I was a nervous kid without a solid career path in mind but I was in love. I bought a ring that was worth more than my truck at the time. I even put the wedding off one year because the monthly repairs were approaching a truck payment and I got something a bit more reliable. It allowed me to save enough for a down payment on a house. I remember thinking how the heck am I gonna be sure I can cover that mortgage payment every month? Monday marks 24 years with her and I’m blessed with two healthy children, still in that same house. I’m in the home stretch on that mortgage now.

I was a 'Porter' for a Chevrolet dealer & 1 month fresh out of college, looking for my first 'real' job. So, pretty broke.

13 years, 3 kids, 3 houses & a handful of cars later, still going strong.

I had less then a year left on a 6 year Navy enlistment. New wife was unemployed and nobody wanted a Navy wife on their payroll. Every 2 weeks we had enough left over for a drive in movie and a bottle of Boones Farm. That’s broke.

HAAHA. What a question. Our joint income was 10 grand per year and I felt wealthy. Working 80 hours per week and praying the car would not break down. Apt in the hood.

Married at 22 with a few more years until I got my BS. She graduated the following semester. I think our first year of filing taxes together was $17K. The VW I inherited from my parents gave up the ghost and we bought a used Civic for $3400.

Twenty nine years, 3 kids and a daughter in law. All is well, all things considered.

Completely broke. Every dollar gone at the end of every month. Had a two year tech school degree, a student loan, and worked as a tech rep traveling domestic and international. No Internet, no cell phones. Lonely and broke.

29 years later. We made it. Four great kids, all doing well, thank God!

Bah-roke. I sold a couple guns and a valuable book I had so we could go on a cheap cruise for our honeymoon.

My wife had to sell her horse. No kidding. The whole wedding was $600.00. We are still together 43 years later.

Fresh out of grad school. Ring was a hundred bucks. Her mom made the cake. I think the reception hall cost me a hundred. I feel bad to this day about how little I paid the minister.

After 16 years, it crumbled. Thirteen years later, I'm still about a year from finally paying off all the debt from that mess.

I believe everything we do in life leads to something better, even if all it brings is a good lesson in what not to do later.

I'm peeved about the debt load, but I don't complain much. It's almost finished, and all the mess I've been through has -- however indirectly -- led me to The Lovely Girlfriend, who is an absolute treasure.

When we got married 50 years ago this December, well, "If the devil danced in empty pockets, he'd have a ball in mine". Army Staff Sergeant (E6) living in a civilian community far from military facilities. My future wife had less than I did. Faith, love and perseverance got us where we are today.

We sometimes have our "early days" meals...Macaroni & cheese with chopped Spam or Shake & Bake chicken. Then we thank God for our blessings.

We drove to her parent's house in FL from Indiana for fall break so I could talk to her mom and dad before I proposed. On the way down the rear end went out in my van. I had $48 to my name when we got there, and a busted van. For some insane reason they still said yes, and loaned us their car to drive back to school. I proposed, she said yes, then we drove back down for thanksgiving and we put a rear-end in my van that her dad got from a buddy who had it lying out in the back yard. I moved 12 tons of shingles by hand for the guy to pay him back for the rear end.

Our wedding cost less than $1500, including the reception and the dress. We were both still in school, combined income was $800/month, and rent was $500. I picked up more hours at work, she got a job, and we had all of our school debt paid off less than 6 moths later.

We bought a dumpy fixer-upper house, remodeled it ourselves, and paid it off in 16 years, most of that on one income so she can stay home with the kids. It was tough at times but 18 years in I wouldn't trade any of it for anything.

We've been married for 32 years, but before that, we lived together for 7 years, and first few were very lean years. Used milk crates for furniture, cinder blocks and planks of wood. Slept on a full size futon- no frame- on the floor for years. Found a sofa on a sidewalk with a "free" sign on it, used it for 5 years, along with a hodgepodge of junk furniture. Made a lot of split pea soup, we did everything we could to save money.

When we got married, we had a city hall wedding during my lunch hour. The money saved from a wedding helped when we bought our first house 3 years later, the start of living better. But it is interesting- in those early years, it didn't seem like we were poor, those were great, fun times. I wouldn't trade those years for anything.

Funny you should ask this question because today it is mine and my wife's 33rd wedding anniversary.

I was four years into my career as a service manager for a fire protection company and my wife had just graduated college a few months earlier.
I was making what I considered good money for 1990, my wife was just starting here career.

I was already living in an apartment so when we got married she just moved in, so it did not add to much to the living costs I was already paying.
We were not broke but we were not rich either, we were paying our bills and putting some money aside to buy a house.

We were able to buy our first home a few months later so the rent payments stopped and we started building equity for the future.

The one nice thing was because my wife worked almost a full time job through college when she graduated she had no student loans to pay off.

Broke AF and she was pregnant. Caught on real fast and got my shit together. Twenty seven years later I’m floating much better.

I was mid-30's and wife 30 so doing OK but not set for life yet.
It paid to wait around and watch others make early mistakes, even though that wasn't really the plan, just worked out that way.

So broke that when we got divorced a year later and split our assets, we got $4k of debt each.

I was engaged once before that, she broke it off, and wanted to keep the ring. I was in school at the time, didn’t have a full-time job, and didn’t have any credit, so she had signed the loan to buy the ring. When she figured out who would be paying for it, she opted not to keep the ring.

I’ve said this before, but I can be a slow learner. Fortunately, I wised up and made it 15 years before getting engaged again. We’ve been married 17 now.

We didn't have much but we were happy. I didn't make much initially and she had to travel 40-50 miles one way for work and if she didn't, we would have never survived.

I stopped working full-time as a Medical Technologist (lab tech) two months before our wedding in 1979 and entered a 9-month program to get into IT. I worked part-time with my future father-in-law in construction while I went to school. My wife worked in retail at the time.

We had very little money. We would go to the grocery store, put things in the carriage only to have to put things back on the shelves before checkout.

I remember running our checking account down to 4-5 dollars every month paying the bills.

Out of school, I got a job in IT making $11k a year. We still didn't have much money, but things were better. Advancing in IT in the 80's was pretty easy, and the decision to switch careers was validated.

Times were pretty lean in the beginning of our marriage.
We're both retired now and pretty good financially after 45 years together.

In June 1972 I was 19 and a Lance Corporal (E3) in the Marine Corps, so pretty broke. We got married on June 2 and on the 12th I was on my way to Vietnam. 12 months of combat pay helped out, I think it was $50 per month.

We're now working on our 52nd year.

Really broke. I took a bartending gig to help make ends meet. My grandfather had just died and the family offered us a really great deal on his house. But this was 1982 and mortgage rates were in the teens. But we took the plunge and refinanced a year or so later. Consummate starter home. And that was when I lost my job. But things work out. I took a sales job and made more money than I thought possible at the time. Character building.