General Discussion (Model Railroader)

 Hello everybody,

having been on this great forum for a while and read a lot of posts I noticed that the hobby and spouse issues have come up.  Being single that has never been an issue in my life.  So got to wondering, to all of you that were in the hobby before you got married.   Do you now wish you would  have purchased more items for your railroad when you were single?  

My action so far has been to acquire the items desired with the thought of when married there is the potential of kid(s) which would reshape the allocation of funds.  The first item to be cut from the budget would be items not necessary for everyday life.  This only makes sense and I could see the hobby purchases coming to an end really fast.  

Thank you for your replies.

Frank

Sometimes.

I set my budget at $40/month that can be saved from month to month up to $200.  Anything over that I have to get the ok.  It's a good system.  My wife is on the same deal and it works.

Similar to Trynn, I have a "slush fund", $35 of every pay check goes directly to a savings acct. for my use, the rest goes to checking.

I did make a point before getting married of picking up some "big ticket items" like sound-equipped steam engines etc., as it turned out it was a good thing I did. In a few years I've gone from having no outstanding debts and $10000 in the bank to being borderline bankrupt due to all the money spent on my wife's daughter and grandson (who both now live with us).

  If you plan on continuing in the hobby, be sure the gal you marry has an interest or at least a tolerance for your hobby. It takes a lot of your time to do the stuff we do and an understanding wife that won't mind the time and money spent on MRR'ing will make it an enjoyable hobby for you.

      I'ts sort of a balancing act. My wife doesn't get into the hobby but she puts up with it and doesn't throw things against me for the cost and the time required to make and run a model railroad . We both enjoy a time to ourselves as much as time with each other, so i'll go into the train room and she will go do her thing which makes for a peaceful marriage. Just don't make the mistake of spending every waking moment with the trains and little time together with her. Wives are kind'a funny about not getting any attention at all which could cause a riff in the marriage.

      Also, the idea of a budget for the trains is also a good idea as stated above. Raising a family is an expensive proposition and a throughly thought out budget is the best way to keep from living beyond your means.

       My first marriage was a disaster especially when it came to trying to work on the trains but she was crazy to begin with and ended up on a funny farm anyway (but that's another story.)

       What I did when I remarried was to explain to my wife before we did marry, that I enjoyed this hobby and would be spending a lot of time with it and if she couldn't deal with it then there was no sense in us getting married. She accepted my hobby and have never had any ill feelings from her when i do get on a long drawn out project in the train room. I'ts all about compatability between you and your future mate but don't forget the other party envolved and time with her is just as if not more important than the time with the trains.  Take care of her and the hobby will take care of itself.

One of my/our several income streams goes to an account that I can tap at will for whatever I want to spend.  My wife has a similar account in a different bank.  The main retirement income is direct deposited to the household expenses account in a third bank.  My wife doesn't audit my account, and I don't audit hers.  (We both audit the household expense account and the household Visa charges, the latter paid off in full every month.)

I can count the model railroad items which I owned before my marriage on the fingers of one hand, and have three left over to scratch my ear.  Of course, our next anniversary will be our 49th.  I figured out that she was a keeper when she gave me a brass locomotive kit for my birthday...

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

I am indeed blessed--in many, many ways--with a wonderful wife of more than 30 years. Since I reentered the hobby (after the kids were on their own and I retired) she has probably purchased more of the hobby items for me than I've purchased for myself (including the windmill I assembled yesterday).

I think there is some real good advice here already especially the part about paying more attention to your wife than the hobby. Women get married for a relationship , imagine that ! Men tend to go hunting and once they have "bagged" the game they move onto the next hunt. This left unchecked leads to very expensive lawyers , child support , alimony , years of hurt and anger all around . Plus it is a very big drain on monies for the hobby if you have any left over. Reference to expenditures now vs. future , simple anwer - yes - buy now , you will not be able to afford many items later. With that said you should still have a budget set up. It should include everything in your life , medical , insurance , rent/house mortage , food , clothing , hobbies etc..Pay yourself first. Have an account where a percentage of your income is direct deposited into a savings account that is hard to access ( read no atm card ) this should be for emergencies.    

 I have absolutley no problem with my wife as far as buying what ever I want. As long as the bills get paid and the esentials are provided she doesn't care what I buy. That goes for any other hobbbies I have as well. As a matter of fact she has found a great number of things for my railroad on sites such as craigslist.com, ebay etc. not to mention local yard sales. It just comes down to being a responcible adult, as much as we are all having a happy re-childhood by playing with our trians we know what are responcabilities are. There have been many a time where I would have loved to be working on my trains or helping a friend but there was little league, school plays, family functions etc.I feel lucky in the sense that the rest of my family has also embraces the hobby. We like going to places liek Steam town and train shows like Timonium. This seems to be a trend amongs the guys I have met around here in the hobby.

Most I ever get is a "raised eyebrow" when I come home from the hobby shop with a "large" box, or when UPS/FedEx/USPS shows up with a box.  We have been married for 30 years.  I have been in model railroading (HO) since 1956 while in college.  So I had a large layout when we started dating.  When I saw things were going serious, I took her to the basement and let her get aquainted with model railroading.  She thought it was good I had a hobby and we got married.  Since then she has helped with scenery, painting clouds, making trees in her lap while we are driving on trips, etc.

As for spending, she knows, I know what we can afford to do, and act accordingly.  I might add that if you visit my website you will see she has been quite liberal.

Bob

No, I just wish I hadn't got married in the first place!

 My wife and I set ourselves a $50/week per person "allowance" for such things.  We can go over that, but we discuss it beforehand.

Actually, the amount of discretionary income has gone UP since we've been married...shared expenses and all.  And since kids appear to be out of the question for us, we're spending it on ourselves and our puppy dog.

Actually, my wife got me started in the hobby.  She bought me some trains one Christmas.  I don't think she knew what she was starting, but she has been tolerant over the years.

The real problem I found was not money, but time.  And that happened with children not marriage.  As my three boys grew up, I found I was spending a lot of my time with Scouting and other activities with them.  For many years I didn't do much more than read a few magazines each month, but it was a good trade off. 

Now they are grown up and I have some time for the hobby.  Working full time with an hour commute each way still leaves me short on time.  But the layout is slowly getting built.  Money has been cut back since my wife was laid off.  But after 35 years in the hobby I have enough stuff in 3 scales to last me for many years.  And there is still enough for me to go to the Great Scale Train Show in Timonium every 3 months.

Enjoy

Paul

my wife knew of my model train hobby prior to getting married. after 15 years, she has come to an understanding about me and my trains. its a hobby and i enjoy it. i can spend the time and money at the bar and get nothing but loss of money and a hang-over. my hobby keeps me at home and available for any 'to do' chores.

bottom line: keep the open communication lines between the two of you AND be realistic and responsible with the household money. these are also the two main reasons for divorce.

 Hello,

thank you for all the great information.    I greatly appreciate the input and will certainly follow the advice given here being that it has  a common bottom line which is set a budget.   Also she already knows how much I enjoy my hobby and she for now seems fine with it.

Thank you again for all the great replies.

Frank

 whenever the woman comes down to the basement and makes annoying comments about my hobby, i usually retaliate by shortening her chain.

seriously though, i've been fortunate in that we both have adequate (for now) retirement incomes and after pooling the necessary funds each month for our living expenses, what each has left is for their spending or saving  at their discretion.    SHE has her own hobby, (collecting vintage dolls) and some of the things SHE spends big money on do not make sense to me just like some of the model railroad items are beyond her comprehension.

actually, i have accumulated so much stuff over the years that i now mostly just have to buy paint and glue.

such was not always the case and when times were tougher we had to get through some dry spells because money was tight.

we are all different in some ways and i think if one spouse is not understanding toward the other then things will only get worse with time.

i, myself always laugh at what i call "Luann at the boat show". there she is, walking ten paces behind behind her old man who is three payments behind on everything from the trailer to child support and he is looking at bass boats.

bottom line, if a hobby causes friction of any great magnitude in a relationship then someone is either overboard or selfish.  it is a symptom of other problems rather than the cause.

grizlump