Oh the joy of finances!

The way I see it, the very best thing about having enough $ is not worrying about having enough $.  Even with an upcoming home purchase, we'd really like to keep it that way.  Why worry about $ if you don't really have to, right?  Over the past five years we haven't really thought much about a budget per se, but we sure need to as we look to finally buy a home.

So here's the thing, I think joining finances with another human being can be a very complicated thing.  Rationalizing a purchase for myself is one thing, but rationalizing a purchase made by someone else, for someone else, for something silly, for which was paid for out of your bank account... well, that's a lot to handle!  Not to mention, a threat to your marriage!  

Case in point.  Ryan and I have lived together for almost five years and been married for almost two.  (Where does the time go?)  We have always operated amongst a single budget and a single goal, but we each had different obligations and COMPLETELY separate bank accounts.  What works for one, may not always work for others, but for this point in our lives, this concept works incredibly well for us.

Side note:  I didn't really do a great job on updating the blogosphere on the previous in progress purchase of our "Dream Home."  Well, long story short:  Inspections were a nightmare, blessing in disguise and all I have to show for it are two lovely sconces from Pottery Barn.

If you've watched the news lately, you'll know our world with record low savings, finally got it's head on straight and decided it's good to have a nest egg before purchasing a house.  In the olden days, these were called down payments.  Well, while I was too busy buying sconces Ryan did a great job on that savings initiative and has since taught me a thing or fifty about how to do so myself.  I'm actually pretty excited about my own little nest egg.  Again, the one goal, two bank accounts works great!  

While we were sad to have to back out of contract on our "Dream Home," we certainly don't mind having the extra time to save, while also giving us more time to get a little more situated on our home buying intentions and see where this wild recession-fueled housing market is heading.  In our minds, we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to take advantage of this downturn, capitalize on our patience and hopefully make a great long-term investment.  Our patience to get out of this apartment however, is wearing quite thin, despite the golf course and mountain views.  Did I mention I love Colorado?  Love.

What I was getting at is that all this savings we are doing is GREAT, a fun little challenge to see our pennies adding up.  But, we realized that this spending freeze could set us up for an insane influx of expenses.  Case in point, say we buy a house in 12 months.  While we'll be sitting pretty in the savings department, we'll need oodles of things to fill up our home.  Then, hopefully little ones aren't far behind and that's a whole separate set of expenses.  Eek!  Is it better to save cold turkey?  Or is it better to stay ahead of the curve and accumulate some amazing finds and bargains as we go?  SUCH A DILEMMA.

I bring this up because this past weekend we had a temporary moment of insanity and thought, we better get a bargain priced flat screen TV!  So off we went to the soon to close, Circuit City.  Once we got there, we realized we weren't even sure that their liquidation prices were bargains and more importantly we had no need for another TV in our current home.

The overall thought hasn't left my mind.  What do you think?  Save, save, save?  Or save, save, save while spending smart, smart, smart to better prepare us for a house to fill?

Being a grown up is hard work!  Uff-ta.