The Sanborns

Disclaimer: We’re not at all stating that we know everything about marriage in this post. We’re still learning.

Is it just me or is November going by rather fast? I’ve been keeping myself busy and before I know it, Christmas will be here! As I posted yesterday, Gray and I have now been married for 6 months. We bought a bible recently that has built in devotionals for married couples. It takes whatever chapter you’re reading and applies it to marriage. We read our first one last night and discussed different things about marriage.

I feel like we’ve come so far in those six months. It’s hard to believe that in another six months we’ll have been married a year. In today’s times, people don’t last this long! Sad, but true. I thought I’d share some things we do that have helped us grow together the past few months.

First off, we don’t have television. We have a TV because I owned one before we were married and we have a VCR and DVD player. However, we do not pay for cable, satellite, or have an antenna. I think that for the first year of marriage, this is of particular importance. We’ve spent a lot more time together than we would have otherwise. We do have the internet and I watch all my TV shows on there, but I do that when Gray’s at work so it doesn’t interfere with our time together. The only thing we have that sucks away our time together is the internet/computers. We’re both big gamers and usually we compromise by him playing a game while I do internet stuff. This month has been a challenge because I’m doing NaNoWriMo but Gray has been very supportive. He even asks regularly how the novel is going that day.

Another thing we do is eat together at the dinner table. I’ve found in the past that if we eat together while watching tv or a movie, we don’t get to talk and so the dinner table is where we relax and have fun with each other after a hard day. We’ve both agreed that when we have kids, we want to eat dinner as a family at the table so it is important for us to start now.

While Gray is at school and work, I’m at home during the day. I do most of the chores and work as well. After we eat dinner (or before on certain days) we go for a walk or to the park. We both love the outdoors, even if we are computer geeks and want to get in shape. It’s a work in progress.

Grocery shopping is another chore that I enjoy doing with Gray. We help hold each other accountable to our grocery list and he totally helps with figuring out the best deals… and pushing the cart. As far as our budget goes, we have an excel file setup with our basic utilities and bills and put in an average amount. When we pay for one of those bills, we put the amount we payed in the next column. This way we know when we’ve payed bills and also how much we have left to use in another category if needed. The file is saved in a place we can both access anytime we want to. We both enjoy budgeting this way because we see what money we have and what we’re paying out. We’re on a very basic budget so it helps to have everything precise.

These are just some of the ways we’ve kept our marriage sane and a partnership. We strive to follow the Lord so we both attend church when we’re able to. We also participate in a community group from church of other married couples. A good foundation is what keeps a marriage going strong in hard times. Although we’ve only been married six months, we’re definitely learning to face hard times together.

When we went through pre-marital counseling, we learned to base our foundation on God’s word and we learned about money from Dave Ramsey. I realize not everyone is a fan of his plan, but it’s really worked for us. Right now we’re trying to build our first emergency fund and tackle debt.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Hopefully sometime in the future we can do a giveaway of Dave Ramsey’s book. So stay tuned!