Chapter 25

Shane met Oliver at church and afterwards they had lunch with Dale. They talked about the CBI and then spent the rest of lunch discussing the wedding, dogs and the gentleman Dale just started dating.

That afternoon, Shane helped Oliver unload boxes from her car. After sorting out which ones were going to the garage and which to the spare bedroom, that sat down to discuss more of their finance homework.

"I have to say Oliver I feel odd discussing whether we're sending kids we don't have to public or private school. How do we know what's best for them when they're not here yet?"

"I think it's on the list so that if we know we want them to go to a private school we need to arrange for it to be in the budget. We can skip it and come back to it. What else is on the list?"

"The imaginary children's college education." Shane looked at him wryly.

"Let's say yes we need to have a plan for that once they're born. What else?"

"When do we hope to begin saving for retirement?"

"We both already have retirement accounts and that's part of why we're meeting with a financial planner."

"What amount of money does each of you need to feel comfortable?"

Oliver grinned, "You never have enough money if all you have is money."

Shane laughed. "I knew you were going to say that. Seriously though I've always tried to keep 2-3 months in an emergency fund."

"That's good. I always did the same before my father died. Now let's just say it's a bit more."

"A bit, uhuh. How are strong disagreements about spending money going to be resolved?"

"Does it give examples of what disagreements might be about," Oliver asked?

"Nope, we have to come up with those on our own," Shane said. "If we meet with a financial planner quarterly and put together an annual budget that we both agree to stick to, wouldn't that avoid most disagreements?"

"I would think so. Do we want to have an agreed upon amount that anything above that amount we need to discuss the purchase with the other person if it wasn't in the budget?"

"It would probably be a good idea. Neither one of us is used to consulting with someone else before making decisions. Even with the wedding plans, I wanted your opinion, but it didn't occur to me to stop and discuss the financial end of things with you until we started looking at reception venues."

"I know. Hence my concern that you were shouldering more of the wedding expenses than I was aware or expecting you to bear."

"How do you want to handle things until we sit down and put together a budget? It's going to take time to sort through everything. I've used an app that lets me know when I've reached the limit on different expenses during the month, but I've never really put together a formal budget when it was just me."

"You have an app that tells you to stop buying things," Oliver asked incredulously?

"I like shoes and clothes. It was my way of not overdoing it," she said sheepishly.

Oliver leaned over to tuck her hair behind her ear. "You look fetching in whatever you wear Ms. McInerney."

"Thank you, Mr. O'Toole. Back to my original question?"

"Which was? I was thinking about all your high heels. It's rather distracting."

Shane laughed. "How do you want to handle things until we can put together a budget for the rest of the year?"

"Let's see when we can get in with the financial planner and then put something together after that meeting. Until then can we agree that we'll discuss any of the major wedding finances together. Maybe you can find a computer program for budgets. I've heard you can pay bills online automatically now. I've never looked into setting that up."

"Oliver O'Toole look at you considering entering this century. What's gotten into you?"

He pulled her onto his lap. "Maybe a beautiful computer ninja is wearing off on me or maybe I'm hoping she'll take care of setting it up for me."

She laughed, kissed him and laid her head on his shoulder. "Now I really found the hidden agenda. I didn't realize how much we really hadn't discussed until we started this process with Jeff."

He wrapped his arms around her. "After the shininess wears off, the first couple years of marriage can be an adjustment. I learned that the hard way and we both watched our parents go through rough times with their marriages. We're putting some of that work in now and hopefully it will make all the changes easier moving forward." He ran a hand down her hair. "I forgot to tell you last night my dad mentioned getting together for lunch Wednesday at the Mailbox Grill. I think he missed seeing you Saturday and he asked if there's anything we need help with the wedding."

"If the invitations arrive, we could spend Saturday here and he can help us finish those."

"Did you want to unload any boxes before I take you home?"

"How about the movie box." They spent the rest of the afternoon going through movies. He teased her about the number of chick flicks she had.

"Well looking at your collection makes me wonder if you're aware they make movies in color now," she said grinning. There were only a few they found they had duplicates. "I'll ask Rita and Norman if they want my copies. If not, I'll put them in the boxes for charity I've started back at the house. I already had put aside movies that I didn't want to watch again so I wasn't keeping."