Whew, 2008 was quite a year. For us, it will forever be remembered as the year that we got married! But what else happened this year for us financially?

Life
To cut expenses, we cut Netflix out of our life. We also cut back on weekend trips. I was officially diagnosed with depression and learned some of socioeconomic aspects of dealing with it. After we were married, our first fight was about…money. It wasn’t as bad as the financial infidelity that Her’s brother went through.

Budget
After much trial and error, we finally made a budget that we stick to.

Housing
Our crazy but generous landlord increased our rent a whopping $8 per month.

Saving
We started a Big Dreams Savings Fund with the spoils of our wedding and related showers. We’ve decided that 2009 will be a balls-to-the-wall savings year.

Debt
The biggest news was the huge gift we received that wiped a good portion of the student loan debt. We even succeeded in not taking any more debt for the wedding and the honeymoon. As newlyweds, we’ve decided that tackling the student loans will be our first financial priority.

Taxes
This year taxes got crazy. I had a hard time dealing with them early in the year but somehow figured it out. But, at the end of this year I went back to a dumbfounded state about taxes. We didn’t know if we would have to pay taxes on the student loan gift payment, but it turns out that we didn’t have to.

In 2008 we were light on the posts, especially the meaty financial ones. Our main focus was on the wedding and not much else. Since we now have a future together to plan for we have a lot of financial stuff to talk about in the upcoming months. Stay tuned!