Reply to Wife’s routine spending

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "Wife’s routine spending - what is normal?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. Still reading all your responses.

Re: her becoming a SAHM. I was worried at first about her giving up a pretty well paid job and having a hard time going back to that salary level.  We had a nanny for the first year and half. Neither my wife nor I loved it - she kept the baby alive and safe but that was about it, didn’t cook, do that many activities, or read (she barely could speak English). And this wasn’t a cheap nanny! After base payu, healthcare, PTO, etc it was a hefty sum. My wife was making a little over 200k at the time so yes we could afford it, but she didn’t enjoy her job and thought she could provide better care.

Now that I’ve seen the difference between how much my wife does and the nanny - who pretty much just took the baby out on walks while being on her phone, and sitting at parks - I totally support her staying a SAHM until the second is ready for preschool. Our kids are doing really well and my wife keeps a great routine, my work is rarely interrupted the way it still was with the nanny (sick, vacation, holidays…)  I just wish we could be more frugal.

Yeah, some of this is the dynamic changing now that I’m the only one working, but overall expenses are increasing.  Like I said before I don’t micromanage her nor does she me, we’re doing this exercise for the first time after the second kid and me thinking ahead to to college savings, double preschool, etc. We have joint finances so my expenses were also looked at. I don’t want to be stingy with her because I can tell what she does now is a lot harder than her previous desk job. In the course of us discussing this she did say she feels the self care categories are keeping her sane / refreshed from all the childcare.

After reading how many responses here say this isn’t too abnormal, I think I won’t make a big deal out of it.

Curious to hear from husbands of women who quit a well paid job to stay at home after kids. How did the dynamic of your financial relationship change , if at all. Did you feel more compelled to check /monitor your wife’s spending as the sole earner.

[/quote]

My husband starts to feel compelled to monitor my spending whenever there is a major life shift.  I would say that having a new baby and your wife quitting her job qualifies as a major life shift.  We have an HHI of $500k, and he will worry about whether we can afford Hulu.  We moved recently, and he wouldn’t let me get my hair cut and wanted to cancel our son’s tenth birthday party.  It feels really irrational to me.

What makes more sense is to come up with an actual budget for your family. Here is a budget from whitecoatinvestor:

Another Good Budget for an Attending

Income $300K

Fixed Expenses

Taxes $70K
Housing $36K
Utilities $7K
Insurance $6K
Student loan payments $15K
Total $134K

Variable Expenses

Retirement $60K
Charity $30K
Auto savings $8K
Vacation savings $10K
College savings $15K
Food $12K
Gas $8K
Everything else $23K
Total $166K

This budget has “everything else” meaning entertainment, kids activities, clothes for the family, furniture, electronics, etc. at $23k.  It might be that your wife spending $10k on personal stuff is a disproportionate amount of your disposable income, or it might be fine.

[/quote]

500k is not much in the DC area.[/quote]

Yeah.  I think it covers $8.99 a month for Hulu.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics