Financial Planning- AKA Self Imposed Torture or How Not To End Up Poor When You're Old

So a few month ago my husband and I had a pretty serious conversation about how we needed to start putting money to the side for the children's college funds. In the States of course, education costs some big bucks once you go to university, so having a leg up on the financial side of things is always a good idea. Of course, it also helps if you have a good grasp of your finances. I will be the first to admit, we are pretty willy nilly with our money. So, we decided to call in a professional to help us with our financial goals, including starting to save for the children's college funds. I guess I naively thought the financial planner would just come to our house, show us some ideas and then be out the door with his sale. I was so wrong.

Apparently, this guy is really in depth, which is good. I guess. Unfortunately it is going to make my husband and I look at some really hard truths about the way that we spend money. The fact that we are in debt up to our eyeballs due to the way that we lived in the past is not going to help at all. No, we are not in serious financial difficulty whatsoever, but we have debts that we are slowly paying, and if we keep on the same path will probably be paying until we are both dead. Ah yes, the allure of the credit card when you are young and dumb.

So, tonight we had the financial planner asking us about our goals; when we would like to retire, how much we would like to contribute to our children's education; where we would like to see our children go to school; what age we would like to retire. He basically, all the things that you should probably only ask after the third date and only if you were serious about this person becoming a long term partner. This week I will be putting together more information so our financial planner can, well, form us a plan.

I am dreading it. Mostly because I really don't want to know EXACTLY how much debt we have. I don't want to be told "hey you spend entirely too much on crap". I know it is needed and in our best interests though, so I will do it. Mind you, I will probably want an entire bottle of wine to myself when I am finished.