Family and Finances: Episode 1, Part 1

So, Ann, we met in accounting class, both as business majors in college, and you immediately fell in love with me, I think. Right off the bat. Hancommer School of Business, we were in the lobby and I asked a friend to introduce me to you. Well, I instantly fell in love with you. I was teasing you about that. We met, I needed your help to get through accounting, which you provided. Some of my classmates accused me of dating you just so I could pass the course. But we fell in love, got married, and even though we had both studied business, we struggled with our differences in our finances. Well, we were both raised so differently, Chuck. I mean, my goodness, I was raised by two schoolteachers, and we lived modestly. They were five children, and completely different from the way you were raised. I would say in your family, money was a little more scarce. I was raised in Texas by a father who's an entrepreneur, particularly in the oil and gas business where you try to strike it rich. His business was to drill wells and to look for big paydays. I grew up with this idea that I liked risk, I liked looking for a big payday, and I wanted to get rich quick and I wanted to do it fast. When we got married, we quickly discovered that was an area where we were really, really different. We had never even talked about it prior to marriage, so we didn't have a clue. We didn't have a common philosophy, and so we tried to make decisions, and it was kind of your way or my way, and neither one of those were bringing us together. We couldn't get on the same page. No, right after we graduated, I mean, we got married in college, so we were trying to get through school, and then you went back to work for your dad in that same business. Right. And we'd taken a lot of risk.

We discovered that I liked risk and you liked- Security. So- Money in the bank. You wanted money in the bank, I wanted money invested, and so that was pulling us apart. I liked the big picture and you liked the- The details. The tiny details. Yes. I'm very literate and I want to see everything laid out specifically. You're a planner. Yes. You don't like surprises, in fact. No, I'm- You hate surprises. I'm anti-spontaneous. And I love spontaneity. I like to talk about it, make a decision, and do something. What do you like to do? I like to do things, but I want to know what day at what time. You like to do things slowly and you mull it over. Maybe somebody can relate to this differently than me because I don't relate to it as well. You will research a decision to buy something. You will know exactly what you're going to buy. You will wait for a sale and then you'll go and make the purchase and still not be settled that you want what you just bought and maybe are going to take it back and it may take a few days before you decide you're going to keep it. I'm so bad, I will shop online, look for prices, and typically I'll go to Amazon, put it in my cart, and dwell on it, think about it. And then if I can find it cheaper here, I will buy it, leave it in the bag even for

several days before I'll even use it. That's right. And for me, I look at that as a big waste of time. I think you've wasted so much time to save $20 that I just get it over with, make a mistake and move on. Well, that goes back to the early days of marriage when we didn't have much to spend. And through the years, it just became a habit. And I used to deride that, but in fact, it's turned out to be a great thing for us. It's good that you know how to get a deal and save money and make our money be stretched further. I try. I like to spend the money and you like to... To save it. And so we're very different there. I like to talk and you like to... Think. And thinking for you does not involve talking. And to me, it's both. I feel like I can do both simultaneously. And usually, I need to think in quiet. Right. And so when we had big financial decisions, we struggled. And I have to say, I led us, with my domineering personality, to make a lot of financial mistakes. And I wasn't listening. I wasn't taking the full benefit of what I had that I didn't realize was so good for me. In fact, I will admit, I thought I was the right person in the marriage when it came to money, and the right personality,

and that you needed to change to be more like me. And I felt that, yes. And we did not have somebody. We should have gone to somebody for help, and we didn't. Well, we ultimately did. Right. But early on, we could have used a good mentor that would have seen some of our differences. So I'm trying to hit the big home run. I'm starting a company that's got lots of promise. I've been offered a good price for our stock. I'm sort of counting the impact on our net worth. And something was going on with you that caused the biggest change in our life ever. Tell us. Well, basically, it came down to the fact that you came home one day, and you were super excited about how much money this business was going to make. So you told me to go pick out the house, and you were going to pick out the cars. And boy, I tell you what, there were alarms going off in my brain, because I thought, OK, we have a house that is perfectly fine. We have cars that are running. We need help. And it just so happened that at the time, we were members of a large church, and there were crown classes being offered. And I asked you if we could go to one.

And I said, yes, if it's on Sunday night, because I thought Sunday nights would get me out of it. Right, because you knew everything already. Right. Yeah. So I called the leader, who happened to only be leading one group on a Sunday night. He had other people leading other courses, but his group was on a Sunday night, and he was full. But he said he would let us in if we would commit to leading a group the next session. And without asking me, what did you say? I said, yes, of course. You committed us to lead groups, and we haven't even been in the group, but you were just desperate. I was. To get me into the group. And so you'd been privately praying that God would somehow get my attention and unite us, and that was the turning point. Right.