Your significant other & your purchases

That's abuse... imo it is best to do without than accept abuse from anyone for any reason.

The corporate culture in the US often leads to abuse, and many people abuse their SOs. It can be difficult to find a good boss/job and SO that will respect you and not use and manipulate you. I'd rather be poor and lonely than put up with abusive people.

 

With most women: if it's not 'their idea', it's a bad idea. Most women will never accept you getting more, or better (upgrade), stereo equipment. You already have one! It's endless. But get a new sewing machine or a new $800 running machine which you told her she will NEVER USE, forget it, your buying it. And it will get moved from the inside of your house to the garage as a never ending dust collector, but that's ok, it was her idea. That's how it flows.

It all depends on your family budget and the price of the specific piece of equipment.

If it's under $600, don't say anything and just buy it. She will 'get over it' (yeah, right). If not... oh well....... you got what you 'needed'.

But just don't make it a 'habit'.

Another approach: make a bit of 'side money', YOUR 'side money' for your musical hobby... done deal. If she doesn't like that, and she won't... too bad. YOU earned YOUR side money for YOUR stereo.

Now if your thinking about buying a $4000 pair of speakers that's a whole other story, it's a major purchase. But if it's your side money specifically for that purpose, and she knows that, done deal.

Most women will never understand stereo purchases. At all.

 

My dad introduced me to his notion of the 'Wack.' Money derived from extraneous sources of income outside of the normal family finances can enter the Wack. For my dad it was book royalty income. For me it's usually freelance graphic design & photography income that I sometimes do on the side. Once the money is in the wack, it stays in the wack. If something that was purchased with money from the wack is sold, the money reenters the wack. From time to time, I can justify spending family money (our money—we are business partners in addition to being husband/wife) on something related to a hobby, but really only when it can be written off as a business expense. That works better with my photographic obsessions then with music related things.

 

My wife is generally very cool about music and gear purchases. We talk about big purchases and make sure that our other goals aren't impacted but generally we agree.

Now my desire to own several sports cars is an entirely different thing - there I have had to agree to wait

 

My wife is pretty responsible with the $$, and she doesn't really spend all that much on herself (no hobbies, not a clothes-monger). She's been pretty understanding with regards to my music purchases, but I did significantly reduce how much I bought when we were having kids. Now the kids are all finally in school but my wife hasn't started working/earning money nor is she planning to. In the last year or 2, I've been buying more and more of the music related things I want. IMO, I work pretty damn hard for the money and I guess I just started feeling a little more selfish about getting the things I enjoy and want. We're still living within our means although we could certainly be more secure for the present as well as the future if she started drawing an income, but she's lived this way for 15 or 16 years. I guess I always thought she would go back to work ('cuz that's what adults do! LOL!), but it's obviously a pretty good gig she has so why would she want to give it up? It cracks me up when she tells me that she can't wait for me to be retired and I remind her that any income she contributes NOW means I can put more money into my 401K which theoretically means I retire that much sooner. "Oh".

 

What's mine is hers and what's hers is hers... We do enjoy music and good gear together, and I buy a lot. She even gets into Hard Rock, Blues, some Doom Metal and Psychadelic 60's music. It's a fun hobby, sharing with my better half makes it more enjoyable.

 

My wife enjoys listening to records with me (especially Billy Joel or Genesis) and tolerates my hobby. I think the Hoarders TV show made her paranoid about clutter, that's her only concern. She also lobbied for all in wall speakers, but I need floor standing!

She's sold me on some weekend getaways by telling me about a local vinyl stores in the area, overall can't complain.

 

Same arrangement here: wife gets $300 monthly and I get $250.

 

OK Here it goes. I've been debating in whether to post.

Met my wife in a Chinese restaurant bar when I bought her a drink.She invited me back to her parents house with some of her friends.This was sometime in 1987 so vinyl was still common.So first thing I check out her record collection.
Little Feat Waiting for Columbus
Buckingham Nicks
David Gilmour
Fleetwood Mac Bare Trees
Grateful Dead American Beauty
Rickie Lee Jones The Magazine
And I'm thinking through an Absolut buzz where's this girl been all my life?
But she was even better than I could have imagined it.Smart.Beautiful.Irish.Oh and a workaholic like me.She was a systems analyst for and made really good money.I was the senior project manager of a
.It really doesn't matter.We were doing fine.
Its like the best wine or drug or song you've ever heard when you know it's right
It's just the best high. That's all

She bought us a block of tickets to the first year at Great Woods where you had the same seats over the course of the summer.

Man could she ski.Of course I can ski I said. Never been on skis before in my life. I think the jig was up when the chair lift hit me and knocked me down.
What an idiot.
Still laugh about that one
I've deleted and edited so much.....
It will be 19 years on January 6 that she had her stroke.And the tears are running down my cheeks as I'm finishing this.So excuse me if I sound harsh.But if your in a relationship that
Nevermind.
Just something I tell our daughter "it shouldn't be hard"
Sorry to the ops point. By whatever you can afford
Life is very short