Before we got married, I worked on her car. She was my buddy's older sister, and she was a full time student in nurses training. Her car broke down, and my buddy could not get it working for her. I worked at a gas station and could put it on the hoist and I got it fixed for her. I think I worked on it 3 or 4 hours, she bought me a Micky D lunch, it was all the money she had! We started dating after that. When we got married, I had done some body work on her car and we sold it to pay for our wedding (that car was a 68 Sport Satellite with a HP 383, floor shifted auto, with 3:91 rear gears). I drove a beater, she drove my paid for 3 year old car. I was 19 when we got married.
I worked a full time job and I worked nights on car repair side jobs. After she finished school, she worked full time as a nurse in our local hospital. She knew I was a car guy going in. We got married in May, and in June, my buddies and I built a dirt track car and she was supportive! We made an agreement and split the house hold expenses, she paid some bills, and I paid the others, we each had household bills we paid. All the money I made at my full time job, and a big part of the money she made at her full time job was to cover the household bills. The money I made on the side was for the car hobby. The money left from her check was hers to spend however she wanted. We had a good budget set up and were both frugal, so we did pretty well.
Six months later we bought our first house, a side by side duplex. We rented out the one 1/2 and lived in the other 1/2. That was actually cheaper then paying rent, but we were not expecting the winter heating bill to be so high that 1st year. The last heating bill of the season was over $200, and we had no idea how we were going to pay it. I did a couple side jobs, sold a few car parts, and paid the gas bill. She knew where that money came from. After that she never questioned me about buying, or selling cars or parts, or working on cars. Over the years I have always provided her with a pretty nice car to drive, we always had a car or truck for me to get to work with, and we nearly always had a "car for fun."
Along the years, she has handed me some money to get a car part or something else I needed for a car from her money. She was a big fan of our dirt track racing (we did it for 20 years) and she was pretty involved. When we quit dirt track racing (my decision), we got into street cars and car shows. She liked that a lot better then the dirt track racing. Our life has pretty much been built around cars (she is not afraid to drive them a bit hard). She has helped in the garage a few times, but she has always been supportive, and she has always been actively engaged in car activities. There have been many years we have logged over 10,000 miles a year in our "fun cars" and we have taken them on vacations to over 25 states.
The 1st picture below is her and I near the summit of the Rocky Mountain National Park 2 days after they opened the pass at the end of May, 2016. The old coupe is about 1300 miles from home from home in this picture, it was on a 2800 mile cruise through IL, MO, NB, CO, WY, SD, back to CO then home through IA.
This picture is of the two of us at the Ark Experience in KY in 2019, we drove the same car with fresh paint on that 1400 miles trip through IL, IN, OH, and zigzagged through KY, TN, before heading back home in the north west corner of IL.
This May will be 48 years we have been married.
Not a lot of help but support on most stuff. 2nd time for me just had the 25th.
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