2013 has been an unlucky year of expenses for the O’Neals. I
don’t want to bore you with the details, but here are the highlights: a brand
new trampoline that hated our kids so much that it chose a mangled death in a
field over their happiness, a dish washer that out-logiced us when it found no
reason to clean our plates since we’d be dirtying them up again anyway, two car
batteries that wanted to meet Jesus on the first day of our vacation, and some truck
wiring that was far too appetizing to the local field mice. Such is
life….especially for the O’Neals whose bad luck can only be rivaled by the
descendants of Stanley Yelnats.
On the up side, I’ve racked up an impressive amount of
credit card points with the sweetness that is 1% cashback , so it’s all good. I
mean, who isn’t willing to spend $3000 to get $30 back?
Amid such financial hickups is when the differences between
men and women and how we approach spending really shine. Now, Sutton and I have
similar viewpoints on the big issues: we treat most things with humor,
especially if it’s inappropriate; we value our time together as well as our
time apart; and we never eat after 9:30 at night. I don’t pretend to know the
secret of good relationships, and Lord knows that I’ve had many fail (I mean a lot…like
a whole lot…seriously, I got around), but this is what works for us.
We even have a shared ideology when it comes to spending:
DON’T. Apparently, cheap is contagious, and I caught a bad case right after I
married an engineer. Yes, we’re serious about saving money, but not in a doomsday-prepper
kind of way. It’s more of an our-kids-break-everything-we’ve-ever-bought-and-their-replacements kind of way. However,
when money has to be spent, my financial philosophy and that of my husband
occupy different time zones.
For example, Sutton might say something dumb like, “Kate, we
need x, y, and z home repairs, or our house is going to collapse around us,” and
my totally reasonable response might be, “No, what we need is some new throw pillows in the bedroom because the old ones are
jacking up the French provincial vibe that I’ve been trying to copy from The Bronson Pinchot Project for two and
a half weeks. You know that my best
friend just redid her living room, so if you don’t let me do this, you might as
well kill me now!”
Both are equally valid claims, with one being slightly more
valid than the other (I needed those pillows, people), but they showcase how
differently we approach our spending habits: mine focus on creature comforts
and his try to keep us alive.
Similarly, I can justify buying a $49 set of Pottery Barn
place card holders for a Christmas dinner that consists only of our parents and
two small, place card-eating children, but if he comes home with a 20oz.
Mountain Dew that wasn’t on my shopping list, I’m looking around the house
for things to sell.
We also differ drastically in how we keep track of our
finances. My husband hasn’t kept a checkbook register in…forever. Literally never has. Money comes in, some goes
out, some stays…he’s good with that vague sense of awareness.
Not me. I work out our bills and chart our monthly/yearly
savings goals down to the penny – with no less than 5 calculator windows open
on my computer at a time. In fact, I’ve already got us mapped out for 2014. And
if there is a seventy-five cent difference in where we are and where I thought
we’d be, well, let’s just say the kids know where the emergency smelling salts
are stashed.
And that’s not to say that he’s not an excellent financial
planner; thankfully for my sometimes part-time, sometimes no-time working ass,
his financial wisdom is always on point. He’s just so much less panicked about
it than I am, which makes me jealous, which then pisses me off. So what’s the moral
of the story? Saving money is great and definitely a wise decision in these uncertain
economic times, but sometimes Mama needs her hand-knotted throw pillows, and
everyone’s gonna have to just deal, okay?
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