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

[Dancing Fire]

i think my wife spends < $100 every yr. on herself.

 

[iheartscience]

i think my wife spends < $100 every yr. on herself.

Then you need to tell her what you're telling us about dying rich-what's the point?!!

 

[Dancing Fire]

i think my wife spends < $100 every yr. on herself.

Then you need to tell her what you're telling us about dying rich-what's the point?!!

maybe her point is that she's well better off than i am... in her opinion a $20 jean is too high.

 

[Dreamer_D]

Oh I am not offended Greg! I was just suprised.

Maybe if we had more wiggle room in our finances I would feel differently. But right now we have everything accounted for down to the last $10. Its a sad sad life living in paradise (read super pricey town) with two kids in daycare

Early in our relationship it became clear that DH cannot manage money at all. He gets overwhelmed. So we handed that responsibility over to me. He basically never has to think about money ever. I don't think he even knows the bank account passwords. But he also can't spend at will He was willing to make that trade-off.

 

[Smith1942]

Under $100 on herself? Is that really true, or is your SO just really good at her own PR?? My mother was expert at making herself look like an angel in front of my dad! Shoes and clothes wear out, most people need a haircut every so often, work and formal occasions usually call for some small amount of preening which means cosmetics - she can't spend under a hundred in a whole year, surely!

 

[gemtastic]

When I worked at a designer swimsuit store in the mall during college, there would always be women coming in wanting to split a $3k swimsuit purchase over five credit cards, a check, and cash so their husband wouldn't find out.

Um, really? $3K on swimsuits??? WTF....are they made of gold lame? They should have to hide that kind of spending on tiny amounts of fabric you can only wear 2 months a year.

 

[Smith1942]

Cannot delete error-ridden message - sorry.

 

[Smith1942]

You get your trip and then the money's gone - it's no investment and what you get for the money is so transitory and fleeting. I always felt you might as well have burned it. Ah, I'm not one of life's travellers, which is pretty funny when you think I worked in the travel industry for ten years before becoming a book editor.

This isn't directed at you specifically, but I don't see the point of saving if you're not going to spend it on anything. You can't take it with you! My dad (who is actually a huge saver) always says he wants his last check to bounce, and I couldn't agree more. My parents are both retired now and he and my mom have gone on countless trips, whether it's to someplace new or just to visit me or my siblings. I hope my parents spend everything they have and don't leave me or my siblings a cent-they gave us a fantastic start in life and I'd rather have them enjoy it all themselves.

Don't worry, Thing2, I realise that I'm in the minority in this opinion! It's true about the memories - I have had some lovely trips which have come in very useful to re-visualise when in the dentist's chair, or something! It's easy for me to economise on travel because I'm a natural homebody. I'm not one of life's travellers. For example, I love it when I know where everything is and I can get a cup of tea when I want one. It annoys me when I'm away and you have to take all your bits with you - medication, contact lenses, hairbrush etc etc etc etc etc and you lose or forget half of it because you're going from place to place - and you're gasping for a cup of tea and there is none available. Yes, such small things but they really annoy me! In addition, I hate being too hot. I don't really like the sun. There are many things about travel that irritate me at a deep level. I do like holidays, sometimes, but I never feel motivated to spend much money on them. It's a deeply unfashionable view in our times. Of course, I've been lucky to have lots of travel with my job, but I certainly never sought it out. I LOVE diamonds and jewellery, and I'll still have it when I'm 80, by which time the memories have faded, and if you keep something for a long time you can sometimes sell it for more or for the original value if you need to if you've had it for many decades, and jewels can also be passed down. About travel, I guess I just think, wow that was one expensive set of memories! It isn't that I dislike all holidays, I've had some great ones. But I guess there just isn't enough value in it for me personally to spend much money on them. Deeply unfashionable, I know.

Agree about parents. Mine have barely been off a ship since they retired. They've just got back from a 4-month world voyage on Cunard. They worked damn hard while I was growing up and basically ate at home for 27 years and had camping trips, so I'm super-pleased for them.

They get their travel, I get my diamonds. Everyone is happy. But I'm sparklier!

 

[Dancing Fire]

Under $100 on herself? Is that really true, or is your SO just really good at her own PR?? My mother was expert at making herself look like an angel in front of my dad! Shoes and clothes wear out, most people need a haircut every so often, work and formal occasions usually call for some small amount of preening which means cosmetics - she can't spend under a hundred in a whole year, surely!

believe me she is very frugal.. that's reason why i don't tell her what i bought until it is too late to return,anyhow i spent my own money.

 

[Dancing Fire]

When I worked at a designer swimsuit store in the mall during college, there would always be women coming in wanting to split a $3k swimsuit purchase over five credit cards, a check, and cash so their husband wouldn't find out.

Um, really? $3K on swimsuits??? WTF....are they made of gold lame? They should have to hide that kind of spending on tiny amounts of fabric you can only wear 2 months a year.

nahhh,the swimsuit just make her look more perky...

 

[distracts]

When I worked at a designer swimsuit store in the mall during college, there would always be women coming in wanting to split a $3k swimsuit purchase over five credit cards, a check, and cash so their husband wouldn't find out.

Um, really? $3K on swimsuits??? WTF....are they made of gold lame? They should have to hide that kind of spending on tiny amounts of fabric you can only wear 2 months a year.

That's between 8 and 10 swimsuits. Some people seem to need a whole lot of swimsuits. (And I live in Texas, so we have a minimum of six months of swimsuit-wearable weather.)

Smith1942 - I am with you on trips. I am totally a homebody... why on earth would I pay lots of money to be shoved into a tiny flying can and have to sleep in an uncomfortable bed and look at random stuff that I could see just as easily in pictures? No thanks. With that said, I do go on vacation, I just don't go too willingly to anywhere that isn't Colorado (where I have been going every summer for almost all my life) or Hawaii (for the obvious reasons).

 

[Smith1942]

Distracts - Thank goodness someone else isn't that bothered about travel either! The Western world is just travel-crazy these days. I really laughed when I saw what you said about looking at places in pictures because that's exactly what I've thought too! My husband and I would love to see the Taj Mahal but stomach bugs are so common in India and I know several people who had such severe bugs while travelling in Asia that their stomachs were never the same again. So DH and I decided to just be content with looking at it in books!! Like you, I do like the odd holiday but it has to be a holiday, like your Hawaii. Mine is Aruba or the Maldives. In snobby intellectual circles in Britain it is very fashionable to claim that a beach holiday would bore you to death, to which my retort is, "Well, you're not working hard enough then!" So I like to get away but not to spend thousands upon thousands or to have a hard travel experience. I mean, I could hide my own teabags at home and not be able to get a cup of tea and the experience would be free!

 

[distracts]

In snobby intellectual circles in Britain it is very fashionable to claim that a beach holiday would bore you to death, to which my retort is, "Well, you're not working hard enough then!"

Since when has reading a good book ever been boring??? Isn't the entire point of a beach vacation to get into your swimsuit, go lay down outside, and read all day? That's what I do on mine anyway, lol. Minus the swimsuit and outside parts, it's what I do for at least half of the time on ANY vacation. Fortunately my fiance shares this same vacation philosophy. My parents, otoh, have to dash madly about looking at stuff, and I always hated vacations horribly as a kid because of it.