Monday, May 5, 2008

Great conversation

Hubby and I had a really good conversation last night about the issues that have been popping up. He was in a receptive mood, we were both relaxed, and I managed to present it in a way that finally made sense to him.

What's more, I think I found the root cause of our issues. Obviously his will power is not the issue. But something keeps happening that causes issues to repeat themselves. Big issues.

Remember the chicken I mentioned? An example of this issue would be that he refused to ask the butcher to take a package of chicken that was far larger than what we needed and cut it to the size we did need. This is one of the reasons I decided not to buy it. (Besides the fact that it was over four dollars a pound!) His response was that he could easily vacuum seal it and then store the excess in the fridge.

My hubby "gets" stockpiling. He understands buying on sale and then storing for later. In fact he does some of this on his own now and I'm proud of him for it. But if it requires "bothering" someone then he won't do it. So, in his mind, he'd rather take a $12 loss over a receipt or pay too much for too much chicken.

This reminds me of one of our first dates; we went to the county fair with a bunch of friends. The group of us were walking and I suddenly noticed we were missing someone! I had to go back to the area we had just come through--the game booths--and extract him from them. He was standing there, politely listening to the booth-worker's attempt to get him to play the game. He didn't want to be rude!

He's not nearly that bad now, and there's nothing wrong with being polite, but I don't get it! He's received numerous bonuses and kudos at his jobs for his negotiating skills. He just wouldn't use them in his personal life! He's the type of guy that would pay $4,000 too much for a car because he doesn't want to be a jerk customer. (This hasn't happened, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did at some point in the future if he continued his current mindset.)

After our conversation he now things of himself as the CEO of his own life. I said, "Honey, if you don't want to go through the trouble for you, then think of it as working for me and the baby. You might be willing to eat that $12. How about you instead go and get the receipt and put the rebate money in her savings account. I know you don't care, but that money can go a long way towards a goal for the family."

That's a very short version of a very long conversation, of course, but it worked. He gets it now. You will not get what you don't ask for.


2 comments:

  1. ... and now I feel silly having typed up a long response to the previous post. Anyway, I'm happy to hear you managed to empower your husband to get over his shyness enough to make smart financial choices.

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  2. No silly-feelings required. =-) I appreciate the comments! He's such an amazing husband... I really lucked out. It frustrates me to see him value himself less than the value I see in him. Does that make sense? I really hope that this is the start of a new era!

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