I guess when you think about it, a lot can be accomplished in 10 years. I had just graduated from college, almost 10 years to the day, and my husband was a recent grad. I suppose we were still pretty broke back as we worked to get established, then a year or so later we started living the good life with two large incomes. We really worked hard to set up our lives, paid off all debt and made a very large down payment on the very nice house. Things were a little tight again when I stopped working to be a stay at home mom, but not too bad, obviously just not as great when my entire income was extra. Now things are very comfortable again.

10 years ago dh was a teacher, with a guaranteed income and great benefits, including retirement. He also had many extra duties that required him to be at school almost every evening and on many Saturdays, as well as summers.

He changed careers, became successful at his new career, then opened his own business. Now, he's self-employed, making twice as much money, but pretty much in the same boat as before due to high taxes and no benefits. So, we're making twice as much on paper, but about at the same place he was teaching, minus the security of having that teaching contract.

So was it worth it? Yes! Having total control and having the time to be with the family, or pursue a hobby instead of working 24/7 has been worth giving up the security of tenure/teaching contract, even if we aren't really better off financially in the end.

10 yrs ago I was getting out of a awful marriage, I didn't have any money and worked 2 jobs. I've been happily married for the last 7 yrs.

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10 years ago we were just married with TONS of debt and blowing what we had faster than it could come in. We had to put groceries on a cc in order to eat. We had our first child almost 9 1/2 later after we got married and that changed our lives for the better. We started working on getting our debt paid down and two years later we were able to purchase a home that we still owe on. Our debt to income ratio is much better and with in 1 year we should be debt free except for our home.

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10 years ago, DH and I were dating and close to getting engaged. I was just about to make a job change that moved me into the next higher salary range and status level of my career, which was a good thing because I wasn't making very much money before then. DH was working and living the bachelor life before we met.

We are better off now. We have several months expenses in an emergency fund, a smaller "incidental" savings account and a good deal of equity in our home. We have become really good at being in sync with each other financially during the course of our marriage, which has served us well. We had to hit the ground running with that, though, because we've had many unexpecteds during our marriage. We paid for our wedding (in full), bought a house, have put around $50,000 into repairing the house (some expected expenses and some not), managed to become a one-income family, adopted two kids, and dealt with DH being out of work for several months because of an injury. So - despite all of that - we are much better at managing our money now, so we are better off than we were before.