Change can be good

I changed jobs a few months ago, and a somewhat-unexpected cost of that change is that my hours have been turned completely around. I used to have a fairly conventional 9-to-5 (ish) gig, but I now find myself not going into the office until the early afternoon and subsequently not getting home until 9 or sometime 10 o'clock.

On the surface, it doesn't really bother me. I sort of take the position that one day I'll have to grow up and get a "normal" job that forces me to deal with gridlock traffic or crowded subways and a blaring alarm at 7 a.m. -- why not enjoy my ability to sleep in until 10 and stay out as late as I want for as long as I can? But it's safe to say this sort of arrangement poses a problem when dealing with family members who have a more conventional schedule. In my case, "family" consists of my girlfriend (whom I've lived with for a few years) who has a regular 9-to-5 gig.

My getting home near 10 o'clock is particularly troublesome, however, with regards to planning and having meals. She gets home at 6, and quite logically, starts to think about dinner after a long day. But she's a peach, so she generally gets cracking on the cooking in the interim, while I hurry home as soon as I can. Best case scenario? We're sitting down together for 9.

How do abnormal meal hours relate to personal finance? I'm glad you asked. Before this recent change of ours, one thing we used to do quite a bit was go out for dinner. Not out or laziness or inability to cook for ourselves (we're actually quite good in the kitchen, if I do say so myself) but because we enjoyed the experience of dining out.

I'd say we averaged one dinner costing about $100 (for both of us, wine included) every few weeks. I can already hear the latte factor diaspora throwing up a little in their mouths, furiously calculating what that money would have done after 20 years in a no-load index fund, but what can I say -- it was an extravagance I was willing to allow myself because we both enjoyed it and I managed to save my couple of hundred a month into a rainy day fund anyway.

But now? We haven't been out for dinner once since my new job started. It hasn't really been a conscious effort, but when you're getting home from work at like, 9:30, and one of you has to be up at 7, it's not really an option. We eat dinner at home out of necessity, and that tends to be a lot cheaper.

My free time, ergo, tends to be before work in the mornings and early afternoon -- not exactly prime socializing time. So it's not even just my food budget that's been slashed -- it's entertainment too. Going out to have a few beers after work, watch the hockey game, eat chicken wings and convince oneself that the waitress thinks you're hilarious used to be a major outlet of my disposal income. But I don't really do that anymore either, since I don't seem to be living on the same schedule as anybody else I know.

It all adds up, is what I'm trying to say, so I find myself with a lot more cash around than I used to. Finding ways to spend it during the hours of 9 a.m. and noon proves difficult. I also get a modest shift differential stipend for working during evening hours. My new job pays less, on paper, than my old one did. But for the reasons outlined above, I actually find myself with more cash in my pocket at the end of the month than I used to.

Just one more way money issues can often work themselves out in ways you didn't imagine.

The last taboo

A thought's been kicking around in my head for a few weeks since I read an interesting article on how financial compatibility is becoming increasingly important in modern relationships.

It can be hard to think that issues such as personal finance could creep into matters of the heart, but the older (wiser?) I get, the more I realize that they do.

Myself, I'm a saver. I have been since I was a little kid. Chances are, if you gave me $5 when I was 10, I'd have run to the corner store to buy two freezies for $1, and put the other $9 in my piggy bank, waiting for something really cool to come along. Now that I'm in my twenties, that urge to save hasn't left me. Watching my high-interest savings account creep upwards with every automatic deposit brings me no end of pleasure, thinking of the power it will provide me with a few year down the line. But hey -- that's me.

In the article, the writer puts forth the contention that it just makes sense to consider financial compatibility when choosing a long-term -- or possibly even short-term -- partner. Not that it's something you'd want to bring up on, say, a first date or anything, but really, the nagging thoughts you have when you notice that she burns through cash like it's going out of style (or you think he's a tightwad because of his refusal to use white-label ATMs, for that matter) are just as important as any of the other big questions we feel free to ask each other later on. If it bothers you now, I'm pretty sure it'll bother you even more when you're paying off that Visa bill yourself in ten years' time.

Views on religion can push or break couples apart. As can differing sex drives. Likewise views on having children. Or which city they want to ultimately settle in. Ditto how often they want to drink and go out with friends. If all those things are deal-breakers, I don’t really see why it's cold or callous to suggest that somebody who either has a completely different view on money -- or worse, doesn't think about it -- might not be your ideal mate. But for some, it still seems impolite to talk about. Money really is the last taboo.

My own situation is fairly good in that regard. I seem to have exposed the diligent little saver that was trapped inside my sig other's body, and it only took a few rants about the miracle of compound interest to do it :) I definitely know singles and couples who don't have it nearly as good as I do.

It's a cliché, but it's true: If one's a saver, and one's a spender, there's likely trouble ahead.

Which is what I'll be sure to tell my buds the next time any of them ask me "what's the deal" with my cute, cash-burning single female friends.