Who is the saver and how do you hide $$ purchases?

[gregchang35]

I know some PSers are really good at saving money. Some are also fantastic at hiding recent (expensive) purchases from SO.

eg... this old pair of shoes- yeah, i have had it for a while and it was on sale...

Our money goes directly into our mortgage, so there are no secret accounts. Well, if DH has one, i wouldn't know cos it will be secret!!!! If i do get money/ cash for my birthday or xmas; i hide it in my wallet and save it for rainy day. That usually doesn't last long as DH is always asking for CASH. He buys everything on the credit card which is linked to the mortgage, so he never has cash. I am the one that gets cash out of the ATM, so i am the one that has to shell out the cash.

Funny story.... There were a lot of bills last month, and i needed to check that we had enough money in the credit card; o'wise i had to transfer money from the mortgage into the credit card. It was Valentines day, then i saw something that i shouldn't have-DH got me something for Valentines day. i still acted surprised when it arrived at work. hehehehee.

Anyway, i digress....Any of you PSer squirreling money away for that rainy day or that BLING purchase??????

 

[kenny]

I love my SO because he can't tell when I buy a new camera or lens.
He has even used it, and even though a lens is 3 times as heavy as the old one he's still clueless it's new gear.

Now, ain't he sweet?

 

[Deactivated member 42515]

I do the finances so I buy whatever I want. But then again, so does DH but he has to run it by me first

 

[gregchang35]

I love my SO because he can't tell when I buy a new camera or lens.
He has even used it, and even though a lens is 3 times as heavy as the old one he's still clueless it's new gear.

Now, ain't he sweet?

Kenny, that is lucky.... how about bling- would he notice that your FCD collection grew?

I do the finances so I buy whatever I want. But then again, so does DH but he has to run it by me first

Nice work YT!!! so more bling for you without too much discussion!!!!

 

[Deactivated member 42515]

I love my SO because he can't tell when I buy a new camera or lens.
He has even used it, and even though a lens is 3 times as heavy as the old one he's still clueless it's new gear.

Now, ain't he sweet?

Kenny, that is lucky.... how about bling- would he notice that your FCD collection grew?

I do the finances so I buy whatever I want. But then again, so does DH but he has to run it by me first

Nice work YT!!! so more bling for you without too much discussion!!!!

The only thing DH wants me to do is tell him before I make a purchase so he feels in the loop. He's been pretty vocal about the OEC studs tho, usually he's not. I'm getting the settings custom designed and hand made and he's been giving me a lot of input on what he thinks would be a good setting he says showcase the diamond, let it be the star hahaha

 

[gregchang35]

cant wait to see FLY and the OEC now... whetting my appetite.....

going to DBL website now.

 

[Deactivated member 42515]

cant wait to see FLY and the OEC now... whetting my appetite.....

going to DBL website now.

The OECs are only 1.56ctw tho. And my big lobes are swallowing the diamonds alive when I put them up against my ear.

 

[kenny]

Kenny, that is lucky.... how about bling- would he notice that your FCD collection grew?

No.
He's not a sensation type, per that Myers-Briggs typology thingie.

 

[gregchang35]

cant wait to see FLY and the OEC now... whetting my appetite.....

going to DBL website now.

The OECs are only 1.56ctw tho. And my big lobes are swallowing the diamonds alive when I put them up against my ear.

me thinks you better get your ear lobes checked out by a medic!!!!

They are sizeable at 1.56ctw. cant wait for the ear shots... if you don't mind others copying it!
I have seen an OEC pair on Ebay 1ct ctw but lost out. I am so happy with 1.03ctw Princesses, that i shouldn't want for more earrings!

I will admire from SMTB threads....

 

[Dancing Fire]

Anyway, i digress....Any of you PSer squirreling money away for that rainy day or that BLING purchase??????

of course i do...never let your SO know how much money you have stash away...

 

[Dancing Fire]

I do the finances so I buy whatever I want. But then again, so does DH but he has to run it by me first

rule #1 in a marriage...never let the wife control the $$$...

 

[JewelFreak]

YT, how about jackets -- then you can wear them bare-naked or bigger, depending on your mood.

I keep the accts & pay the bills. I have kept one credit card I've had since my 20s that isn't a joint one & use that for, ahem, private purchases (including Christmas & b'day gifts ). Recently I started getting a teeny little payment from a job I had years ago -- DH was ok with my having a separate savings acct for bills or bling, whatever.

When stones come signature-required, he's often around. Hard to hide them then. If he asks how much I spent & it's an amount I'll never hear the end of, I lie. Plain & simple, lie. I haven't bought anything incredibly costly -- & have never asked how many millions he's spent on his vintage cars because steam would come out of my ears -- I think it's my turn.

--- Laurie

 

[Jennifer W]

DH doesn't ever buy stuff, there's nothing he seems to want. I like to buy diamonds... We each take care of our own finances, though. We pay our bills and agreed saving commitments by direct debit from a joint account we both pay into each month, then the rest is ours to spend or save as we prefer. I don't hide purchases, I don't justify them - I'm a grown up, and it's my money, I worked hard for it. I won't explain or justify a single penny. It's a thing I suppose I'm a little prickly about - my mother always had to ask for money (she earned more than my father) and he was quite mean about it in small ways. I always hated to see that, even if it was sort of a joke between them. It made me uneasy.

 

[missy]

We keep no secrets (financial or otherwise) from each other. Trust and honesty is critical for our relationship health IMO. At the very beginning of our relationship (when we were dating) some secrets came out (that my dh was keeping from me) and it took a long while to work it through and for my dh to gain my trust back so I am 100% certain he would never do anything to betray my trust in him ever again.

My dh is very generous-perhaps to a fault. He has never and would never tell me not to buy something I wanted. However, I have decent financial sense so I would not ever make a crazy (I hope) purchase we couldn't afford and he knows that. In all our years together, through all my jewelry and other expensive purchases he has always been the one to say I should get it. I always discuss big purchases with him ofc but never once has he said I should not buy something.

Specific example- we had a lot of damage from Sandy and insurance covered none of it so it did add a financial expense to our lives that we were not prepared for or expecting however he knew how much I had been wanting to change my ER for an OEC and when I suggested we put that purchase on hold he didn't want to. He wanted me to get the ER of my dreams. And instead he put his garage project on hold. The garage he has been wanting to build since we bought our beach house. The garage I promised him before we bought this house because it had no garage for his woodworking hobby. We just could not afford to do both now especially with the damage from Sandy. I tried arguing with him but he would not hear of it. And now his garage is on hold indefinitely because it has been a very costly year.

On the other hand I can be a bit frugal at times so I am not as carte blanche with him as he is with me. But that is because he is not as careful with money as I am. He doesn't like to scrimp and save because he had enough of that when he was younger and he wants to enjoy life without always counting pennies. I think a bit of my philosophy has rubbed off on him since we have been together though and that is a good thing. And a lot of his philosophy has rubbed off onto me so I do spend a lot more freely than I used to. Not sure if that is a good thing or not LOL though I think we balance each other nicely most of the time.

We have an emergency fund (worth about a year or two of living expenses) and we have paid off one mortgage but still have a big mortgage on our beach house. We have no credit card debt as we always pay our bills each month. We fund the maximum to our retirement accounts and we still invest on top of that so I guess we are doing fine. But we certainly would be saving a lot more if my dh and I didn't love to buy expensive things. My dh has an expensive watch hobby as well as a love for woodworking and bicycles. But it's his passion so while I might rein him in at times I am glad we can afford, for the most part, to enjoy our hobbies.

I agree with my dh in that we should live in the moment and enjoy life and we are saving for the future but perhaps not as much as I had been saving for the future before I got married. Of course I would never want to go back because my life is so much richer now-after all I am now sharing it with the love of my life so there is no comparison.

I would like to add though that I make no judgments about the way other people/couples live their life. I believe what works for one couple doesn't necessarily work for another. I am sharing my thoughts about what works for
my dh and me and in no way saying how other people should live their lives financially or otherwise. Just want to make that clear-no judgments here!

 

[diamondringlover]

I am the saver in the family and I do not hide anything...there isnt enough money left over to hide My hubby is the spender we argue about this quite a bit, he spends money on stupid things and I get angry, for example he bought some big machine off Craigslist that cuts metal or something (i dont know what it does) he spent a total of $2500 on it..he just had to have it and is was such a good deal anyway he put in our garage and to this day he has never even plugged it in, let alone use it...he has had it now for a year!!!! he does stuff like this all the time and it makes me seriously crazy. On the flip side he doesnt care if I buy something for me...but I am so tight with money that I seldom ever spend anything for myself.....

 

[Deactivated member 42515]

YT, how about jackets -- then you can wear them bare-naked or bigger, depending on your mood.

I keep the accts & pay the bills. I have kept one credit card I've had since my 20s that isn't a joint one & use that for, ahem, private purchases (including Christmas & b'day gifts ). Recently I started getting a teeny little payment from a job I had years ago -- DH was ok with my having a separate savings acct for bills or bling, whatever.

When stones come signature-required, he's often around. Hard to hide them then. If he asks how much I spent & it's an amount I'll never hear the end of, I lie. Plain & simple, lie. I haven't bought anything incredibly costly -- & have never asked how many millions he's spent on his vintage cars because steam would come out of my ears -- I think it's my turn.

--- Laurie

Hey JewelFreak! Jackets were exactly what I was thinking! DH kept telling me that maybe I need to go bigger but I told him I would rather switch it up with various jackets. Poor guy doesn't know that it doesn't just end at studs

You have the same credit card since your 20's?! That's super awesome!!!

 

[marcy]

Neither one of us are savers but I've become more diligent about it lately. I used to have a part time job that brought in between 1 to 2 K a month and we often used that for spending money usually jewelry for me or watches for him. After I lost that job we had to adjust to less impulse buying. I pay the bills and sometimes just have to say no we can't afford it. We do not hide purchases from each other and always ask each other if it is more than about a hundred.

 

[HopeDream]

I save, he spends,

We have a joint account for household bills etc that all our money gets pooled into, and we each have a personal account that gets "fun money" each month. The bills get paid, and we each get sufficient discresionary spending as well - fair and no guilt.

 

[mary poppins]

We both save, and DH spends more than me. He encourages me to spend because I am more frugal. We maintain separate accounts but don't hide purchases from each other.

To a prior poster's comment, I still use the first credit card I got in college 22 years ago. Aside from the fact that I like the card, I won't close it because it would have a negative impact on my credit score. One of the score factors is length of credit history.

 

[marymm]

I am the one in charge (so to speak) of our finances - we both save, and we both spend - he usually checks with me before making larger purchases and vice versa - in terms of bling, my PayPal account is allocated to that and I do what I want with it, but since I appreciate his opinion I usually show him before I make bling purchases. I don't hide purchases but now and again I fudge a bit on what I spent.

 

[Laila619]

We don't hide purchases from each other. We are both savers, so spending has never really been an issue. But we're free to buy what we want; if it's over $200, we run it past each other first, not to get permission, but just in a "heads up" kind of way.

 

[baby monster]

I do the finances so I buy whatever I want. But then again, so does DH but he has to run it by me first

rule #1 in a marriage...never let the wife control the $$$...

DH and I don't hide money or purchases from each other. If I buy a pair of shoes, I usually want to get his opinion right away so knows.

BIL and SIL went thru divorce couple of years ago. He didn't want to be bothered with keeping track of the money and spending so she did everything from day 1. A lot of money went missing. Not in one transfer as relationship started tanking but over a looooong period of time. She must've been quietly putting cash aside on a monthly basis.

 

[Dancing Fire]

save some, spend some.i feels sorry for most of the elderly chinese couples whom i know. they work hard all their lives and saved every dime and then die rich.why people wanna do that??..

 

[HopeDream]

DF - Isn't it good to end up rich "just in case"? You never know when some hidden expense my pop up!

I hope to become wealthy enough that I may live in comfort when I'm too old to be able to work or take care of myself.

But I agree you should enjoy some of it too! My grandfather saved all his life - ended up quite well off, and then died suddenly. I think he should have taken more vacations!

 

[sphenequeen]

I don't do this personally, but I know some clever ladies that buy gift cards at the grocery store (the ones from Visa, MC, or AMEX) and use those to make purchases. If SO does not look at the individual grocery receipts, but rather just monitors the credit card, it appears that you just spent a wee but more buying your milk and eggs.

It's just one idea - it's not that I am a proponent of these sorts of things, but desperate times call for desperate measures!

 

[rubyshoes]

DH and I are both big savers. We have 2 yrs expenses stashed in the bank for a "rainy day" and we are quite frugal. Our joint vice is traveling (although we usually redeem airline miles for tickets) and I really love jewelry so that's what we spend on. We also donate quite a bit to various animal shelters eg. sponsoring a dog for adoption type stuff. So neither needs to hide anything from the other. We do talk each other out of purchases though. Like last year I really wanted a Cartier Tank ($3500) and DH convinced me it was a ridiculous purchase so I ended up buying a Seiko Solar watch ($80)

 

[kenny]

save some, spend some.i feels sorry for most of the elderly chinese couples whom i know. they work hard all their lives and saved every dime and then die rich.why people wanna do that??..

I know a couple without a penny in the bank.
They have a zillion maxed out credit cards.
They've declared bankruptcy and want to die as deeply in debt as possible.
They play the system.
They are very open and honest about their philosophy and can't understand why more people don't take what they call the easy way out.

Similarly, why do they want to do that, spend all, spend all?
Opposite but sort of the same as that rich dead Chinese couple, save all, save all.

I agree that save some, spend some is groovy.

 

[Dancing Fire]

DF - Isn't it good to end up rich "just in case"? You never know when some hidden expense my pop up!

I hope to become wealthy enough that I may live in comfort when I'm too old to be able to work or take care of myself.

But I agree you should enjoy some of it too! My grandfather saved all his life - ended up quite well off, and then died suddenly. I think he should have taken more vacations!

sure, up to a certain age, if i'm gonna hit the lottery i hope to hit it before turning 60.IMO, once you get into your 70's money becomes less and less useful.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Funny story.... There were a lot of bills last month, and i needed to check that we had enough money in the credit card; o'wise i had to transfer money from the mortgage into the credit card. It was Valentines day, then i saw something that i shouldn't have-DH got me something for Valentines day. i still acted surprised when it arrived at work. hehehehee.

Anyway, i digress....Any of you PSer squirreling money away for that rainy day or that BLING purchase??????

on this thread you sounded like a gal to me... you said DH??

 

[Deactivated member 42515]

Funny story.... There were a lot of bills last month, and i needed to check that we had enough money in the credit card; o'wise i had to transfer money from the mortgage into the credit card. It was Valentines day, then i saw something that i shouldn't have-DH got me something for Valentines day. i still acted surprised when it arrived at work. hehehehee.

Anyway, i digress....Any of you PSer squirreling money away for that rainy day or that BLING purchase??????

on this thread you sounded like a gal to me... you said DH??

Greg has a partner. He is a man DF.