Wait, We Can't Just Drink Until Morning Anymore?

From being a few twenties short of rent to filling each others' gas tanks to sharing groceries to buying (very necessary) Comic-Con passes for each other, my girlfriends and I have bailed each other out of some tough spots over the years. Two of us even went as far as swapping our matching cars for a month to hide from the Repo Man when he was after us both, so spotting each other some cash on Girls' Night Out is a given. If one of us is unemployed or just plain broke, the rest of us cover her; no questions asked, no IOUs written, and it almost always shakes out in the end.

Unless you're Emilio Estevez circa 1984, you ain't gettin' our Corollas!

(They eventually got our Corollas.)

After I got married, Girls' Night became a painstakingly scheduled-in-advance, once-a-month event instead of an automatic two nights a week out at the bar. At the time, I had a Proper Grown Up Job as an accounting assistant for a medium-sized online retailer, raking in more money than I remember earning in my entire life, (except for the time I shilled overpriced sunglasses in a Major Upscale Department Store.) Girls' Night 2.0 relocated from the dive bar to the wine bar and if anyone came up short, I'd slap my debit card down and cover her myself. I was finally rolling in the coinage a la Scrooge McDuck and I was determined to help a sister out whenever I could.

All was well. We'd split the cost of fancy wine & cheese, we'd clink our fancy glasses full of fancy booze, and for a while no one's wallet felt too violated. I don't even like Sex and the City that much, but I think we all felt Very Cosmopolitan. Everything was coming up Charlotte (I'm no Carrie), so naturally it all went wrong after a few months. The Chief Financial Officer I assisted turned out to be a corrupt sleazo who skimmed off the top, cooked the books and made me a party to his Joel Osteen-inspired embezzlement. I hand-picked my replacement and ran screaming back to my blue collar restaurant job after eight months. A month after I left, the company's original founder marched in with a court order and took the company (and the company cars) back from the sleazo, who had to hitch a ride home in some other guy's mini-van.

The decision to leave that job was one of the smartest I've ever made (and other than marrying Husband, most of my decisions have been questionable, at best), but we took a big hit in the pockets when my Batman-like sense of morality forced me to ditch the accounting gig. For the first few months, Husband and I didn't feel the slowly tightening pinch. We had savings, because we were pretty Good at Life, but they ran out. A few "Oh, I'll just put the groceries on the credit card and pay it off on paydays" later, we were up to our waists in late bills and credit card debt - and while I certainly owed the State of California huge amounts of money in unpaid traffic tickets when I was in my late teens and very early twenties, credit card debt is something I've never had to wrangle with until recently.

 Scrooge would never embezzle or defraud anyone! 
That money is clean enough to swim in!

By the time husband and I got hitched, I'd paid off nearly all of my random debts (traffic tickets, medical bills, a $400 library fine) and saved up a four digit dowry. I even blogged about tightwaddery in your twenties for a while. When we found ourselves in the red after the wedding and the income drop, I felt like a failure. Not only were we barely scraping by, but I felt like I'd failed Husband. I was so despondent I stuck my head in the sand for months, refusing to deal. Suddenly, I was the one who needed to be covered on Girls' Night.

When I answered the questions asked by Charles Schwab's new financial fitness check-up tool based on my pre-marriage money habits, I scored a 78, well within the range of "Good" or "Hey! You Don't Suck too Bad! Congratulations!" When I took the test again based on our post-marriage financial situation, Husband & I scored a dismal 49, which is "Fair" or "Hey! What the Hell Happened, You Slob?!" Losing that many points (I hate losing!) inspired me to start trying to Win at Money again, with Husband's help. We've got a budget and a cash flow spreadsheet, we freeze meals in advance, and we've made the switch from Good Beer to Cheap Beer. We're going to kick this, and we're going to score at least a 90 the next time I take that check up quiz.

Last time the girls and I went out, one of them was going to pay my way at the wine bar, but her debit card was declined. Without hesitation, another girlfriend whipped her card out- and it was declined too. I grudgingly pulled my card out and threw in a little more than I could afford. We hit an ATM after we paid for our cheese and wine, and lo and behold, both girls actually had more than enough money in their accounts to cover their portion of the night's festivities. Cursing the wine bar's card reader, we moved on. Seated around a half circle booth in a sports bar with two $12 pitchers of beer, we merrily sipped our pint glasses while one girlfriend hopped on her Super Fancy Internet Phone and used Amazon gift cards to pay us back in earrings and comic books. I felt guilty about whipping out the debit card to help pay for drinks when I knew we couldn't afford it, so I requested a trade paperback I knew Husband wanted (Freakangels Volume Three) instead of something for myself.

"How did we manage to afford to drink so much when we were younger?" I asked the table.

"I don't think we were paying full price."

"Well sh*t."

"Maybe from now on, we just go straight to the $12 pitchers." We clinked glasses in agreement.

Before Marriage, most of my recreational spending was influenced by my girlfriends, and most of my recreational spending was alcohol-related (alcohol, getting food so we'd be able to drink more alcohol, buying tickets to rock shows at which we'd drink alcohol, buying hot clothes to wear while drinking alcohol, getting more food to recover from drinking so much alcohol). Post-Marriage, I do most of my drinking at home with Husband, we're too tired to go to rock shows, my new fashion philosophy is "F*ck it, I'm married!". Dropping more than twenty bucks when I go out with the girls makes me feel so guilty I can barely deal.

For those of us that have them, our partners and children are starting to eclipse our friends' influence on our finances. When it comes to Girls' Night, the wine bar is nice, but we're going out to be with each other, not to imbibe the fanciest booze we can collectively afford just to prove we can. I'm married, another girlfriend is engaged, another is a mom, and we're hitting the point in our lives where we are a group of near-married, married, or otherwise beholden to other folks adults, not just younger women with no real responsibilities who can do Jell-O shots until last call and hang the consequences. Sometimes the dichotomy between the single/no kids ladies and the married/with kids ladies is painfully apparent, but ultimately we're all beginning to think beyond our next Jack & Coke.

Most of the time.

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[This post is part of the latest 20SB Carnival, Friends & Money.]
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Disclaimer: This post is part of the 20SB Blog Carnival: Friends & Money, sponsored by Charles Schwab. Prizes may be awarded to selected posts. The information and opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the views or opinions of Charles Schwab. Details on the event, eligibility, and a complete list of participating bloggers can be found here.