My wife has to dress nice and look good for her job, so I dont mind. In Miami, the was a store named Arden D and they had 50% off everything and on 4th item is free. I went walking while she shopped and came back to pay and the bill was $800! I was kind of upset but she enjoyed herself. She likes to shop because she owns her own business and needs to dress nice.
Congrats man. It's going to be a long road for us but I'm committed to it and she's going to be drug along for the ride kicking and screaming but it's got to happen.
Good luck with that. We are down to our mortgage, home equity line of credit, her student loan, a car loan, and my credit card (which I used to get her ring). I know it sounds like a lot (and it is) but trust me, it was a helluva lot worse. We had (or more like she had) 6 (with the majority being department store) credit cards and a signature loan plus a freaking 401(k) loan that have all been paid off not to mention 2 Lowe's cards and a vehicle. The big thing I struggle with her is what you touched on earlier - you give her a budget to spend on groceries or something else and she comes back with more things because she went over budget. And it is not like she went over budget by 10 or 20 bucks - it is usually close to 100 bucks over budget. That is the thing that frustrates me more than anything...arggh.
Man, that's a lot! I think home equity loans are just ways to trick you to buy more things you don't need!
Arden B is in Houston too. One is in the Galleria and I splurged on going out clothes there back in the day but now that I'm married, it's not neccessary. Also, your wives shoud watch Oprah episodes. Maybe you should even watch with them. She's does countless episodes on getting out of debt, consolidating debt, creating a budget that is realistic, living within your means, etc. I don't have this problem at all but it always baffled me how much extra luggage these people put on themselves.
Men buy utility and women buy accessory. We prefer to indulge our hard earned cash on things we are actually going to use. Women buy stuff so it can sit around looking pretty and untouched with all the other stuff collecting dust in her closet.
