So let me start by saying that I'm a teacher (para) so I made about $20k last year from my full time job (insert rant about teacher salaries in Arizona here and how I'm doing a teacher's job but paid as a para). My FH made about $24k last year from his full time job, so needless to say, trying to figure out how to pay for the wedding was a struggle - we're shooting for $5k or less.
My dad has Alzheimer's, so I can work as a caregiver for him to make a little extra money. I recently took on 8 hours a weekend watching him to put that towards our wedding. He and I were both going to donate plasma as well. I went in and tried, but my veins are too small, so I can't. He still hasn't gone in once. Between those two things, we figured we could cover our wedding.
He proposed without an engagement ring (as we'd discussed - I have a Claddagh ring I bought in Ireland 3 years ago that can be worn as an engagement ring and I'm very picky about jewelry so we decided we'd pick a "proper" sparkly ring later).
We started marriage prep for our October wedding in January and after our first meeting, we went out to lunch and stopped at a pawn shop. We found a beautiful princess cut solitaire ring, 1/5 carat, yellow gold, super sparkly and simple for $350 or so. Screaming deal. They let us put it on layaway and he put a small down payment on it (which basically covered taxes) and was planning to pay a little bit each month towards it.
He got his tax refund (about $500) right before Valentine's day and was planning to spend some of it to buy a used PS4 so he could play Kingdom Hearts 3. (again, a thing we discussed. He's gotten me into it and he found one for $160 used so I'm cool with that). Then he asked if I'd like it if he just spent the rest of it on my ring and get it sooner. I said that would be awesome. We met with this landlord the next day right by the pawn shop and were going to stop by but we were driving past at 5:28 and they closed at 5:30, so we decided to wait. I said he should stop by later and surprise me with the ring, since he hadn't really gotten to do that when he proposed.
A few weeks go by, he's talking about how he has more money than he knows what to do with and I'm getting worried that he didn't get the ring. He's debating whether or not to buy stuff from Gamestop because they have great sales and such. I have no problem with fun money and him buying games once in a while, but I haven't spent anything really at all this month on non-essentials (literally $20 of fun stuff for me). So I asked him he'd stopped by the pawn shop last Friday. He said he forgot - I mean, I believe him, I think he genuinely forgot the way he said it. But now he has no money in his budget because he spent it on something and I'm really disappointed.
He's also getting a break from the $140 a month he pays his grandma for his phone/car insurance ect. I want him to put the first $100 in savings and then everything else towards the wedding. He's decided to take this coding boot camp for about $150 a month that will help him get a job making $40k-$50k a year, which is great, but not helpful right now. I need to go back to school too...
I don't know what to do - I'm really stressed about this and he thinks he can just kiss my stress away, which is great for him since his love language is touch, but mine is acts of service (and he knows this) and he hasn't really been helping with any of the wedding stuff. I don't know...
