Nothing in my life speaks of high spending. Nothing.
Yes, I bought a new house two years ago, and yes it was smaller. I went from 4500 sq. ft. and six bedrooms to 2400 sq. ft. and four bedrooms. Appraised value was also about half.
I was making $160K twenty years ago because I was in a very unique situation that only lasted a couple of years. I recently got a very large raise which brought me to just over $60K. $7K is a big deal.
What kind of cars do I drive? I drive a 12-year-old pickup with 228K miles on it, W has a 2002 minivan with 78K on it, and the kids have a 2000 Chevy (Suzuki) Metro with 90K on it. The only semi-luxury is a 2003 BMW motorcycle that I bought last year to replace a ’96 BMW that I had had for eight years. The bike was a leftover, so even though it’s a 2003, it was new when I bought it in June of 2004. Since the ‘05s were about to come out (which would have made it 2 years old), I got a good deal. A really good deal. That’s the only way I could afford/justify it.
Do I have a big screen entertainment center? No. I have an 8-year-old 27” TV in the living room and an OLD 19” in my bedroom.
Do I have all the latest electronics? Nope. None in fact. My newest computer is just over a year old, but the one before that is still in use – a 533MHz Pentium 2 running Windows 98. No laptop. No PDA. I finally broke down and bought a cheap Korean DVD player from Wally World last Christmas. No iPod. The newest piece of stereo equipment I have is a pair of Techinics speakers I bought four years ago from the factory store where I was getting my turntable repaired. Like most everything I buy, they were discontinued and consequently priced well below retail.
Do my kids go to private school? Nope. Can’t afford it. Besides, I’m really happy with the public schools where we live. I can’t say that I would put them in private school even if you were paying for it.
Designer suits? What’s a suit? Oh wait, I do have one of those. I got it for my father’s funeral – 18 years ago. At J. C. Penney's. The closest I have to designer anything is a Carhartt jacket that I bought on 40%-off sale at Tractor Supply last spring.
Does W get a consistent message regarding finances and spending? Most definitely. Do I live the level of frugality to which I want her to adhere. No - I live much more frugally than I would ever ask her to live.
Well BB thinks of me as her dad sometimes and tells me I don't allow her to buy the things she wants, when she wants them, with her money.
We have different wants and ways to look at life. According to the co-dependency books, she should be allowed to have most of the things she wants and I should go along with it and I should do my own thing.
Maybe we were too emeshed but this separate, my way, your way model is not working for me as well as it does for some people.
Lou, it strikes me that the two of you have this huge overfunctioning/underfunctioning thing going on. You are off the scale on the conservative spending and she's off the scale on the liberal spending.
Feel free to tell me to back off, but when I read your posts about your wife, her family and their spending habits, there are these whiffs of "righteousness" from you that I pick up on. I figure the uncle who is in his 70s and got a 30-year mortgage probably thinks he pulled one over the financial institution who was goofy enough to sign up on that.
I do agree that your wife's spending has been and is over the top. As regarding the respect issue, I don't think you respect her now. So, it's not that your respect is going to run out if she continues in this fashion, it's that your tolerance will.
There's nothing inherently wrong with your wife sending back food that isn't what she ordered, there's nothing inherently righteous about you stoicly eating the incorrectly prepared order.
From your description, your wife is a complainer. Some folks are just like that by nature. We call it the "black hole syndrome" because they tend to suck the light and life from the surrounding area. You don't have to try to correct that by countering her utterances of unhappiness with your assessments of "the glass is really half full!" Because it will only wear you out and pi$$ her off. You can let her know that you can't handle the negativity right now and ask if she would stop and then calmly remove yourself from it if she chooses not to do so. And if it is in regard to *you* specifically, then I would address them (ie, the food you dumped in the sink after her complaints).
On home repairs - I would seriously consider not doing anything else *unless she is right there with you helping*. Even if it is just handing you the tools.
She comes across from your posts as an incredibly lazy person. Is she? People who aren't doing the work or who have never done so, often can have a skewed idea of how long something should take to accomplish. I have hung every strip of wallpaper that has ever been hung in any home we've ever owned. I have painted every room that's ever been painted. So, it's not as if women can't do these sorts of home things. So, why are you plodding along doing all the decorating and home repairs why she sits on her butt? Is that what is happening? What is *she* doing while you're doing all this physical labor?
As to dog pee - close off every door to all the other rooms. Let Mr. Pee Pants have access to only one or two rooms. If you don't want to close the doors because of air flow, then get a few child-gates to keep them out. Would she argue about that?
The point of separating out your finances is so that she can't damage you any more than she has and so that you can remove yourself as the poobah of her spending. I understand your fear that if you remove yourself as the gatekeeper, that she's going to go off the scale. That very well could happen.
The opposite might actually happen as well.
If she's not fighting your verbal as well as non-verbal control, she might stop her teenaged-type push to go against Lou and might develop some financial restraint. I wonder that you are doing as much damage to your own feelings toward her by placing yourself in that position as you would if you just let her go.
Zbube, I could have answered this presumptuous post from Cobra myself, since I know ya so well. After all, we've been married for 10 years, lolol.
This cracked me up with how much you resemble MrH. With the exception of the motorcycle--he'd never splurge for that--and the buying a new home before the old one was sold. THAT would give both of us heart failure. Hope it sells soon.
Do not even entertain the 4 wheeler talk. Just say, Nope! Can't afford it. and move on cheerfully to the next topic.
I don't know if you were serious about the bankruptcy (since you are MrH's brother, I know that you are prone to exaggeration as to how bad things are ) but your kids need good financial role models more than they need new wheels to tool around the farm on.
Quote: Twenty years ago, when we had no kids, I was knocking down $160K/year and we still lived paycheck to paycheck....Right now we’re close to bankrupt. I don’t know what we’re going to do if we don’t get that old house sold pretty soon.
ZB , 20 years ago I was making $21K a year and saving a little money every paycheck. I don't net much more from the business now and BB was making $10K a year working part time. It can be done.
You have to earn money, pay the taxes, put some in savings and investments, then spend. 36 years ago, I put some money in an investment and for each $1 I put in, I now have $25. Nothing fancy about the investment it was the time and rolling the dividends back into the fund that made it grow. I think the financial people call the practice the "time value of money and compounding interest.
BTW Montana is 47 in wages. I used to know some people with a masters degree working as wait staff, it paid more than working in an area related to their degree.
Quote: And would you believe that W is talking about buying the kids a $7000 four-wheeler for Christmas?!?
Thank advertising ZB. Create the want and the customers will come.
Lots. It is more about being wasteful, frittering money away tor something that will go to the trash or donation store in a year because it is only used a couple of times.
Quote: but you never did anything to make it change.
I said I was about to leave in Jan 2004. The QVC thing slowed down then almost stopped. Not it is home repairs and furniture, not because we need it, but because we have had the old things 25 years or a new style is the trend.
Quote: So once you’ve done everything you can to fix yourself, to address all the complaints of your spouse
That is mostly what I am doing.
Quote: I see only two explanations – either more time is needed or more pressure is needed
Doing the time with pressure. See NPO's last post to me. It was not easy for him.
Quote: I figure the uncle who is in his 70s and got a 30-year mortgage probably thinks he pulled one over the financial institution
With his family genes, he will live to be 100. His 15 year younger wife will have to pay it off if they don't have insurance coverage.
Quote: "black hole syndrome" because they tend to suck the light and life from the surrounding area.
Good way to put it and yes BB's glass is almost always the most empty one of the bunch.
Quote: can let her know that you can't handle the negativity right now and ask if she would stop and then calmly remove yourself from it if she chooses not to do so.
I have done that a couple of times. I get the "can't I say what is on my mind?"
Quote: unless she is right there with you helping*. Even if it is just handing you the tools.
Works on paper Mrs NOP, but I don't think I could take her moans and sighs. Besides that is mans work.
Quote: What is *she* doing while you're doing all this physical labor?
GunSmoke, Bewitched, Bonanza reruns, minding the pets, and 24/7 news.
Quote: Mr. Pee Pants have access to only one or two rooms...... then get a few child-gates to keep them out. Would she argue about that
Already have 2 gates. Sometimes they get left open, sometimes something new gets placed on the floor in the dog area. It gets marked. This happens about 2 to 4 times a month that I know of. Other times I see something sticky and grainy on things and assume "weiner boy" hit.
Quote: If she's not fighting your verbal as well as non-verbal control, she might stop her teenaged-type push to go against Lou and might develop some financial restraint.
I know I am not helping her if I would die tomorrow, BB would be out in left field about the finances.
Quote: I wonder that you are doing as much damage to your own feelings toward her by placing yourself in that position as you would if you just let her go.
I brought up the separate finances but I think BB took it as one step closer to me leaving. I also said anytime she wants to buy her own condo, go ahead. I will not stop her, there are movers advertised in the newspaper.
BB replied that if just want to control her and what I need is some sex nymphomaniac with out a mind of her own so I can control her and have sex anytime I want it.
A couple of minuets later she asked if I was thinking of leaving her and staying on vacation permantely then she put her arm around me.
Thanks for the replies. I can't do many more posts. I have to pack for vacation. Not the vacation I exactly wanted.
Three of the 5 sisters/sisters-in-laws are not in good health and the last time I saw all of them together was 1986. I have to go play helper for a couple of days to two of them. That is what happens when you are the last born. I lived with some of them when I was a kid and in a way they are more like aunts than sisters. The sister-in-law is almost like a foster mother.
Lou, bless your heart. You are a responsible person, who has had (and continues to have) a great deal of responsibility placed on him. That can get awfully wearying.
I grew up poor. Devastatingly, not sure where our next meal was coming from - poor.
It makes you fearful.
And I don't know that you ever totally get past that fear, because it only takes a couple of bad things happening, to find yourself smack-dab in that same sort of financial poverty.
I don't know that there is enough money in the world or enough food in my cupboards to fully take away that fearful void that gnaws just beneath my consciousness.
Do you think it is fear that powers your response in this situation?
Quote: the buying a new home before the old one was sold. THAT would give both of us heart failure
BB wanted this house before our old one was sold but I said no starting the new one before the money for the old house is in the bank.
RE ZB ZB I think I spend more than you do. A 533Mhz processor in a computer is fast enough for the Internet. The gamers need the kick butt processors. I do have a 2800Mhz some place that I was going to sell but now it is not worth what I paid for it, so I guess I get to keep it.
ZB you posted about making sex last longer and feeling better/ more satisfying? It is not all about pumping and humping. I encourage you to get some soak time and rub everything thing on Mrs. ZB you can, that feels good to you. Those 5 minuet jobs don't carry over to the next day so take your time. That is advice from the a$$ rubber, back scratchier, scalp massager, sides of the breasts, legs stroker, Lou. Feel those light finger tips going back and forth slowly?
can let her know that you can't handle the negativity right now and ask if she would stop and then calmly remove yourself from it if she chooses not to do so.
I have done that a couple of times. I get the "can't I say what is on my mind?"
"Sure, honey. But right now I'm not at a place where I can listen to it. Perhaps it is a weakness on my part, but I have a hard time listening to what I perceive as negative comments and sometimes I just have to protect myself from it."
Works on paper Mrs NOP, but I don't think I could take her moans and sighs. Besides that is mans work.
Another alternative is to have her doing one of the projects *in another part of the house*. You're just setting up a very bad precedent where she's sitting like the Queen of Sheba while you're working through the list of "things that must be done." If I recall correctly, she doesn't cook either, does she?
Quote: brought up the separate finances but I think BB took it as one step closer to me leaving. I also said anytime she wants to buy her own condo, go ahead. I will not stop her, there are movers advertised in the newspaper.
BB replied that if just want to control her and what I need is some sex nymphomaniac with out a mind of her own so I can control her and have sex anytime I want it.
Regarding the separate finances - "Honey, I've been trying to work out a way that I can respond to your concerns that I am trying to control your spending. You know I haven't been comfortable with the level of spending. I'm trying to balance my concern for what I perceive as overspending with my concern that I have enough money saved for my retirement. The only way I have found to do both of these things is to separate out our finances. I'm open to any ideas you might have that would allow you freedom to spend for your current desires while allowing me freedom to save for my future financial needs. "
Quote: I grew up poor. Devastatingly, not sure where our next meal was coming from - poor
BTDT really bad in 1952. It got better after 1956.
Quote: Do you think it is fear that powers your response in this situation?
Parents lost a house do to dad's poor health and the economic depression during the 1930's before I was born.
Poor child hood, electricity turned off a couple of times because of some toys in relationship to the income.
I went to work got over that mostly.
Back injury in 1981 just enough savings and insurance disability payments to get by. Recovered from that financially.
1986/7 another back injury. Learned from the first one not to live paycheck to paycheck. Went to C for low self worth because I lost who I was, Lou the self-taught good auto mechanic with a part time business at home. Went to college, new career, I am more than what I do for a living. Went back to work earning half of what I did as a mechanic in new field working with ungrateful brats. Stock market takes dive but recovers. I quit because of office politics.
1994 I start my business while working with the delinquent boys at the group home. I quit the group homework in 1997. I got busier every year but did not make more profit. 9/11/2001 my insurance and heat bill doubled so I moved my business back home. Stock market makes retirement fund lose 40% of its value. BB wants to sell and go to Vegas before we lose it all.
Today, another 9/11-type incident could cause the stock market to drop and get BB in a position to want to sell things we should keep.
I am not a doomsday type of person. I don't get excited if the stock market is going up or down. It does that if you look back a hundred years. Some people get excited at market highs and want to die if the market drops 25%. I am not a day trader, or a what’s new and hot type of guy. i will never discover the next Google type of stock (price to 2003 earnings ratio of 329) Give me a quarter here a dime there.
In general, I learned crap happens, good things happen too. Be prepared for both. Sometimes “new” really means more plastic / fake / empty promises. Value what works. Also what is new adds to the burden of what you have to dispose of some day.
Because it will only wear you out and pi$$ her off. You can let her know that you can't handle the negativity right now and ask if she would stop and then calmly remove yourself from it if she chooses not to do so.
) but your kids need good financial role models more than they need new wheels to tool around the farm on.
Feel those light finger tips going back and forth slowly? 