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Privacy Policy

Posted on January 11, 2008 by Him

Here are the goals of our privacy policy:

Below is our privacy policy which incorporates these goals:

Website Visitors

Like most website operators, Make Love, Not Debt collects non-personally-identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request. Make Love Not Debt’s purpose in collecting non-personally identifying information is to better understand how Make Love Not Debt’s visitors use its website. From time to time, Make Love Not Debt may release non-personally-identifying information in the aggregate, eg, by publishing a report on trends in the usage of its website.

Make Love Not Debt also collects potentially personally-identifying information like Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. Make Love Not Debt’s does not use such information to identify its visitors, however, and does not disclose such information, other than under the same circumstances that it uses and discloses personally-identifying information, as described below.

Gathering of Personally-Identifying Information

Certain visitors to Make Love Not Debt may choose to interact with Make Love, Not Debt in ways that require Make Love, Not Debt to gather potentially personally-identifying information. The amount and type of information that Make Love, Not Debt gathers depends on the nature of the interaction. For example, visitors may leave comments on a blog post or send to us an email and include potentially-identifying information. Make Love, Not Debt does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below. Visitors can always refuse to supply personally-identifying information, with the caveat that it may prevent them from engaging in certain website-related activities.

Aggregated Statistics

Make Love, Not Debt may collect statistics about the behavior of visitors to its websites. Automattic may display this information publicly or provide it to others. However, Automattic does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below.

Protection of Certain Personally-Identifying Information

Make Love, Not Debt discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only to those of its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations that (i) need to know that information in order to process it on Automattic’s behalf or to provide services available at Make Love, Not Debt, and (ii) that have agreed not to disclose it to others. Automattic will not rent or sell potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information to anyone. Other than to its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations, as described above, Make Love, Not Debt discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only when required to do so by law, or when Make Love, Not Debt believes in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of Make Love, Not Debt, third parties or the public at large. If you send us a request (for example via a support email or via one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish it in order to help us clarify or respond to your request or to help us support other users. Make Love, Not Debt takes all measures reasonably necessary to protect against the unauthorized access, use, alteration or destruction of potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information.

Cookies

A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. Make Love Not Debt uses cookies to help Make Love Not Debt identify and track visitors, their usage of Make Love Not Debt website, and their website access preferences. Make Love Not Debt visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browsers to refuse cookies before using Make Love Not Debt’s websites, with the drawback that certain features of Make Love Not Debt’s websites may not function properly without the aid of cookies.

Privacy Policy Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, Make Love Not Debt may change its Privacy Policy from time to time, and in Make Love Not Debt’s sole discretion. Make Love Not Debt encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. Your continued use of this site after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.

Taken from and modified according to Automattic's privacy policy, the people behind WordPress.

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About Make Love, Not Debt

Posted on November 11, 2007 by Him

Current statistics state that half of all marriages fail. One of the top reasons for divorce is disputes over finances! This is the story of Him and Her, a recently engaged couple living together in Chicago. They may have a lot of debt, but believe they can conquer it with a little love and a lot of style.

That was too-wordy tagline of the first incarnation of this blog. Not much has changed, since we launched our first post on January 1, 2006. We're still in the same apartment in Chicago, a little older but still in our 20's, and still saving for our wedding. We don't have as much debt as we used to; we've managed to pay off all of our credit cards in under 2 years, and now use only rewards cards that we pay off every month. We keep track of our financial progress, but with less frequency than we used to (the last time we checked in was in September) - but we know we're well on our way to achieving our 2007 goals. We're very aware of the mountain of debt that we have to overcome, but we tend to write about it less and less as other financial issues crop up, like how much VIP drinks are at da club, how we make money by having sex, or getting expensive haircuts.

If you'd like to read about how we got into this mess, you might want to start with Him's story which will then lead you to read Her's story. As mentioned above, we've come a long was financially. When we started the blog, we couldn't afford much of a home; now the amount of home we can afford is quite scary! In the early days, much of our extra money to pay off debt came by cutting expenses, reducing retirement contributions, or using coupons.

Since that time, we've been pretty good at controlling our money by not keeping up with the Joneses, whether they be friends or family. These days we spend our money on things that matter to us, such as health, vacations, or even varietal specific wine glasses. We're also trying to be smart with the money that we save - this year we've come up with a comprehensive joint retirement investment plan. Whew, try and say that 5 times fast.

We hope that you enjoy your stay, you have a few laughs, and you learn a little about your finances. If all else fails, at least stay for the pie.

Make Love, Not Debt, Version 3.0

Posted on September 03, 2007 by Him

So yeah, we redesigned.

Do you like it?

Is there anything that's broken?

Does it look funny in your browser?

Suggestions? Comments?

Five Things, Happy Holidays!

Posted on December 22, 2006 by Her

The nice people at We're in Debt has tagged us to tell you five things about us that you don't know. Without further ado, I'll go first:

1. I really, really like snow pants. However I do not own any.

2. My garden gnome has traveled around the world and I have photos to prove it.

3. I once had a boss exactly like Michael Scott on The Office. He loved to give high fives. High five? I don't do that jive.

4. All of my pets have people names.

5. I once received a food dehydrator as a Christmas gift. I was ten years old.

Now for five things from Him:

1. He has injured following parts of his body: thumb (fracture), elbow (fracture and dislocated), ACL (torn ligament), foot (hairline fracture).

2. He has eaten the following deep-fried foods: olives, Oreo, Twinkie

3. He first went bowling at the age of 19.

4. He made his first batch of smoked spare ribs this summer.

5. The only food that Him really doesn't like are pickles. Sometimes raisins.

We hope you have enjoyed our collective things about us that you probably didn't know. We're not tagging anyone else because...well we think everyone's been tagged. Meh.

We'll be taking the holiday weekend off from posting and will resume in the middle of next week.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Almost Seven Months of Making Love, Not Debt - A Retrosepective

Posted on June 26, 2006 by Him

It took a lot of badgering to get Her to buy my idea about starting a personal finance blog that deals with money and relationships. Her finally bought it, and on the first day of 2006, we wrote our first post. Ironically, the current majority of posts on this blog are written by Her.

Back then, we were merely beginners in the game of personal finance. We erroneously included our non-wealth building life insurance as a part of our net worth, putting our net worth in the positive. When we realized the error, we truly realized how much work we have to do, not to mention how much we are in the negative.

Since then, about seven months have passed. We've been steadily making our way into the positive net worth, but more importantly, we're steadily getting out of debt. It is easy to see that from the numbers, though. Here's a smattering of things we have also improved upon since we've started this blog:

-- The interest on my credit card debt now ranges from 0% (until April 2007, and will be paid off in September 2006) to 2.99%; a far cry from the 12.99% to 20.99% that I had. For all of our credit card debt, we're paying 5% interest or below.
-- Her dropped the interest rates on her variable interest rate student loans by a few percentage points.
-- We've maximized the use of coupons.
-- We haven't accrued any new debt. Anything that we put on a zero balance credit card is paid off ASAP, and only put on that credit card to reap the rewards. We're still committed to not going into more debt for the wedding.
-- We have both received raises. (hmm, I realized that our income isn't up on the site anymore...we'll have to look into changing that)
-- We've planned to get out of all credit card debt by the time we get married.
-- I sold my car a few months before I started this blog. Now we only have one car that we seldom drive, saving us tons of money of insurance, maintenance, gas, and other automobile related expenses.
-- Most importantly, we've been able to manage our debt so that it is not a barrier to the things we like to do everyday. This past weekend we've enjoyed the first of three summer music festivals, Intonation Music Fest. We're headed to Cirque Shanghai, Ravinia twice, and other Chicago Festivals this summer. By squeezing our budget on most days, we've figured out how to enjoy life and pay off debt. We're only in our 20's once, so we figure we'll enjoy it while we're living in a big city such as Chicago and can physically and mentally tackle everything. We figure that we'll be out of debt by the time we have kids, and then we'll have no time for all of the things that we're doing today.

We've been at this for seven months, and we're exited to see our progress. We can't wait to see what's coming up.

Make Love, Not Debt ver 2.0

Posted on May 21, 2006 by Him

If this isn't your first time here, you've probably noticed that things look very different around here. If you're still wondering, the answer is "redesign." You onboard yet? Good. If this your first time here, we'd like to say "Welcome!" We'd like to especially welcome those who can from the Chicago Tribune article that featured Young and Broke, MyMoneyBlog, as well as us.

Let us show you around the blog.

Up on top in the header is your basic navigation. Get back to the homepage, cruise the archives, get in contact with us, or search the blog. Easy.

On the right hand side of every page are "tags," a fancy way of saying "categories." They look funny because they're in what is known as a tag cloud, with the larger tags containing more entries.

In the right sidebar of the homepage, there is an aggregated listing of the latest 10 comments or trackbacks that have been posted on this blog. If you have been following comments in a certain article, be sure to look there first.

Also in the sidebar is a place where you can subscribe to our blog. You can either subscribe to our RSS Feed (if you're into that), or you can elect to receive an email notifying you when our site has been updated. Here's more details on subscribing to our blog. Please, do subscribe before you leave.

Last but not least in the homepage is the footer. There you can see our updated blogroll, featuring blogs and other websites we like to visit on a regular basis. Coming soon will be a listing of articles that we think are worthwhile to read, but not make a full entry on the blog about it. You'll also find an ever growing listing of books that we have read and may have featured on this blog.

Now on to actual content. Here are some tidbits about us, Her overview, and my overview. Read about our cheap sex, mistakes we've made, progress on our wedding plans, coupons coupons coupons, and how I'd spend money like I was never going to run out.

So please join us on our financial journey. It's going to be a hell of a ride.

Welcome BusinessWeek Online Readers!

Posted on February 24, 2006 by Him

Hello those coming from Business Week! We're very flattered that we've been mentioned, given our relative youth in the PFBlog community. The mention was small, but totally surprised us! We hope to keep writing about our trials and tribulations with debt, money and each other.

Before you leave, please subscribe to our RSS feed. It's like PB&J that comes in your newsreader!

Here are some articles that readers have liked, and will tell you a little more about us:

--How He got into this mess
--How She got into this mess
--Cheap Sex
--Our Net Worth (or should it be Our Net Worthlessness?)
--Our Engagement

We'd also like for you to visit the other blogs mentioned in the article:

--MyMoneyBlog (who the article focuses on)
--My Open Wallet
--NYC Money
--Boston Gal's Open Wallet
--2million
--Networth IQ
--Pfblog
--MoneyBlogNetwork
--My Open Wallet
--Savvy Saver

And of course, if you'd like to keep track of EVERYTHING that goes on in the PFBlog community, visit pfblogs.org, who keep track of over 200 personal finance blogs.

See everyone in the Caymans! (which we didn't look at as Honeymooning spot before...)

Welcome visitors!

Posted on January 21, 2006 by Him

We'd like to thank JLP for making us blog of the week -- we are very grateful and honored. We hope that you'll stick around with us for the long-run, as we have many financial obstacles to overcome; both as individuals and as a couple. I mean, right now it is 11:53PM on a Saturday night, and we're doing the most financially sound thing you can do in the city of Chicago: NOTHING.

Before I forget, please subscribe to our feed.

In the next few years, we hope to accomplish many goals. Here is a preview as to what's in store:

--Wedding, wedding, wedding! Frugal wedding? NO WAY. We'll show you how we'll keep shooting ourselves in the financial feet!

--Debt, debt, debt! See how my Citicard's grandfathered 20.99% interest rate will make me wake up in cold sweats and how my low credit rating that won't allow me to get a better card!

--Anecdotes, anecdotes, anecdotes! Statistics, who needs them? Follow our advice (of course, after reading our disclaimer) when we don't know what we're doing. Sounds good to me!

--Humor, humor, humor! Are you sick of everyone posting about ING, HSBC, and Emigrant Direct? WE'RE GOING TO POST ABOUT THEM EVERY CHANCE WE GET. TWICE. Seriously, personal finance blogs can get a bit dry, so we're going to try and spice things up a bit.

So please, come for the Him and Her relationship finance banter. Stay for the pie.

My financial history

Posted on January 09, 2006 by Him

We'd like to provide a frame of reference when it comes to writing about our financial troubles, so I'm going to start with how I got into a large financial hole. She will follow up soon.

When I was in high school, I got my first job when I was 15, a cashier at the local neighborhood McDonald's. I met a lot cool people there, and learned how to have a strong work ethic. A eventually quit that job, and worked at a Turtle Wax car wash center. That was a great job because I got paid mostly in tips. The harder I worked, the more money I received. Don't you wish that's how all jobs were?

I didn't have a problem with money in high school. I got good grades, worked, and never asked for money from my parents. I was a pretty cocky teenager, but I didn't have any debt. Then came the college years.

Freshman year went by with me swatting away all of the credit card offers that came with free T-shirts, frisbees, etc. I had a debt card from my parents, and I was to withdraw between $20-$40 every week. During those years, I was frequently reprimanded for taking money out of an ATM that wasn't from our bank, thus incurring a fee. My parents didn't like (and still don't) giving away money to banks. Hey, it isn't my fault, by bank's ATM was in the student Union, not near any of the cool restaurants or bars.

I got my first credit card when I was 19. I still have it - a University MBNA card, with a $2,000 balance! My room in my fraternity house was empty, I didn't have many cool clothes, so I bought stuff. A lot of stuff. I maxed out that credit card pretty quickly. That started the waterfall of credit cards; not just Visa's, MasterCard’s, but store cards. I needed to look good. After all, that's how I met my fiancée. Structure (now Express Men) was my weakness. Items that I put on the credit cards included many hung-over meals, beer, a home entertainment center, beer, clothes that I couldn't afford on my store cards, beer, and many gag gifts for holiday presents. By the time I graduated with my bachelor's, I racked up about $5,000 in credit card debt.

Luckily for me, they don't check your FICO score when you apply for grad school, so I got in. At the time, I think it was a dismal under-600. Since I was in grad school, most of my friends in undergrad had moved on, so the incessant partying and trying to fit in stopped. I wanted to mature, intellectually, emotionally, and financially. My program provided me with a $19,500 stipend per year - payable monthly. I had to learn how to budget very quickly.

At that time I had six credit cards that I was only making the minimum monthly payments on. Figuring out how to balance those payments, rent, food, and other necessities on a once a month paycheck was to be a challenge. The interest on my credit cards ranged from 12%-21%, so I decided to go down to my credit union to see if they could offer me a personal loan for the amount of my credit card balances for a lower average interest rate. To my surprise, that is exactly what they did. So I paid off the credit cards, and had a low monthly payment that was automatically deducted from my pay so I wouldn't even notice it was gone.

Until I charged up the cards again. On what? A $200 remote control? Yep. Food? Yep. More beer? Sometimes. An interview suit? Yes.

By the time I got my Master's I had paid off the loan, but was back at square one, with about $5K in credit card debt. I ended up getting a pretty good job in Chicago, and I was determined to pay off all of my credit card debt once and for all! I still needed to make better decisions, and that meant that I was to stop using my credit cards for good.

A year has passed since I finished up my Master's, and since then I have used a credit card once - in an emergency when my car broke down. While they still aren't all paid off, I have managed to drastically reduce the amount I owe. I even bought her engagement ring with cash.

Not only do I have to deal with my financial demons from the past, but now so does she. Hopefully, we can overcome all of this and one day look back, and laugh. At least a little.

I owe how much?!

Posted on January 16, 2006 by Her

Since this is my first post, I'll start at the beginning. As a freshman in college I got my first credit card, with a limit somewhere around $400. I remember my first purchase: A rocking chair. Yep, I took on debt to look geriatric at 18. It wasn't the rocking chair that did me in; it was the rush of being able to buy anything I wanted without paying for it. Within a few months I had blown past the limit on the card and was completely unable to make the minimum payment with my $4.50/hour job. My parents bailed me out and I was hooked. I immediately began charging the card up again.

Though I managed to always make my payments on time, I was steadily accumulating debt. I was paying for college completely on my own, so I would take out a student loan at the beginning of the semester, pay down some of my credit cards with the cash, and then spend the rest of the semester piling the debt back onto the cards. By the end of graduate school I had no idea how much I owed, but I felt confident with my new professional job and salary. I rewarded myself with a new pair of $500 high heels (a fact which I am now mortified to admit).

Then it all came crashing down. My student loans came due. I would get my paycheck and sit down to pay bills, but my paycheck could no longer cover even half my monthly debt service. I was unable to sleep and petrified to tell anyone, especially my then-boyfriend. Finally I buckled under the stress and confessed everything, bawling my eyes out in the middle of the night. He gave me an ultimatum: get rid of the debt or we were through. We had been dating for 6 years and were deeply in love, but he knew I had a serious addiction. The threat of losing everything saved me.

For the first time ever, he made me write down all my credit card balances and the corresponding interest rate. The amount was staggering: over $17,000 in credit card debt and about $140,000 in student loans. My interest rates weren't too bad, due to my timely payments all those years and a low federal interest rate.

I threw myself into debt reduction mode. I put all my credit cards into a box that my boyfriend hid. I wrote a list of all the people I was hurting with my debt on a piece of paper and put it in my wallet where my credit cards had been. I ranked my debts by interest rate and began paying off the highest card. I called my student loan companies and asked them to reduce the payments. I called the credit card companies and asked them to lower my interest rates. I quit spending money. And it was HARD. It went much deeper than being denied a few splurges at the mall. I had linked my self worth to my net worth, and with credit cards I had felt rich. Now I felt worthless and lost. I had to change every aspect of my life and it felt like I was losing everything. Thank God my boyfriend was there to support me. He helped me get through the really rough times and gradually helped me see more clearly what I had done.

With the new lower payments, I was able to use the extra cash to pay off my highest rate store cards first. With each card paid off, more money was freed up to pay down the next card. Today, my credit card debt stands at $14,800. I have paid off 16 credit cards and have 5 remaining. I haven't used a credit card to pay for anything in over a year. My student loans are down to $136,000. Every month when we pay bills we record our current debt on a spreadsheet in Excel and track our debt reduction with a graph. It feels great. But the real reward came this Christmas, when my boyfriend showed he trusts me again by asking me to marry him. As for the ring? We saved for months, he paid cash, and it's beautiful.

A new beginning

Posted on January 01, 2006 by Him

This morning we woke up with bad hangovers - a reminder of our debauchery to celebrate the New Year. The total cost of the night was $170: $150 for two tickets to a nice Chicago bar, and $20 for cab rides to and from said bar. If you count the $20 breakfast at IHOP this morning to ease the hangover, then the total cost of the night was $190.

The kicker? We now have $60 in our checking account. To last us until Friday.

We are Him and Her -- a recently engaged couple living and working in Chicago. We are two of Suze Orman's Young, Fabulous, and Broke. Don't let our positive net worth fool you: much of that is tied up as life insurance and personal property. We have a mountain of debt that we're trying to overcome, and now we're trying to plan a wedding.

This is the second incarnation of this blog. We tried to start this a few months ago, but decided to put it on hiatus for a while. Join us this time around as we learn, as a couple, how to take control of our financial lives.

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