topic. And what other phrases did your parents say about money?

Money is evil. Oh, you. Yeah. Very, very poor mindsets, for sure, around money.

What else?

You know, the people at the top, you know, can get a little greedy, things like that.

Are they religious?

They are. They were. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. They were. All right. And as you got older, into adolescence, you know, you became a teenager, what do you remember about money in your family?

Both of my parents passed away, so I did not have a clear foundation on money, even getting in college, taxes, things like that. So I really had to learn that myself. And with the people around me, which were as young as I was, so that was extremely difficult.