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Your overall spending habits...

tMac85

tMac85

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 15, 2007
1,144
0
in a great place
Do you and your significant other have the same spending habits? Be that your girlfriend, boyfriend , wife, husband, soon-to be wife/husband. Do huge conflicts arise because of it? I like to buy things when they are on sale, and not so much the 'best of the best' . My wife likes to save for years, and eat on the floor waiting for her ever so perfect dining set. She says she will keep it for years! I tend to buy when needed.

Anyone else have this problem with spending habits? or are we weird?
 
not weird :D

I like to make sure I have the money for item or that I really need it.
then wait a while so it is not an impulse buy.
When an item i so-so want/need is for good price I usually get it.

For food items I generally wait until they are on sale.
example last week the salsa I like was on sale but the blue corn chips were not, so I got the salsa. this week the chips are on sale but the salsa is not so I got the chips and I saved about $5 just by waiting a bit.

My insignificant other has weird shopping habits either will buy the cheapest possible despite looking/tasting/performing worse or he will buy what he wants not what is needed.

PS both of us are students - which generally limits any money anyways.
 
"insignificant" other? Interesting title :)

My BF tends to buy the best of the best, but gets good deals on it. Like sales on really nice 100 dollar button down shirts and such. Top of the line stuff usually, and likes to have the best. He doesn't tend to over spend, but he tends to spend money where sometimes I am less picky. He is picky with his food too, and eats out more then I do for sure as well as buying more expensive brands of things too.

I guess he likes quality, but I tend to have a lower standard of "quality" with clothes as well. Basics are fine for me, as well as food I am much less picky and could happily live on pasta and cheap sauce that I add stuff too for a few weeks, but that could be because my family and I have always been more money concious and I have about 40k of loans to pay off when I get out of school and my BF has ... ummm NONE. grrr :) and so everything he makes can be shoved into his savings or spent on the "nicer" things he likes.

It's not too much of a problem really, but it does get slightly annoying when I'm grocery shopping and he's going to be around for a week, or when I'm looking for a gift or something for him.

I like sticking to moderate things mostly, and super good bargains if I can find them :)

With big purchases though, I will definitely be like the wife mentioned above. Furniture or something that doesn't get upgraded too often (i upgrade my comp once every 2 years or so... sell the old one and pay the difference) that will be around for a while (heck, i'm like that about my purse... then again I dont' have 235983048320 purses like most girls. I use one for a few years and then get a new one...) I really take the time to wait for the PERFECT thing. I'd sit and eat on the floor for a few months if I couldn't find the perfect set :) so I can see where she is coming from.
 
Both my significant other and I have what could be considered a preference for value, with a certain level of quality mixed in. No junk, but nothing too extravagant either. I simply cannot see the point in paying a ton of money for something when a lesser item can do the job just as well. I'm big on buying stuff that's discounted, and that can lead me to spend more than I might otherwise :p.

She definitely has better taste than I do, but neither of us could really see paying a ton of money for any particular thing, with some exceptions. I believe in paying well for stuff that's going to last a long time if you keep it right. Otherwise, discount for me.
 
As someone who is unmarried and has no intention of kids or a family, I am pretty inflexible when it comes to financial arrangements. I don't mix funds, I don't compromise, and anyone I'm with has to be comfortable with that (most are). I'm fairly adept at handling my financial arrangements, I have no outstanding debts outside of some library fines, and have been building a financial portfolio over the past year.

I made some exceptionally bad financial decisions in a relationship once, and it came very close to costing me everything I had. Since marriage/living together would be for the sake of convenience and not to raise a family or engage in other financial joint-ventures, it's something I like to handle on a purely individual level. (This costs me more overall and in the long run, but I'm comfortable with that because of the individual security it affords me.)
 
At college, I have enough money in the bank to give me $60 per week....(parents don't give me diddly squat :) ) $20 for gas, $20 for car maintennance (I actually just transfer this around on a spreadsheet I use for my finances...it doesn't get taken out at the bank. Numbers jut change places) and $20 for whatever I want.

I tend to keep about $10 in my wallet. Keeps me from being able to spend much :) A bad week for me is when I don't save all of the $20 I get from my budget. Every few weeks, when I've got $40 or $60 saved up, I'll tend to go diving or invite a friend over and make dinner and rent a movie, and spend about half of that. Then, I save up some more....

Every once in a while, I'll spend a large amount on some big item, like $100 on a used guitar, or $300 on some diving equipment. I don't ever really buy clothes, I get those for Christmas and I'm careful so they last a long time. My last pair of shoes lasted me four years....daily use. They had holes in the heels, but as long as it wasn't raining out they were great still....

I tend to buy the cheapest thing that will work for the longest. I compare marginal benefit and marginal cost, not total cost. If the "next rung up" on the ladder will last another month, and costs twice the one below it, which lasts three months by itself, then it's cheaper to buy two of the "middle grade" one. I buy whatever food is on sale. I shop at the cheapest places, and get middle grade stuff, basically.

I am perfectlyw illing to spend mucho dinero on girls....I'll spend money on a girl I like at the drop of a hat, if I have it. If I odn't have it, I find creative ways to do things. Fortunately, there's not been too manyg irls like that (like, 2...), and because I don't ever carry around much more than $10, and because I'm a frugal son of a gun, I don't waste money. It's more like, "Are you hungry? lets go eat. Bored? Let's go to a state park and go swimming, I'll drive. You want to learn how to play an instrument? Oh, wow, look, I found you a bass!" and when studying or something in the library, maybe I'd treat her to some hot chocolate or something.


As for dining sets....buy cheap stuff :) And get the lexan cutlery from the camping section. Lightweight and darn near unbreakable! ;)
 
I buy nice things, but less of them. I would rather have a nice £100 jumper over 2 x £50 jumpers for instance.

I always pay the little bit extra on food. I wouldn't wait for anything to be on offer before buying it. If it's cheaper one week then that's great but I will pay the full price again the next week.

When I was a student I was much more thrifty but now that I can afford to buy what I like (within reason obviously, I only bought the one ferrari this year) I do splash out a bit.
 
Cheap, though unintentionally...I spend as much as I like, but it tends not to come up to much. I do have outbursts of excessive spending, though.

No significant other currently, so those spending habits are unspecified.
 
richardjames said:
I buy nice things, but less of them. I would rather have a nice £100 jumper over 2 x £50 jumpers for instance.

I always pay the little bit extra on food. I wouldn't wait for anything to be on offer before buying it. If it's cheaper one week then that's great but I will pay the full price again the next week.

When I was a student I was much more thrifty but now that I can afford to buy what I like (within reason obviously, I only bought the one ferrari this year) I do splash out a bit.
Click to expand...

you an my wife would get along great!
 
I like to save save save save, and allow myself to spend 50% of my money. I tend to buy better quality goods and shy away from generic things and low end models. I always try to find the best deal I can.

I hate spending money on necessities though- I refuse to buy my own clothes and say its my parents responsibility to provide me with clothes haha :D. I also hate buying tickets to things because what you are buying is not tangible.
 
My wife and I are both similarly inherently frugal, so we don't worry much about spending. We discuss the big purchases (like our planned Mac Pro purchase) and trust each other on all the rest. Every once in a great while we sit down to approximate a budget (like when we wanted to figure out how much day care we could afford before we had a kid), but mostly we trust ourselves and each other to spend less than we make.

I'd find being in a relationship with someone with significantly different spending habits very difficult.
 
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