Anonymous wrote:Baby nesting instinct! Just do it! Anything to make her happy and make things more comfortable. Anything “annoying” now will create resentment later.

Well, nuts to that. If you use that rationale - it'll be her anxieties as a new mother or whatever, then you get to the catchall "happy wife, happy life" rationale. Accommodate her reasonable desires, but don't let her be an emotional terrorist just because she's pregnant and threatens to hold things against you later.

OP - your situation feels so familiar to me. My wife would start fixating on some house thing that "needed" done -- where I couldn't see that it would improve our quality of life at all. Part of it is just how I'm wired. The color of the walls is never, ever going to be something that makes me feel better or worse about life. But, she'd be restless until whatever change she wanted was made.

Ultimately, my main concern was the money. And it wasn't necessarily any given project. Any one thing individually was manageable. It had more to do with my anxiety that there was no end point -- and my wife never gave me the impression that she was paying any attention at all to the overall financial picture. She wants something. The check won't bounce. She buys something.

Over the years, we got better at budgeting. We should've done it much sooner. It also helped that the business she started eventually started pulling in a lot more money which took some pressure off of the finances.

Baby nesting instinct! Just do it! Anything to make her happy and make things more comfortable. Anything “annoying” now will create resentment later.

You are new to homeownership. You and your wife will want to make changes to your space. Make a budget.

To me it sounds like after making some HUGE purchases and life changes, OP is nickel and diming his wife about a backsplash.

In the scheme of things it does not sound like the $2k matters to OP. Sounds like a control thing here. You feel like you've done all the compromising and now you want to put your foot down on this one last thing.

Assuming, again, that the money really isn't the issue - let it go.

Anonymous wrote:Agree on a budget for the house and let her work within it.

+1. Compromise. Don't try to talk her out of it. People like making a home their own.

Team OP that his wife is being dumb. Most amercians, despite high incomes, don't have enough savings for one random emergency.

Smart families choose mutual priorities, spend some and save the rest. That's how you get ahead. This family already chose floors and painting. The wife shouldn't have a carte blanche to do what she wants, just because they have money left over after paying immediate bills.

I also note his wife is planning to "stay home for a bit" when baby is born - which we all know means there's a 50% chance she won't go back for 10 years. Shifting to one income is not the time you start wasting money....

All that said, i'd probably concede on a few of these items pre baby, because those pregnancy months are stressful and definitely get in your brain, and if you have the money, this may not be the hill to die on (even she is being unreasonable).

PS the person above who said new backsplash is necessary for digital photos to fit in with the right society.... WTF?

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Anonymous wrote:5k baby registry? Adopt me?

If nursery furniture (dresser, glider, crib etc) and a bunch of big ticket items like an air purifier, stroller, car seat etc. are on it, that number wouldn't be so hard to reach.

Only if you are not even trying to comparison shop, only buying new, or want top of the line everything. It’s a bloated budget.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I will being up the budget topic. We have never put a budget on things because we both barely spend any money on things outside of our normal spending habits.

This is your problem. That was fine pre-kids and pre-house, but that's not where you are in life anymore. You need a budget. I recommend mint.com, but whatever works for you guys is cool. You need a line item for kid stuff, childcare, and house maintenance at a minimum. If you are in the DC area, childcare is insanely expensive - we're downtown and figured we could get daycare for 1500-1800 a month, when in reality the dirt floor cheapest was 2250. Figure out your budget, then let her go wild with the house budget, whatever it ends up being.

You might want to split the house category into two things - maintenance vs. decor/improvements so that you have money set aside for inevitable issues that crop up.

Agree. Your spending is about to multiple by a lot now that you are home owners and having children.

And saying things like, "I have the money" is very much up to interpretation and subjective. You are in a mortgaged 600k condo with child #1 on the way. You are right that you need to save NOW bc saying "I have the money" to justify unnecessary purchases is how people never get ahead.

Anonymous wrote:5k baby registry? Adopt me?

If nursery furniture (dresser, glider, crib etc) and a bunch of big ticket items like an air purifier, stroller, car seat etc. are on it, that number wouldn't be so hard to reach.

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:DH above. What are your two incomes, how much did you put down, how much are you saving for retirement each month, what’s the balance in there now? And what’s the childcare plan?

OP here. We are finically stable and have the money to spend. I just don’t think it’s necessary to spend that money on something that won’t add any value to the condo.

That's a tough position to take, OP.

My husband has said something similar about taking a trip to Paris. I want to go. He doesn't think it's worth the money. It's not that he wants to spend the money on other things, or that it isn't in the budget. If it were that, then I could pick up additional shifts at work, ask for a raise, cut expenses other places, etc., and put together the money for the trip. He has the same issue that you do. He just doesn't think it's "worth it," and never will. We have the money, but no matter how much money we have, he won't ever think it makes sense to spend it on a trip to Paris.

You should go with a friend. If he doesn't care for it then it's really not worth it to him. Doesn't mean you can't save and enjoy it.

I have the money. It isn't about saving the money. He just doesn't want to spend money on this thing. It doesn't matter whether I save or not.
I can just go anyway, and I probably will, just like OP's wife can and probably will just put the backsplash in without consulting him. But it's frustrating to feel like you have to argue about everything.

PP, does this mean he’s refusing to go with you?

It really isn't about him going with me or not. He is refusing to let me go at all. But yes, he will be annoyed if I take the kids on an expensive family vacation without him.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I will being up the budget topic. We have never put a budget on things because we both barely spend any money on things outside of our normal spending habits.

OP having kids is a great time to start budgeting. A lot of people never budget until then.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH above. What are your two incomes, how much did you put down, how much are you saving for retirement each month, what’s the balance in there now? And what’s the childcare plan?

OP here. We are finically stable and have the money to spend. I just don’t think it’s necessary to spend that money on something that won’t add any value to the condo.

That's a tough position to take, OP.

My husband has said something similar about taking a trip to Paris. I want to go. He doesn't think it's worth the money. It's not that he wants to spend the money on other things, or that it isn't in the budget. If it were that, then I could pick up additional shifts at work, ask for a raise, cut expenses other places, etc., and put together the money for the trip. He has the same issue that you do. He just doesn't think it's "worth it," and never will. We have the money, but no matter how much money we have, he won't ever think it makes sense to spend it on a trip to Paris.

You should go with a friend. If he doesn't care for it then it's really not worth it to him. Doesn't mean you can't save and enjoy it.

I have the money. It isn't about saving the money. He just doesn't want to spend money on this thing. It doesn't matter whether I save or not.
I can just go anyway, and I probably will, just like OP's wife can and probably will just put the backsplash in without consulting him. But it's frustrating to feel like you have to argue about everything.

I agree. My DH is same PP. I'm going to go on a nice trip with a friend to Paris, or perhaps wait until my daughter is old enough and take her.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH above. What are your two incomes, how much did you put down, how much are you saving for retirement each month, what’s the balance in there now? And what’s the childcare plan?

OP here. We are finically stable and have the money to spend. I just don’t think it’s necessary to spend that money on something that won’t add any value to the condo.

That's a tough position to take, OP.

My husband has said something similar about taking a trip to Paris. I want to go. He doesn't think it's worth the money. It's not that he wants to spend the money on other things, or that it isn't in the budget. If it were that, then I could pick up additional shifts at work, ask for a raise, cut expenses other places, etc., and put together the money for the trip. He has the same issue that you do. He just doesn't think it's "worth it," and never will. We have the money, but no matter how much money we have, he won't ever think it makes sense to spend it on a trip to Paris.

You should go with a friend. If he doesn't care for it then it's really not worth it to him. Doesn't mean you can't save and enjoy it.

I have the money. It isn't about saving the money. He just doesn't want to spend money on this thing. It doesn't matter whether I save or not.
I can just go anyway, and I probably will, just like OP's wife can and probably will just put the backsplash in without consulting him. But it's frustrating to feel like you have to argue about everything.

PP, does this mean he’s refusing to go with you?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH above. What are your two incomes, how much did you put down, how much are you saving for retirement each month, what’s the balance in there now? And what’s the childcare plan?

OP here. We are finically stable and have the money to spend. I just don’t think it’s necessary to spend that money on something that won’t add any value to the condo.

That's a tough position to take, OP.

My husband has said something similar about taking a trip to Paris. I want to go. He doesn't think it's worth the money. It's not that he wants to spend the money on other things, or that it isn't in the budget. If it were that, then I could pick up additional shifts at work, ask for a raise, cut expenses other places, etc., and put together the money for the trip. He has the same issue that you do. He just doesn't think it's "worth it," and never will. We have the money, but no matter how much money we have, he won't ever think it makes sense to spend it on a trip to Paris.

You should go with a friend. If he doesn't care for it then it's really not worth it to him. Doesn't mean you can't save and enjoy it.

I have the money. It isn't about saving the money. He just doesn't want to spend money on this thing. It doesn't matter whether I save or not.
I can just go anyway, and I probably will, just like OP's wife can and probably will just put the backsplash in without consulting him. But it's frustrating to feel like you have to argue about everything.