Although I know money is one of the top three causes of dissent in marriage, I shy away from talking about it. Just yesterday I accepted a small sewing job from a friend. Don't fall of your chair but it is a memory quilt, made from her grandmother's fuzzy bathrobe and a dress her mother made her when she was six. But the truly ridiculous part is that I did not name a price. Not only that I made no reference to cash at all. Maybe she thinks this is an act of altruism.

Then there are the renters upstairs. They had rested their heads under our roof for ten days before anyone handed over any green paper. I made elaborate speeches in my head about how you pay at the beginning of the week, not the end, but when they walked through the kitchen on the way to work my mind went blank.

"Good morning. Sleep ok?"

John is cut from the same cloth. He would rather pump smelly water out the basement than hand in receipts for a transcontinental flight, an effort that would net five hundred dollars in twelve minutes.

I read an article about getting out of debt that had clear ideas. I like that we are already doing a bunch of them. John and I may be conversationally challenged when it comes to currency but we are frugal. Perhaps the suggestion that I appreciate most in the article is the one that reminds me that fighting with each other over money is even dumber than spending too much.