Jerry SP FOREVER http://photobucket.com/albums/f317/GAPPLEG/
She goes for "therapeutic massages" now and then. She even "gave" me a session with her massage therapist for my birthday once, so you can believe it's not that kind of massage. Anyway, a few months back she saw a new engine, and asked, "What did that cost?" in the traditional scornful tone I'm sure many of you will recognize.
"Two massages," was my answer. And I haven't heard a peep since.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Answer: separate checking accounts.
sfrailfan wrote:Hey All,Now to start I have come to understand how my wife thinks and I know why she acts as she does.
Then you need to write a book since you are the first man in history to obtain this level of enlightenment!!
loathar wrote: sfrailfan wrote:Hey All,Now to start I have come to understand how my wife thinks and I know why she acts as she does. Then you need to write a book since you are the first man in history to obtain this level of enlightenment!!
I guess i'm one of the lucky ones. My wife never confronts me about the amount i spend on the hobby. In fact, she's supportive of it because it keeps me on the straight and narrow. i'm home all the time working on the layout and not in the bars or chasing down a skirt; that sort of stuff. All the kids have left home now and i can spend more on it than i used to be able to spend on the hobby.
But then on the other hand, I'm the frugal one in the family. I know what my living expenses are and you can bet if it comes to buying a new locomotive or paying the light bill or house note, the light bill and house note will always come first. We are also fortunate, we both have good jobs and a little extra cash for the hobby isn't that hard to come up with just as long as i don't go overboard with the spending. I won't spend over $100.00 a month on a yearly average on the hobby. The most i've ever spent at one time was $1300 for the DCC system and all the decoders but that came from an unexpected company bonus. If it weren't for that bonus i'd still be doing a DC layout....chuck
secondhandmodeler wrote:I just had another thought. Maybe she meant to say you spend too much time with your trains. Maybe money is just the way she decided to present her complaint.
If that is the case, invite her down into the basement (or garage or wherever) and hand her a throttle!
George
"And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers ride their father's magic carpet made of steel..."
secondhandmodeler wrote: loathar wrote: sfrailfan wrote:Hey All,Now to start I have come to understand how my wife thinks and I know why she acts as she does. Then you need to write a book since you are the first man in history to obtain this level of enlightenment!!
I'll buy the book, after 39 years of marriage I still need it!!!
Enjoy
Paul
It seems that my layout is on the "honey do" list. She made another comment last week about me not having a continuous loop or any scenery yet. That wasn't the first time either.
Of course there are some days when I can bring home $500 of stuff and not a word, but other days I will bring home a bottle of paint and she questions me about it.
All in all she is very supportive.
I don't want to start this thread going in a direction it doesn't need or want, but her reaction these days may be symptomatic of a desire for more "closeness". Maybe she feels you are too hung up on things trains these days. My wife thinks that about me, and my post count should be ample evidence to support her. It isn't as bad as that, but there are times when I can feel the tension...the "enlightened" man deals with these issues quickly and puts them to rest. Put it this way, if you want her and trains, deal with your time that way. Otherwise, it will become "...or trains."
The dollars spent thing is easily managed. You keep track and she keeps track. At the end of a few months, say when all your Christmas bills are filling drawers, both of you agree to sit down and do a tally. It may be a real eye opener...for you! If it puts it into a more reasonable perspective for her, then you have achieved your aims, AND kept your habits going in the meantime...you know, the $100/mo.
Every once in a while my wife surprises me. She walked into the train room the other day and informed me that I need more trees. I told her that I needed to buy more stuff to make them. She said, " well, go buy it, because that looks silly." I'm hoping that she thinks all of my rolling stock looks 'silly' some day too!
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
shawnee wrote: Answer: separate checking accounts.
Mister Beasley,
I LOVE it!!
Shawnee,
Details below.
Loathar,
I have yet to figure out how I think...
Corey,
Ah, yes. The misdirected complaint. "Time," may, or may not, produce a response. "Money," rivets the attention.
In my case, my wife and I have directed our Social Security deposits to separate accounts in different banks. Those accounts belong to the individual and are not subject to discussion or audit.
Other income (a larger total) feeds the household account from which we pay living expenses.
I keep my wife informed about my rail-related purchases, and she keeps me informed about new golf clubs and such - but this information exchange is coordination, not control (in either direction.)
She knew what she was getting into. She gave me my first Japanese-prototype locomotive for my birthday in 1960. I married her before the year was out. Both the locomotive and the marriage still run.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
We both work, and we both have separate money accounts as well as a joint one. We contribute to the joint one, which pays the bills, in proportion to our incomes. I make a bit more and tend to voluntarily contribute extras such as the occasional dinner out, and the greater share of vacation expenses. We also both contribute to savings and investments. Not for everybody but its how we have mutually chosen to do our finances for 26 years.
What's left, we each spend on our own interests with no questions asked (and generally no tales told, i.e. I don't waltz in with my new Genesis F7 A-B set and say, well that was $170, and she doesn't waltz in and say, I just spent $90 on adhesive decals for my scrapbooking - we both just keep quiet about it without hiding the items we purchase). I sometimes wonder what she'd think if she knew the true total spent on trains over the years, then on the other hand she's very intelligent and its quite likely that she has mentally roughed out a good estimate. Well, she has a couple of hobbies of her own too which are far from cheap. Also I got back into the hobby when our son - now in college - was only four, and he and I had some great times which she greatly appreciated, and the early years were those of greatest expense. (Except for now, when I have finally decided - or more accurately, been forced by circumstances - to go into DCC, $260 for a system and probably $1,000 or even more over the next 18 months for decoders.)
So overall, goes smoothly but I believe a key is that we both are able to totally trust the other to handle finances with complete responsibility. Neither of us would ever spend more on such discretionary items than is reasonable and in keeping with budgetary soundness.
secondhandmodeler wrote: Every once in a while my wife surprises me. She walked into the train room the other day and informed me that I need more trees. I told her that I needed to buy more stuff to make them. She said, " well, go buy it, because that looks silly." I'm hoping that she thinks all of my rolling stock looks 'silly' some day too!
Build the plastic model of a Big Boy, do a ho-hum job, botch the paint, and then be patient. Your plan could work!
PErhaps I truly do have a unique perspective on this... When we met and later married, I made more money but she did the budget because she is a CPA.... we were very poor because we were both recently divorced and you all know that wrecks the credi... I didn't have a layout and only collected odds and ends, a lot of repair stuff and so on... then
I was unemployed... we lived on her salary and my few book and music royalties... that were previously paying for my train stuff... (less than a hundred bucks a month).... poorer yet....
I landed a job with an appraisal company and I am once again making more money that my wife who worked for the second largest firm in town but wasn't making a lot,..
We moved, I started getting ready to build a layout... I got laid off, we moved, I got ready to build again got laid off again.,...
I am getting ready to graduate from college... (no sigh of reliegf, I am going directly after my MBA... )the layout is finally under construction....
all the back bills are nearly caught up and once again... I GOT LAID OFF>>>>> This time though,,, time has passed, my wife has quit her job and we have started our own accounting firm Independent Accounting and Bookkeeping Service.... I made enough money the first week to make myself ineligible for Unemployment benefits....
I still only spend a hundred or less on train stuff per month, but I am able to pay cash for it.... I am writing a book on model railroading that does make all of it tax deductible, and if MR doesn't pick it up, I will self publish it and sell it online ... also tax free, (all accrued cost, not taxable sales... So stick to your guns through adversity... btw, my wife has learned to make trees and we will be selling them at the train show in Dec.
My wife has never begrudged me anything I really wanted. However, she reserves the right give me grief about for the next XX years (probably til death!). We do not keep our money separate except for my living expenses when I am elsewhere. She knows that in the near future, model railroad expenditure will take a drasitc turn upward when our new house is done and I'm living at home full time.
Even last weekend, she was in KS visiting me and we went to the hobby shops and asked if that was all I was going to buy!
Rick
I function for two people in our home with all of the money.
My spouse definately has a say in what money goes where.
At the end of the day there is X dollars per month that we each can light with a lighter and burn if we chose without having to ask each other "Mama May I?" We both have certain activities that we like to spend a dollar or two on each month.
It works because a small allowance is necessary for one's play time and joy instead of all work and no morale at all.
A review shows that 90% of all the other budget goes to living expenses and savings. We are killing our debts one by one; in a few years we expect to have no debt other than utilities, food or gasoline.
Oh yes and two people's worth of spending money capped at X dollars each month.
sfrailfan wrote:Is this common? We aren't rich but I'm not poor (anymore). Is it only the rich guys who aren't questioned?
On the secular side of my life, and cash flow planning occupation, is one of my core companies, Allianz Life (https://www.allianzlife.com/) that has commissioned two third-party studies called "Women, Money, and Power" and "Four Pillars of Legacy" which you'll see on the opening webpage.
Although Allianz is one of the largest global money asset managers - there are no product sales to be found in either of these two "people studies" - in keeping with this forum's rules.
The "Women, Money, and Power" Study, outlines very specifically, the many versions (five money-management personality types to be exact) of how women think and interact with money.
For example: One of the study's findings was that it is not uncommon, for it "to be ok" for a woman to have a number of "cash stashes" for whatever reason, but; you had better be able to justify with more than "your scout's honor" as a male of the specis as to why you have even half of the same amount of "spare cash" floating around.
Why? Women, regardless of occupation, have various "money-management personalities" that will differ even from the female financial professional's money-management approach, which by intensive career training is already quite good.
Go to Allianz, download the complimentary "W-M-P Study PDFs," and be prepared to be enlightened about not only how men think with money, but especially how women think with money. You will be surprised!
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
If I see an item on sale that will set me back less than about $50-80, I will order it without consulting my wife. Anything near $100, I always give her the benefit of pointing out to me that it might not be a realistic or responsible purchase at the present. I respect a woman who takes it upon herself to know our mutual finances and to manage them. I could do it, but she seems to enjoy that type of "being on top of things." Besides, I am the earner, so she cuts me considerable slack when I whine...I mean discuss my intended purchases.
Anything substantial, new furniture, stuff like that, we always run between us. She'll come home and have a new water kettle. If a $50 kettle every 8-12 months makes her feel like she has an influence in her own home, I can live with that. She can live with a new BLI CF style N&W caboose whenever I decide to place an order. It's the CDN$400 price and delivery for a sound locomotive that is really a courtesy to discuss with her, and courtesy, maybe consideration is a better word, is never wasted in a relationship that looks for permanence.
-Crandell
GAPPLEG wrote:My position is different due to this being a second marriage , she had a job for 30 years and is now retired with a pension, Anyway we started our second round with the proposition that what's hers is hers and whats mine is mine and never the twain shall meet. We split the household bills and as long as everything gets paid, we buy what we want with our individual monies. It's worked for 18 years. If I were soul provider then it would have to be different , but she makes as much not working as some people get working.
That makes sense if there are children involved between spouses. But I've known couples who have NO children blended or otherwise and still split expenses right down the middle. I find that extremely odd. Marriage is a union, not a business adventure.
Driline wrote: GAPPLEG wrote:My position is different due to this being a second marriage , she had a job for 30 years and is now retired with a pension, Anyway we started our second round with the proposition that what's hers is hers and whats mine is mine and never the twain shall meet. We split the household bills and as long as everything gets paid, we buy what we want with our individual monies. It's worked for 18 years. If I were soul provider then it would have to be different , but she makes as much not working as some people get working.That makes sense if there are children involved between spouses. But I've known couples who have NO children blended or otherwise and still split expenses right down the middle. I find that extremely odd. Marriage is a union, not a business adventure.
I understand your comment on that , In the beginning I was supporting my 3 children from the first marriage, hence there were good reasons for complete separation of funds at that time. It just carried over, we don't guard our monies jealously , we share many accounts of different types that cover our retirement years, it may have sounded too strong the way I recounted it in the first post. But we don't have a problem about spending what we want for what we want.
SecretWeapon wrote:I was given a choice. Long live my layout I don't miss her at all.
I state in my bio that I am HAPPILY divorced!