[livingalmostlarge]

I don't like budgeting to be honest. I sort of am free spirit, I track our spending because I should and am mindful of our expenses but not much more than that.

Nope I tell DH what to do with the money. We trust each other. We bought a house without being married and without me even seeing it. Loved it. He gave me the house solely in my name also and money to buy it because he couldn't be on the mortgage without marriage. I pay all the bills and he trusts me to do so. I manage his retirement accounts and our investments without his input at all. I setup his 401k, Roth IRA, regular investment account jointly. He doesn't like to spend money.

I guess part of it is he doesn't like stuff in general too. When we meet I must have had 40 pairs of shoes, 20 purses, a ton of clothes, probably 10 pieces of luggage. I didn't buy a thing though my mom and I are the same shoe/clothes size and everything she bought and didn't use I inherited. Shop-o-holic, she still does to this day buy stuff and sends it to me tags still on! Sometimes she'll call while shopping and say they have this on sale I'm sending it to you...it'll look great. DH hates when she does that and wants me to throw everything away.

I think the stockpiling is the same thing. He doesn't want me to have a huge amount of anything. I think it's because his parents lived really frugal lives and never bought anything. They are super cheap (not frugal, but cheap), and there is nothing extra in their house. Same IKEA furniture for 30+ years. He never had anything growing up because his parents were very strict. Everyone had one towel, one toothbrush, one place setting, 1 sheet, 1 blanket, etc. Just minimalistic to the extreme no rugs, no bathmats, nothing really in the house. Yes they shopped sales but they never stockpiled because they didn't use much of anything. And everything was pretty much made at home, all home repairs they did (DH spent this Christmas installing hardwood floors at his parents house). And they are millionaires by the way because of their lifestyle my in-laws and can easily retire right now at 54 and 55. But to them to spend any extra money is wrong. They appear to enjoy wine, but never buy any for themselves. Two years ago we went to visit relative in China and Japan and MIL decided if we could spend the money doing that she would too. 3 months after us she went finally.

We bought ourselves new pots and pans after we got married with GC to Macy's, and last summer when MIL visited she commented on them. Very expensive, quite a waste of money. Also why did we buy so many place settings? Why did we even buy place settings? We had our inherited walmart set from my former roommate for 4 people and there was only 2 of us? And why did we need so a knife set? I know that DH felt somewhat guilty over all these expenditures, though he was very happy when we made them and said it was great. The stuff we replaced, we kept the old stuff and had it for 7 years.

He still can and does wear clothes from high school, but until there are holes I can't throw any clothes away nor can I replace them even salvation army stuff is too expensive BECAUSE it's unnecessary. He's got 10 long sleeved, 10 polo, 4 khakis, 1 jacket, 1 sweater for work and that's it to be rotated over 2 weeks and the jacket and sweater he's had almost since we meet since we bought it together. Also one watch that he repaired instead of buying a new one when it the links broke from being worn out. It would have cost $35 to mail out to fix but he did it himself, because the store couldn't do it. Also 1 pair of shoes to replace his old ones that wore out after 5 years.

We come from such different families that it can be difficult. My mom said to keep buying stuff and he'll come around that it's okay to own stuff. It's not materialistic as he makes it out to seem.

I convinced him it's okay to buy a bottle of wine or beer for us to enjoy. It's now a monthly thing. And that we're not alcoholics or spendthrifts.

I guess it's a mental thing. That we are allowed to enjoy our money. That it's okay for us to spend some money on ourselves. It's not greedy or selfish.