Fabulously Broke, one of my favorite bloggers for her picture-laden posts and down-to-earth tone, gives us her take on her biggest money conflict.
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This might sound kind of silly, but our biggest money conflict is that sometimes I am willing to pay slightly more (nothing outrageously so) for an item.
Here’s a recent example.
We wanted to make duck for dinner, and basically scoured every possible grocery store and market before finally chancing across a couple of duck legs in a chic market.
Me: “We spent ALL DAY looking for this and finally found it. Let’s just buy it. This town is not made for duck eating. It’s our only hope. C’mere ducky!”
BF: “No. I know it can be cheaper than that. It should be worth $13/lb! I saw it somewhere, I KNOW I DID. No. Put it back, we’re going to find that duck.”
Me: “Damn it.”
In the end, he was right. We found the duck (a whole one) for $13/lb, but you can see where we have a conflict in money decisions there.
He wants to find exactly what he wants for the exact price he is expecting, and I am more laissez-faire in that I am willing to forgo a couple of bucks (not $20) just to pick up what we want. I don’t mind being wrong in that case if it saves me money, but I just think of the time and gas wasted and wonder if it’s worth it in the end.
It’s funny, but it all relates to what we’re buying.
He’s tough on the food, utility and gas prices, and he will spend the time searching for what he wants at the price he wants, whereas I am more like: “It’s duck. It’s not chicken. Just buy it.” I’m tough on personal purchases (electronics, makeup, toiletries), and I will spend time waiting for something to come down in price and delaying my purchases, whereas he will adopt my attitude towards food, and buy whatever they say the price is after checking all the sales.
Other than that, we don’t have money conflicts.
We each earn our own salary, and we save and spend it as we choose (although he has to remind me that I own a lot of nice things already). We each have our own retirement accounts and we are comfortable that we are both money savvy enough to not have to police each other, but to give money advice to each other instead.
We also split everything 50/50 because it works for us. The only things that we don’t is that I cover the cellphone and he covers the internet & parking.
I LIKE paying my share in the expenses because I feel less guilty when I go out to buy something for myself and I am not thinking about how that $20 could have gone towards paying my share of the expenses.
…and vice versa.
Other than that, we’re both pretty good with keeping expenses low (he calls me cheap, but I know otherwise).
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Oof! I can really relate to that. When we were first married, I worked 75 hours a week (easily!) and my husband had a much more laid back schedule. If I could save 5 minutes by spending an extra 5 bucks, it was worth it to me. If I found a plan ticket to the place I wanted in the price range I was looking for, I wanted to buy it NOW. He wanted to check every other possible plane ticket on each and every search engine over a period of several weeks. . .oh man!
But now that I'm not working, I'm way more willing to spend more time to save a little money. Time is not such a scarce commodity anymore.