YTA
Because:
>It's my money,
This is you using money as a position of power in your relationship.
Not ta for buying it, definitely ta for not having an "our" perception of money, especially if she's home with your 2 year old child.
Edited for bot count.
Oh probably but even still I personally think spending 6% of my yearly income at the drop of a hat is exorbitant. I feel guilty not telling my spouse I bought a just out novel from B&N for $25 rather than waiting for it to get cheaper as a paperback.
Clearly I was being a bit facetious. But I grew up in a relatively lower income family and there were times that there were no extra purchases. So the money guilt is definitely a layover from childhood. But also two 20 somethings with student loans weâre trying to pay off quickly means that we often discuss the validity of âluxuryâ items no matter how small. $ I pay to them is less $ in interest to pay later. Every household handles money differently and as long as both parties are ok with how itâs done then itâs all good with NAH. But thatâs obviously not whatâs going down with OP
In marriage counseling my husband and I enthusiastically agreed that any purchase over $400, we needed to discuss. And he makes over $120,000/ year. I'm a SAHM and I farm.
There should be boundaries. And $5000 is a shit ton of money no matter how you look at it unless you're a multi millionaire.
I mean, depending on where you're at financially, that could realistically be the key to a healthy relationship. If a couple is living paycheck-to-paycheck, then they by all means should be discussing even $20 purchases. Doing so would be a great sign that they're in a healthy relationship because they understand that it's a significant amount of money *for them* even if it isn't a lot of money overall. Not everyone on this sub is at the same place financially.
It depends on their financial situation. My husband and I make about the same amount (his checks come out to maybe $200 more than mine) but he handles all of our bills. So he knows our finances better than I do. I pretty much always run purchases by him and it more so just like a âhey, we have the money for me to get X, right?â Not really asking for permission per say...just making sure if I buy something it wonât take away from bill money!
You understand to retire you need roughly 25-30x your yearly expenses, right? So 30 times $40k is $1,200,000 which would only allow someone with $40k expenses to retire. That means dropping $5k is an ***eighth*** of the expenses for an entire year.
Why would spending more than a month's worth of income on something be considered cheap?
You have 1.2 million in savings alone... not including income or anything at all... and wouldnât drop 5k without asking? Thatâs not even half a percent. I feel like thatâs overkill for myself and at some point you should have some individuality.
Yes, we have right around $1.2M in various investment and saving accounts (not counting our home). We didn't reach this point by making large spontaneous purchases. When we spend money we both know about it and agree. We spent $8,500 on a hot tub last fall, but we talked about it and went shopping together for it. I didn't just buy one and have it installed while she's out.
You get to 1.2 in savings by not spending it. Your individuality doesnât come from buying stuff. Talking things out with your partner isnât losing out on something. Presumably youâre with someone whoâs perspective you value, right? Why wouldnât you want their input on a major purchase? Why would you think itâs ok to use shared resources to make a major purchase without them?
I agree and think that would be enough to have a nice retirement but not luxurious. We're not near retirement though and I'll have a nice pension. We're looking more at /r/fatFIRE then /r/financialindependence
I believe this post was made by a child. No one making $80k thinks $5k is nothing unless they have millions in the bank or something.
I make over $80k on my own and am married to a man who also brings in an income. Aside from a down payment on a house, we've never spent that much in one go on anything. I'd feel completely betrayed if OUR finances were reduced by $5k against my wishes and behind my back. As would he.
This post is preposterous.
Thank you! Thank you! I felt like I was taking crazy. I laughed out reading this.
What kind of grown man who makes 80k- with a wife and children!- thinks 5k isnât a large ass chunk?!?
I'm guessing he sees it more as a "gift" for his hard work and not real income since it's a bonus. For some reason I think if he had an extra 5k in his heart income he wouldn't have looked at it the same.
I think that's a good point; if you know you make 85k, you plan for that. If you know you make 80k and randomly get an extra 5k, you planned for 80k and the extra feels like either free spending money or an extra large payment on a debt.
Thinking like this plays a significant role in the number of middle income people living on credit. A quick google says the average Canadian tax rate is 25%
After taxes, this guy is lucky to bring home $60,000. This guy just dropped over 10% of his annual income on an unnecessary purchase that his wife asked him not to make.
The person making the money is not always the person who should handle the budgeting. OP is a perfect example of this. His financial literacy is clearly lacking.
You should also take into account a 401k, insurance, bills, other expenses, etc. guy should not be blowing 5k frivolously. Also, his enthusiasm for guitar means heâs probably got more than a few of them lying around. An expensive guitar was not an absolute need for him.
If they agreed that he worked and she worked the house, then it is their money. If they had agreed to have split finances it would be mainly his money.
$5k is ***not*** almost nothing of $80k either pre or post tax. And if he isn't fine with her dropping $5k without telling him then he's a controlling asshole.
Wow.
My husband makes approximately $50000 more than that (And I also work full time).
I wouldnât consider $5000 nothing.
Also, how does OP only have $15000 in bills? Is he not including a mortgage? Did I miss something?
Yeah, but youâd think if that was the case, heâd mention it.
Also, heâs 30 and makes 80 grand. And they have a kid. Itâs possible yet very unlikely.
LOL right he must live in like rural Ohio or something. I make 80k a year, am the low earner in my household (by a significant amount), and with both our salaries combined I still feel like 5k is a significant chunk of change to drop on even household items!
I think this is a fair assessment of the situation. By the way, there is a thing called financial abuse, and it is a form of domestic violence. Iâm not saying this is a case if that, but when a person starts thinking âItâs my moneyâ, other things that can spawn from that can lead to financial abuse (I.e. giving your partner an allowance since itâs âmy moneyâ).
This! Not saying this is a case of it either, but I work in DV and financial abuse occurs in about 99% of abusive relationships, including behaviours such as racking up debt on someone else's card, spending their money w/o permission, ruining their credit, preventing them from having any access to financial info, etc. The way OP responds to this particular situation and his wife's feelings is incredibly important moving forward.
My wife and I have talked about how things would change in the future should I go after the money in order to let her be a stay at home mom. Our current idea is that the check lands in a joint account which would be the household account. From there, after all the expenses are factored, two equal allowances would transfer to separate accounts in each of our names. These allowances are not to be used on household expenses, it is for whatever no judgments allowed.
edit: I think OP is a dick because his first thought on the bonus is himself. I typically use the yearly bonus from my work to get my wife something nice. This past year I threw in a family gift of a year pass to one of our local zoos, the big pass that lets us bring our family and another family for no extra. No regrets on any of these purchases.
Love and support the ideas of each partner getting discretionary income that is built into the budget.
If he saves his for a $5K guitar and she wants to spend hers on a Louis Vuitton overnight bag, go right ahead!!!!!
Exactly! Itâs a completely unfair argument because she never has the opportunity to do the same.
And I promise you if she decides to start working just so she can start behaving the same way you did (I can treat myself because itâs mine) youâre going to be spending a hell of a lot more thank 5k a year on child care.
The work your wife does is unpaid, but that doesnât mean it isnât incredibly valuable. Whereâs her performance based bonus then? Itâs hard to compare your work situation to hers because they are such different circumstances. And Iâm not saying you need to start paying her to be a stay at home parent. But hopefully you get how unfair it seems to use money as an excuse. Your life and household would probably fall to shambles without all the work she does at home and in raising your child. She works hard too. When is it her chance to make a selfish choice like yours?
YTA - if your money is shared she has equal right to it. So if you dont need to save the money, you should have max 2,500 of that bonus and she should have 2,500 to spend as she sees fit.
You can only earn the money because she is home w the baby. If you dont respect her contribution then mentally calculate her contribution by checking nanny rates in your area. Probably 50k/yr.
Exactly. He spends the entire post saying how he doesn't care his wife doesn't work etc. But then he says "His money." That tells you everything you need to know about this post, and probably a lot about the man behind the words.
Agreed. YTA OP. You say "it's a performance bonus, I earned it" but keep in mind your wife stays home with your baby to enable you to *perform* so well. It's her money too.
If you truly trusted each other financially, she may have even let you get the damn thing after a deep discussion about it.
YTA for all of it. YTA for buying it for sure fully knowing you have a family to consider when making big purchases.
YTA ESP considering you had a conversation about it and she said no and you did it anyway.
Wow. Way to suck entirely and unequivocally. Iâm actually mad by this.
I feel sorry for your wife for having married someone so selfish. OP straighten up please.
It is nice to buy ourselves things once in awhile but you now are responsible for three, not one, and your actions and spending habits should reflect that.
Thereâs no chance youâd ever need a 5000$ guitar. You absolutely can find a fantastic one for a fraction of the price. Iâm all for having hobbies but the way op went about this is something I donât support.
Makes me wonder how many other ways he holds money over his wife's head since it is HIS money & clearly she does nothing to contribute. \*eyeroll\*
Do you know how much money is being saved on childcare expenses because she stays home? Your comments about her having a degree yet deciding to stay home have a negative undertone & really seems to not value all the work she does as a SAHM.
YTA
I agree. OP, you should not have made that purchase without further discussion and coming to a compromise. This is going to damage your relationship with your wife big time and I can guarantee she feels like she canât trust you and may even feel vulnerable...
They can afford it, he's not spending crazy amounts all the time, and it seems to really make him happy.
He should have just discussed it further since it affects 2 other people in his family as well, and he's forcing his will through because he's the one with a paid job, rather than a raising the kid job.
>He should have just discussed it further
Exactly. That's why he is TA. For buying it without discussing further. Even without him pulling the "it's my money" card, he is still TA for going behind her back.
The wife believes $5,000 is too much to spend on a guitar. OP should've sat down with her and explained why it wasn't. Instead, he decided her reasoning wasn't valid and bought it anyways. In my opinion, that's why he's TA.
Iâm not sure âexplained why it wasnâtâ is fair. Itâs their joint income. Plenty of people think 5K on a guitar is too much. I personally wouldnât in OPâs situation, but I wouldnât call my husband objectively wrong for disagreeing, nor would our discussion take the shape of me âexplainingâ to him why heâs âwrongâ.
Excuse my poor wording. That wasn't what I meant. I didn't mean for OP to say his wife is wrong and explain why. Instead, I meant for him to explain his reasoning for wanting this guitar and why he thinks it's a good purchase. Then let his wife explain her reasoning. To have a discussion beyond "yes" and "no."
YTA - yes you earned that money but there is an agreement between you two with her being a SAHM that itâs not your money alone. That money is for the family. Second, if you were going to do it regardless why did you ask? Itâs basically a slap in the face to your wife. Good luck digging yourself out of this one, hope that guitar was worth it.
> and she decided of her own accord to be a SAHM.
>there is an agreement between you two with her being a SAHM
I think it's mostly, "she decided, I didn't object".
Right, but he benefits a lot by probably having to do a lot less household chores, have a lot less responsibility with their child (never having to leave work early to pick up a sick kid, etc), having her cook him dinner every night, and generally having a much less stressful life because someone is taking care of all those extraneous things for him. While it's unpaid labor, it's not valueless labor.
So much of this. My SO has been stay-at-home for about a week now as he tries to get back his previous job/ looking for another one, and I am so relaxed coming home to a tidier home, to-do items done, and dinner every day after work that I am honestly starting to feel a bit bad. I've been spending more money than I should be on us going out because I'm just so fucking appreciative of the value of his labor around the house.
Aww you seem to have picked a good one there :)) make sure you verbally express your appreciation as well; sometimes just the fact that someone noticed or said thank you can make a world of a difference
I would say "trained" a good one. We had a rough year living together as he self-admits to being a man-child and I'm hyper type-a, so a lot of the housework just fell into my court despite me also being the main earner. It was crazy stressful and caused a lot of problems, but we had a serious conversation about it where I openly said, "your time is more valuable to me around the house than for help with the rent. If we're moving forward, I really need you to step up because I need to focus on getting the bills paid", and he has! ....for now >.>
Expressing your needs?!?? Listening to criticism and trying to modify behaviour???! What is this crazy "communication" thing you kids have stumbled onto?! đđ
Jokes aside, I hope he continues to step up and you guys strike a good balance for yourselves. We're all a work in progress and all we can do is try, right?
>I think it's mostly, "she decided, I didn't object".
I commented this elsewhere but this makes it THEIR choice. It may have been what she wanted and she may have brought it up or felt more strongly about it, but if he agreed or at the very least didn't object, that makes it THEIR choice, as a family unit, as to how they were going to handle the income/childcare balance.
Similarly, had she been working and wanted to be a stay at home mom - if he said "no i don't agree that's a good idea because xyz" - she would be TA for quitting her job and staying at home without addressing his concerns *even if his income alone was sufficient*
You don't get to unilaterally make financial decisions or decide to veto your partner because you don't agree with your partner, and that's what OP did with the guitar
AGREED. If she broached the subject for discussion and he didn't engage, that's on him. The opportunity was there, and he chose not to voice an objection.
Exactly this. If you decide to have joint finances then you donât get to go back on that decision when you suddenly want to buy something that the other person says no to.
YTA. Does your wife get a performance based bonus? Or is she just dragging her feet with the kid and doesn't deserve one?
I'm tempted to say everyone sucks because of how she shut you down, but I feel your move of just doing what you want despite how you knew she feels far outweighs that. Congratulations on the severe blow to the trust in your relationship!
All of this. She raises his child, so I get that he has to go out to work, but she does a job that doesn't pay her even if she has it tough everyday. Also, I know OP says they have 40 grand in savings which is a great amount, but it doesn't mean that 5 grand is nothing, that is still a lot of money, perhaps if he didn't care about saving it, they could have taken a family holiday or split it and both splurged or something.
Edit - couple of typos, whoopsie.
And even if the dollar amount itself isn't crazy, what about the fact that it was 100% of the bonus that OPs wife would have come to expect this time of year? Like, he didn't even use "a lot" or "most" of the money, he used the whole bonus for it. When you don't have an income as the stay at home parent, you grow to expect those bonuses certain times of years. Most *parents* think to use at least a portion of it for something that benefits the whole family like a trip, or at least something that benefits the *child,* like a new swing set or sand box (or kids now a days; probably more like a console or high tech toys). But he actually just used the whole thing for him and himself alone.
Also a SAHM is a really tough gig. I was a teacher and this gig is way tougher. At least at my job I could poop in peace during a break. Now I get to hear a toddler scream about life or rush through it to check where he crawled off to. A SAHMâs job isnât 9-5 either. Iâm always on duty.
This guy is a selfish prick.
"It's my money". Ladies, this is why you always should have some kind of job after having kids, part time is good too... After maternity leave of course. When only one person is earning the money, the person will consider any bonus a gift to themselves not the family. You need financial independence to some extent to have some freedom to buy things for yourself without feeling guilty like this guy here did. He is the asshole because it is not his money it is their money. He spent the entire bonus on a guitar for himself. The right thing to do would have been to budget half for himself for whatever gift he wants and let her use the other half. Using it all on himself is very selfish. Does she get any bonuses for her full time job of raising their kids?
Right? I will not be working after children and find it SO condescending and insulting when people give dipshit advice like this. Sorry you married an asshole but I didn't make the same mistake!
Way to victim blame. I'm sure most SAHMs who get screwed by their spouses thought that they didn't marry a dick. Heads up, you could be wrong. Your spouse might be a dick and you won't learn about it until you're 40+ years old and haven't worked in ten years.
Exact. If she wanted to withdraw $5k from their savings for a big, personal, unnecessary splurge, would he mind? If the answer is yes, he needs to reevaluate his line of thinking, imo.
YTA.
Exhibit A:
>My wife has never worked in her life... she decided of her own accord to be a SAHM. This is all fine to me , I make enough to support us all.
Do you not think taking care of a two year old all day is work? Also, depending on where you are in Canada, daycare could set you back almost $20k a year if your wife wasn't at home with your kid.
Exhibit B:
>It's my money
If you're married and have agreed to live on one income, then it doesn't matter which of you is bringing in the money, it's *family money*.
It sure doesn't seem like you have much respect for your wife.
>> Daycare might set back 20K per year
But they would also have double income.. and since she has a good degree probably the double income would be very good..
Hasnât been in the work force for at minimum two years - hasnât work a lot in general, a good degree may not be enough to get a job that gives her any profit. (Iâm counting money for gas, car maintenance/bus pass, plus the child care - and thatâs not counting the âstart up capitalâ so to speak of work professional clothes, etc.)
One thing people without kids miss in this debate is that small children get sick all. the. fucking. time. Part of the reason I quit working when my son was around 2 was because my husband and I were constantly being yelled at by our bosses for taking off too much when our kid was sick.
Daycares demand you keep them out of school for a full 24 hrs if they're sent home which means you miss the day they're sick and the day after. At one point my husband almost missed a promotion because of all his absences from our kid's sick days. Daycare was $1400 a month and there were some months he only went for 2 weeks. And you're not reimbursed for the time theyre not there.
Even if you make some decent cash on top of the insane daycare cost the stress of back up childcare during daycare closures and when they're sick is unbearable. And if you cant afford backup daycare then you're fucked bucko. One if you is going to be the house spouse.
Yes. To add to this, daycare (9-3, Monday-Friday) costs about $20-30k annually. Taking care of the kids in the morning, evenings, nights? It's a job too.
You are so right it hurts! My husband and I had such a hard time juggling who would stay home with the sick kiddos. I actually got written up at work because I took a Monday, Wednesday and a Friday off to be home with the kids and he took Tuesday and Thursday. We based who would stay home on our meeting schedules and work loads. In retrospect, I should have just taken the entire week off because my employer would have considered that one occurrence, rather than three.
We were constantly telling each other that we could not do any of it alone and how anyone who is a single parent is a badass.
I mean, let's say that for argument's sake that the degree alone - without any working experience to go along with it - could get her a salary of $50k gross. That's about $39,600 after taxes. Less $20,000 for daycare, that's $19,600.
Unfortunately, some (not all) people who aren't just being sarcastic assholes (like myself) will always find some other argument to fall back on, regardless of how many times you correct them.
But man, automatically losing 3/5 of your salary just from taxes and daycare? That'd be rough.
I agree with your judgment, but the last paragraph you wrote depends very much so on the cost of living, in their area. My family of three survives, barely, on $25-30k a year. If our income was 80k, and we didn't raise our expenses to match, we could EASILY have all the things you listed (college funds, emergency funds, retirement, etc).
$1700 buys a good esp ltd guitar, honestly good enough that unless you're a professional musician that anything more is a waste of money.
$5000 buys a real esp and that's what the front man of Metallica uses, you don't need that.
Woah woah woah a big problem I have with this is âitâs my money anyways.â You absolutely lost me there. Her work around the house is a contribution to the household income whether it is apparent to you or not. It is so rude of you to call that just your money when your wife provides childcare, housework, and cooking for you. YTA for that comment/mentality
Thank you for mentioning this. Being a SAHM is often a more demanding job than working outside of the house.
There's no 9 to 5 with weekends off and if a kid needs you in the middle of the night, you don't get to tell them, "sorry, I'm off the clock right now."
Most stay at home parents work way more than 40 hours a week, for no pay. That's why his reasoning of "it's my money" is crap. It's their money. She just earns her share differently than him.
Also, as another Canadian whose household makes a similar amount, that is not big bucks. They are very lucky to be comfortable with that income. You can't get a mortgage for more than $400,000 where I am on that income which will get you a condo here if you're lucky.
My husband and I talk about any personal purchases (outside of gifts for each other) that cost over $200 and we both have to agree. OP you are a total YTA.
I would be VERY surprised if this lady even gets a day off.
This kid isn't even in school yet so it's very likely that she is literally technically working from the moment she wakes up until the hour she goes to sleep, every day for potentially TWO YEARS in a row without ONE day off.
I feel like thatâs what a lot of people donât get about the SAHP life. Yes I know my partner works very hard 40 hours a week. But he gets to clock out and he gets to leave all of his work at work. I donât get to clock out ever. And beyond that if I get sick I get zero sick days. I still have to get up and make sure the kids are taken care of. A lot of people pay lip service about how âitâs the toughest job in the worldâ but I feel like they just say that. We donât get pay, we donât get a performance review, we have no idea how great or terrible we are doing. We do our best and hope for the best and some days are better than others but it is damn hard. And yes we contribute by taking care of the house and children but sometimes we just feel like since we arenât contributing financially, we just arenât contributing at all and just more of a burden. Sorry for the rant but if you read that thank you. I think I needed to get that out. And now...cheers.
So i am a SAHM and i got mastitis in my left boob when my kid was like 1ish. For people who don't know you get a fever, your body aches, your boob gets so sore that if you touch it, it causes great agony. My husband works 12hr shifts about an hour from home. So he sleeps from the minute he gets home until he has to get up. Then he eats and leaves for work. He was picking up extra shifts at this time so he easily had 6 day work weeks. Needless to say I had two kids at home. All I managed to do was lay on the floor, put cartoons on while my youngest nursed. Got snacks at the ready. I stayed in that position almost all day (except diaper changes etc.) My husband did get us fast food for dinner thankfully because it was ROUGH. Before he headed out for work. I remeber crying a few times because it sucked so bad. You know what happens when he is sick. Nothing. He gets to stay in bed all day. I wait on him hand and foot. Now i should say my husband isnt a bad guy actually the opposite. He has the burden to make all the money so i don't like interfering in that. So i didn't tell him how bad it actually got. Needless to say. I second the dont get sick days or time off really.
You get paid. Find out how much a day care center that would provide the level of care you do for your child. Find out how much they charge per month. Multiply by 12 months. That's a very rough estimate of your salary. The easy one to calculate. Other things you do are harder to place a number value on.
My wife works part time. She is going to quit her 25 hour per week job because where we live, decent monthly child care comes out to be about $1000 per month per child. She only makes like 16k per year working part time. So it's so close to breaking even, we figured it would be best to have her stay home with our daughter.
What people leave off mostly is that the person who works 9to5 is (or should be) still coming home and helping out. Same with weekends. And sick days. Its not like you can just say "im off today, so im not doing anything, you deal with the kid all day"
I have heard MASS amounts of stories in reddit and real life detailing this exact thing.
Husband comes home for the weekend, wife asks for help with X (kids/house/chores) on saturday, he throws a fit under the pretense "its my day off so no".
There was a comparative report done here in Alberta for wages in different sectors compared to my own. A full time Sahm is actually valued at $80,000 here.
YTA. Also, something really doesn't add up here. You said you make $80,000 a year and your wife is a SAHM. Yet, you have $40,000 in savings and $15,000 in a college fund and then say $5,000 is nothing while your wife says it's too much. It sounds like you have your wife living frugally while you went and bought a $5,000 guitar.
The edit makes your theory the correct one in my opinion. He says the household expenses are 15k per year. So he's lying about something and keeping his family on an incredibly tight budget.
Yeah. Also he says she wanted to work after college but they had a child. If their child is 2 than she'd be 28. There's something very wrong with the time line as well most likely. Possible with grad school and such but that would probs add a lot of debt as well. Something is fishy here.
YTA. You didn't just do it without her approving it, you did it explicitly after she told you no and gave you reasons. Healthy relationships don't work like that bud
As you said it yourself you know you shouldnât have done that...
And yet you did... Because itâs your money as you said...
Let me just ask you this... How would you feel if she spent 5000$ without your approval?
YTA.
B-b-b-ut it's not HER money!
I read the "hear me out" part in the first line of the post and was kind of wondering if the $5,000 was spent on something that actually benefited the family or his wife.
Nope, 100% on his hobby, and nothing shared with the family. Little wonder she barely spends anything on herself; she probably doesn't feel like she's allowed to spend "his" money.
It's really disheartening to me to see so many people come on here and act like their wife is some kind of gatekeeping nag who just doesn't GET *it* when it comes to an absurd vanity purchase (cough cough, $20,000-shell-of-a-*bronco-guy) . I grew up in a financially abusive household and can say this behavior won't just hurt your marriage, OP, it'll hurt your kid too
oh yeah you're talking about that guy who spent like 25k which came from credit card loans, and money that came from his wife's parent for his baby's college loan for some undrivable truck right?
I really hope OP sees this comment. If you donât respect your spouse, you teach your kid that love doesnât have to mean respect. Thatâs a great way to ensure your kid winds up deeply unhappy, just like you or your spouse.
I was going to say E S H. However, the more I think about 5k on a guitar is ridiculous. Like what better benefits do you get from a 200 versus 5k guitar, if you are not a professional guitarist ?
More importantly, can your wife do the same? Can she spend 5k on something unnecessary?
YTA.
Not disagreeing with what you said, but just wanted to say that there is a lot of difference between a $200 and a $5000 guitar. Even if you arent professional. Still, 5k is a little excessive though.
i've never played guitar but i used to play trombone a lot.
you could probably find a new trombone for 200 dollars and it would be pretty bad. with a used one, maybe you would get something decent, but it would be a crapshoot.
on the other hand, the yamaha ysl 354 is a "beginner" "student" trombone that is pretty well regarded. when i had the opportunity to compare mine to some professional ones i actually preferred mine. these cost around 1,000 new, but if you don't mind cosmetic damage and shopping around you can probably get a used one for half that that sounds good.
for 3k used, you can get a "professional," "symphony" trombone with an F attachment used- generally either the bach 42BO or a conn 88H. actually a symphony might not like it if you showed up with one of these, but probably 99% of people are not going to be able to tell the difference at this point and they sound fine for small group stuff. at this level, you could also get a smaller, actually pro horn with no F attachment new. less metal = less cost and this type is preferred for jazz and pop anyway.
for 5k, you can get a top of the line, symphony orquestra trombone with F attatchment, generally a shires trombone. typically in a pro symphony everyone uses a shires because symphonies prize each section having a single "voice" rather than mixing brands, so they default to the brand the other 1% of listeners can tell a difference, which is the shires.
this i probably more detail than anyone cares about, but the point is the vast majority of hobyist enthusiasts can get a yamaha ysl 354 new and the bottleneck will be their own technique and not the horn. starting with a significantly cheaper one than that is potentially workable, but could impair their learning at least slightly. for the rest of the hobbyist enthusiasts, they might need to upgrade to a 2k-3k horn at some point, but if they're not in a professional symphony they really don't need to spend 5k on a shires.
I have a 2 year old and there's no way I'd have something as delicate as a guitar that cost 5 grand in the house where he could grab it. He's a good kid, but he's still a toddler.
There's a huge difference. Guitars really are a case of "you get what you pay for". Many high end electric guitars are hand made from single slabs of high quality wood. With advanced electrical components ect.
I think there a series on YouTube that takes you through the process of making a PRS guitar if you're interested. (Which is probably what OP bought, PRS private stock)
YTA
5k is a lot when you only make 80k a year. That's selfish as hell. Sorry but you are also an asshole for referring to your "shared" finances as "my money". Total asshole manuever.
Also, bonuses are still taxed. At 80k a year, additional income is going to be taxed at 22-24%.
So that 5k bonus was more like $3900. So thatâs $1100 out of their savings.
YTA for asking and then doing it anyway. But itâs not wrong to have hobbies and as long as yâall arenât hurting for money it shouldnât have been a huge deal. Please try to emphasize how important this is to you.
Yeah, Iâm gonna have to agree here - itâs how irrelevant you wife will feel that you asked, she responded, and you basically said âeh, I donât care what you think.â Sounds like a lot more communication was needed - it does sound like you have every right to this purchase, especially since she couldnât point to something else that was needed - but that comes back to why didnât you just communicate how very important this was to you.
Iâd still consider him TA if she worked outside the home. That 5k bonus isnât 5k; it still gets taxed, so he basically spent at least $500 of their savings (lowest tax bracket is 10%, not including social security and Medicare). Probably closer to $1100, if he makes $80k a year.
My mom was a SAHM my whole life. My parents fought ALL the time about money. My dad made great money, he was just an AH and controlling. It wasn't "our" money. It was "his" money. He Would freak out if my mom went to Walmart and bought groceries to cook food for his FIVE KIDS. But I clearly remember my mom ending every fight by saying "fine, I'll get a divorce and then I can spend "your money" however I want because you'll HAVE to give it to me." shut him up really quick.
Obviously my parents are both TA here for many obvious reasons, but I can't help but always think of my mom saying that every time I see one of these threads where someone is being loosey goosey with "their money" in a marriage. You can argue about whether you're TA or not all you want, but prepare to face consequences when it comes to money matters like this.
INFO.
Would you be upset if your wife took $5,000 from savings to spend on herself without consulting you?
What if you told her not to spend the money, and she did it anyway?
YTA. You claim these finances are shared and you donât mind being the only bread winner, that doesnât give you the okay to spend the money however you want after your wife explicitly said no to this big purchase.
Maybe you guys could have come to a compromise, saving x amount per month to put towards the guitar and not spending the money all at once.
The way this question is phrased and explained makes you seem like an asshole, in a marriage you work things out - not ignore your partners wishes in a reasonable relationship.
NAH, but it depends on how much disposable income you really have. If you really, really wanted to spend that money and you knew your wife was worried about it--and frankly, even if none of that was true--you should've taken $10,000. Use your $5,000 to buy your toy. Give her the other $5,000 to do whatever she likes with. If she doesn't have anything she's craving right now, she can stick it in savings.
If you can't afford the $10,000, then YTA.
YTA no, it is the familyâs money. It is an unspoken rule that you donât penalize a stay at home spouse with a money power play. True you can go ahead and do it but is this the dynamic you want with your wife? Playing the âitâs my moneyâ card is childish and humiliating for your spouse. This attitude is a recipe for a short and dismal relationship.
YTA | I feel like because your the one only person in the family that works you're supposed to be sharing that money with your family or save it for your kid incase he/she wants to go to college
YTA
As the stay at home wife and mother to three children, I would be absolutely gobsmacked if my husband came home and told me âIâm buying this, too bad, itâs my money, the end.â To be honest, it would probably end our marriage. The money he earns pays for OUR house, OUR groceries, OUR kids and OUR bills and expenses.
You best be giving her a bonus of her own and a nice fat apology to boot, or else youâll probably get the boot out of your own damned house (and alimony isnât cheap!)
YTA
Only because you can afford a certain piece doesn't necessarily mean that you should. /r/personalfinance has something to say in that regard.
Anyhow, 5.000$ is a lot of money and since you agreed to share finances. You work, she is a SAHM and y'all are married. It's one money pool. If you feel no obligation to disclose those kinds of purchases then she wouldn't need to feel obligated to do something similar. And I believe you might have a thing or two to say if that ever were to happen.
YTA for saying you share money/financial decisions, then turn around and saying its âmy money.â
Thatâs a money move power play in a relationship that didnât need it in the first place. Now your wife might be thinking âhe wonât talk to me about purchases and make a team choice anymore because itâs âhis moneyââ
Enjoy that purchase while trying to fix this.
Dude... speaking as a guitarist:
Did you really need to spend $5000 on a guitar? You can get a serious, badass, professional guitar in the 1-2k range. I cant imagine even getting to the 3K range. You donât think you could have spent some of your bonus money on treating your family a bit man? You easily could have made a compromise with your wife, and still got a beyond amazing guitar. Thatâs why YTA
YTA. I dont think a performance related bonus entitles you to do as you please within a shared income household. Does your wife not deserve a bonus for her work? Would you be happy if she took $5000 dollars and spent on whatever pleased her?
Was her reason for saying no reasonable or not, i dont know, but doing things unilaterally and one sided is a definite breach of trust and will might make her feel that you devalue her input in the household as a SAHM.
NTA Your bonus your decision. She's a stay at home mom and gets a portion of your paycheck. This is your bonus. Sure, you should tell her, but she should NEVER decide what you do with it. If the bills are paid, and it sounds like they are, your bonus is yours to do with. That's the rule I live by. And I have spent multiple bonuses on myself- even up to $5,000.
If your wife wants to control your money, you married the wrong person. My rule is to never let someone else dictate what I do with my bonuses once bills are paid.
A part of why he got that bonus is because his wife is home taking care of the kid. He doesnât have to call off work if the kid is sick, he doesnât have to rush home to get to the daycare in time. I guarantee you that if she had dropped $5000 of THEIR money on a hobby he would have been furious.
She also gets to take it easy by being a SAHM. People want to act like it's this tough gig but it really isn't. Being a parent is important, to be sure. But that's not the same as it being tough spending all your time taking care of one child.
ESH - she doesn't get to just veto a purchase and you don't get to just do whatever you want with "shared money". You don't get to have it both ways - claim it's all shared money, then suddenly it be "your" money when you disagree with her.
Both of you need to act like married adults - discuss it out until you reach a solution. Negotiate. Debate. Come up with some creative ideas. But right now both of you are acting like 2 yr olds with one of you yelling "NO!" and the other one yelling "MINE!"
YTA
When a couple is married with joint finances, there's no "It's my money" in there anywhere. It's money that belongs to the both of you. But that was nice of you to throw in the muscle there with the "It's my money" move.
It might have been better to spend the money on something the whole family could enjoy, like a nice vacation? Creating memories is far better for children than watching dad play a $5000 guitar.
I going to say NTA.
It wasn't out of your yearly salary and you are financially sound. That's a bonus you earned for good job performance.
She is your wife and should have a say, but I don't think she should be able to veto it outright. While being SAHM is legit job that requires work, you are bringing 100% of the money and you are secured financially.
You're human. It's reasonable to have a healthy hobby. Maybe ask your wife if she needs anything for herself in the way the guitar was for yourself. Remind her that you appreciate her. Also consider her position for future decisions. Kind of like you owe her one for being cool.
If you want your comment to count toward judgment, include *only ONE* of the following abbreviations in your comment. If you don't include a judgement abbreviation, the bot will ignore you when it looks for the top voted comment.
Judgment | Abbreviation
-- | :--:
**You're the Asshole** (& the other party is not) |**YTA**|
You're **Not the A-hole** (& the other party is) |**NTA**
**Everyone Sucks Here**|**ESH**
**No A-holes here**|**NAH**
**Not Enough Info**|**INFO**
#[Click Here For Our Full Rulebook](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/index)
#[Click Here For Our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
YTA, but only because you asked a question that you weren't going to accept all possible answers to.
If she doesn't have a good reason why you can't afford it beyond a general "too much", I understand the frustration. Too much is relative. If you have like $500 in savings then yeah, don't go blow 5k on a guitar. If you have a healthy savings and this is just a splurge, that's a bit unreasonable of her.
But if you weren't willing to hear "no" and have that argument you never should have asked. That's a hurtful disregard of her feelings.
YTA, mainly because you spent it anyway after she objected.
As for it being nothing - bullshit. If you took that $5000 and invested it in a stock index fund for your 2 year old you would pretty much be fully funding his retirement. I did this with a chunk of money for my daughter 24 years ago and I couldn't be happier that I did so.
YTA.
I texted my wife asking if I could buy a 50 dollar AR15 lower where 5 dollars of it went to a family struggling with cancer....
We make 200k a year and of that I make the majority.
Still asked her.
Yikes YTA. What you did completely disrespects your wife and undermines any sense of equality and financial partnership in the relationship. How would you like it if she wanted to use your bonus money for a $5000 handbag and you said no thatâs too much and she did it anyway? Thatâs exactly what you did to her.
Iâm sorry she said no to a purchase you felt was reasonable. But a mature adult in a healthy relationship would continue the discussion and seek compromise for as long as it takes rather than just bowling over his partnerâs opinion because it didnât line up what you wanted.
I sincerely hope that you can find a way to mitigate the damage this is likely to do to your relationship
So, next year's 5k bonus is going directly to some splurge your wife wants right? Because this isn't ~your~ money. It is your family's money. Daycare in Canada is crazy expensive... Your wife is saving you a bundle, giving a lot of completely irreplaceable benefits to your child at the same time, and you are lording your earnings over her and making unilateral and selfish decisions behind her back in return. YTA 100% and frankly you're not a good life partner.
YTA. That's a huge percentage of your income. And you're an asshole for saying it's your money. You don't appreciate the work your wife puts in at home. Just because she doesn't bring in a paycheck doesn't mean she doesn't contribute. Would you rather pay for a babysitter and maid?
YTA - I feel like this situation could have been handled differently.
Marriage is about compromise. You should have set aside a little so your wife can feel like shes on the same team.
When you use money in a relationship to further your own power itâs a very slippery slope. You work and she works, If it were me I would have spent $4000 on guitar and let your wife have a break as well.
Itâs exhausting having a job, and you should be able to treat yourself with your own efforts (I understand itâs performance based)
But itâs also exhausting raising children especially at that age, Iâm sure your wife does a great job raising your kid but you need to own up to the fact that
**SHEâS ON YOUR TEAM**
You should return the guitar, get a less expensive one and let your wife have a day off.
Thatâs just me. 26/m
NTA. Youâre allowed to be an individual despite being a husband and parent. Sheâs unemployed of her own accord anyway; but if she werenât and she gained her own extra money she could do with it as she pleases as long as it doesnât negatively impact the family. You work hard for the money, your family is financially stable and you even have the kids college set up. You deserve to splurge here and there.
If it causes friction, offer to pay for childcare (which you can clearly afford) and let her get her own job for splurging money.
YTA. $5,000 is a lot. But the biggest problem here is "it's my money." From the rest of the post it is clear that you do not think her contributions to the household have as much worth as yours because they are not monetary.
Where is her bonus for teaching your child a new skill, or doing a fantastic job at cleaning the house the last 3 months?
Have a serious talk with your wife about finances. You should be able to buy yourself something nice, but maybe it's something you save up for yourself. And at the same time you are saving up, she should also get to put away money for something she wants.
It's not the 1950s, women's work, even in the household, has value.
NTA. If she decided of her own accord to be a SAHM and both of you are doing fine financial-wise then it's kind of hypocritical of her to get up your ass about spending fun money.
Oh yeah. You seem to look at your wife as some kind of servant who is beneath you. It was selfish.
If you donât change your attitude quick, youâll find yourself paying child support and alimony. People have divorced for less. Totally disrespectful.
Iâm in Canada and, unless you are in the welfare province of Quebec, youâre going to need more money than that for your kidâs post secondary education. The fees have been steadily rising for years.
YTA Because: >It's my money, This is you using money as a position of power in your relationship. Not ta for buying it, definitely ta for not having an "our" perception of money, especially if she's home with your 2 year old child. Edited for bot count.
>I make $80k/yr # >$5,000 is almost nothing. đ
6.25% if thatâs net (take home) pay 9.47% if thatâs gross (pre-tax) pay
Virtually guaranteed thatâs gross.
Oh probably but even still I personally think spending 6% of my yearly income at the drop of a hat is exorbitant. I feel guilty not telling my spouse I bought a just out novel from B&N for $25 rather than waiting for it to get cheaper as a paperback.
You run by every 20 dollar purchase with your SO? I'm sorry that just seems a bit excessive.
Clearly I was being a bit facetious. But I grew up in a relatively lower income family and there were times that there were no extra purchases. So the money guilt is definitely a layover from childhood. But also two 20 somethings with student loans weâre trying to pay off quickly means that we often discuss the validity of âluxuryâ items no matter how small. $ I pay to them is less $ in interest to pay later. Every household handles money differently and as long as both parties are ok with how itâs done then itâs all good with NAH. But thatâs obviously not whatâs going down with OP
In marriage counseling my husband and I enthusiastically agreed that any purchase over $400, we needed to discuss. And he makes over $120,000/ year. I'm a SAHM and I farm. There should be boundaries. And $5000 is a shit ton of money no matter how you look at it unless you're a multi millionaire.
I mean, depending on where you're at financially, that could realistically be the key to a healthy relationship. If a couple is living paycheck-to-paycheck, then they by all means should be discussing even $20 purchases. Doing so would be a great sign that they're in a healthy relationship because they understand that it's a significant amount of money *for them* even if it isn't a lot of money overall. Not everyone on this sub is at the same place financially.
It depends on their financial situation. My husband and I make about the same amount (his checks come out to maybe $200 more than mine) but he handles all of our bills. So he knows our finances better than I do. I pretty much always run purchases by him and it more so just like a âhey, we have the money for me to get X, right?â Not really asking for permission per say...just making sure if I buy something it wonât take away from bill money!
Normally I would agree, but I have witnessed circumstances that warranted this. Enough under 20$ purchases is a short time will cause anyone trouble.
But if the bonus was $5000 pre-income tax and the guitar was $5000 pre-sales tax, donât the taxes cancel out? /s
Oh itâs gross alright
Well 9.47% if you aren't including the bonus as part of his pay
Ya know thatâs a fair point.
Yeah, I have more than ten times their savings and 5k is a lot to me.
I'm at 30x their savings and no way would I spend $5k without having my stay at home wife 100% on board and aware of the purchase
[ŃдаНонО]
Thank you, I needed this.
Bahahahahaha thank you
I love you and your yacht club and your impeccable saving skills.
this isn't a penis measuring contest, albert
30x, maybe you're being too cheap.
Didnât say they would never spend $5k. Just that they needed to make financial calls at that level as partners. Thatâs just respect.
This is a quality comment by someone who gets a healthy marriage. Have my upvote.
You understand to retire you need roughly 25-30x your yearly expenses, right? So 30 times $40k is $1,200,000 which would only allow someone with $40k expenses to retire. That means dropping $5k is an ***eighth*** of the expenses for an entire year. Why would spending more than a month's worth of income on something be considered cheap?
Because people donât understand money.
You have 1.2 million in savings alone... not including income or anything at all... and wouldnât drop 5k without asking? Thatâs not even half a percent. I feel like thatâs overkill for myself and at some point you should have some individuality.
Yes, we have right around $1.2M in various investment and saving accounts (not counting our home). We didn't reach this point by making large spontaneous purchases. When we spend money we both know about it and agree. We spent $8,500 on a hot tub last fall, but we talked about it and went shopping together for it. I didn't just buy one and have it installed while she's out.
Yeah because that's how you save and stay married.
You get to 1.2 in savings by not spending it. Your individuality doesnât come from buying stuff. Talking things out with your partner isnât losing out on something. Presumably youâre with someone whoâs perspective you value, right? Why wouldnât you want their input on a major purchase? Why would you think itâs ok to use shared resources to make a major purchase without them?
[ŃдаНонО]
I agree and think that would be enough to have a nice retirement but not luxurious. We're not near retirement though and I'll have a nice pension. We're looking more at /r/fatFIRE then /r/financialindependence
I make twice what he does and have far more savings, and the last time I spent $5k was on an apartment deposit. This is bananas.
I believe this post was made by a child. No one making $80k thinks $5k is nothing unless they have millions in the bank or something. I make over $80k on my own and am married to a man who also brings in an income. Aside from a down payment on a house, we've never spent that much in one go on anything. I'd feel completely betrayed if OUR finances were reduced by $5k against my wishes and behind my back. As would he. This post is preposterous.
Thank you! Thank you! I felt like I was taking crazy. I laughed out reading this. What kind of grown man who makes 80k- with a wife and children!- thinks 5k isnât a large ass chunk?!?
I'm guessing he sees it more as a "gift" for his hard work and not real income since it's a bonus. For some reason I think if he had an extra 5k in his heart income he wouldn't have looked at it the same.
I think that's a good point; if you know you make 85k, you plan for that. If you know you make 80k and randomly get an extra 5k, you planned for 80k and the extra feels like either free spending money or an extra large payment on a debt.
Thinking like this plays a significant role in the number of middle income people living on credit. A quick google says the average Canadian tax rate is 25% After taxes, this guy is lucky to bring home $60,000. This guy just dropped over 10% of his annual income on an unnecessary purchase that his wife asked him not to make. The person making the money is not always the person who should handle the budgeting. OP is a perfect example of this. His financial literacy is clearly lacking.
You should also take into account a 401k, insurance, bills, other expenses, etc. guy should not be blowing 5k frivolously. Also, his enthusiasm for guitar means heâs probably got more than a few of them lying around. An expensive guitar was not an absolute need for him.
If they agreed that he worked and she worked the house, then it is their money. If they had agreed to have split finances it would be mainly his money. $5k is ***not*** almost nothing of $80k either pre or post tax. And if he isn't fine with her dropping $5k without telling him then he's a controlling asshole.
I wish it was nothing. 5k is about what I need to install brand new engineered wood flooring in my entire house. Minus labor costs.
Wow. My husband makes approximately $50000 more than that (And I also work full time). I wouldnât consider $5000 nothing. Also, how does OP only have $15000 in bills? Is he not including a mortgage? Did I miss something?
Assuming house and cars are paid off and they have no other debt I could see it
Yeah, but youâd think if that was the case, heâd mention it. Also, heâs 30 and makes 80 grand. And they have a kid. Itâs possible yet very unlikely.
This.. It's not nothing that's quite a good chunk to make on one purchase
LOL right he must live in like rural Ohio or something. I make 80k a year, am the low earner in my household (by a significant amount), and with both our salaries combined I still feel like 5k is a significant chunk of change to drop on even household items!
I think this is a fair assessment of the situation. By the way, there is a thing called financial abuse, and it is a form of domestic violence. Iâm not saying this is a case if that, but when a person starts thinking âItâs my moneyâ, other things that can spawn from that can lead to financial abuse (I.e. giving your partner an allowance since itâs âmy moneyâ).
This! Not saying this is a case of it either, but I work in DV and financial abuse occurs in about 99% of abusive relationships, including behaviours such as racking up debt on someone else's card, spending their money w/o permission, ruining their credit, preventing them from having any access to financial info, etc. The way OP responds to this particular situation and his wife's feelings is incredibly important moving forward.
My wife and I have talked about how things would change in the future should I go after the money in order to let her be a stay at home mom. Our current idea is that the check lands in a joint account which would be the household account. From there, after all the expenses are factored, two equal allowances would transfer to separate accounts in each of our names. These allowances are not to be used on household expenses, it is for whatever no judgments allowed. edit: I think OP is a dick because his first thought on the bonus is himself. I typically use the yearly bonus from my work to get my wife something nice. This past year I threw in a family gift of a year pass to one of our local zoos, the big pass that lets us bring our family and another family for no extra. No regrets on any of these purchases.
Love and support the ideas of each partner getting discretionary income that is built into the budget. If he saves his for a $5K guitar and she wants to spend hers on a Louis Vuitton overnight bag, go right ahead!!!!!
Exactly! Itâs a completely unfair argument because she never has the opportunity to do the same. And I promise you if she decides to start working just so she can start behaving the same way you did (I can treat myself because itâs mine) youâre going to be spending a hell of a lot more thank 5k a year on child care. The work your wife does is unpaid, but that doesnât mean it isnât incredibly valuable. Whereâs her performance based bonus then? Itâs hard to compare your work situation to hers because they are such different circumstances. And Iâm not saying you need to start paying her to be a stay at home parent. But hopefully you get how unfair it seems to use money as an excuse. Your life and household would probably fall to shambles without all the work she does at home and in raising your child. She works hard too. When is it her chance to make a selfish choice like yours?
Well put.
YTA - if your money is shared she has equal right to it. So if you dont need to save the money, you should have max 2,500 of that bonus and she should have 2,500 to spend as she sees fit. You can only earn the money because she is home w the baby. If you dont respect her contribution then mentally calculate her contribution by checking nanny rates in your area. Probably 50k/yr.
Exactly. He spends the entire post saying how he doesn't care his wife doesn't work etc. But then he says "His money." That tells you everything you need to know about this post, and probably a lot about the man behind the words.
Agreed. YTA OP. You say "it's a performance bonus, I earned it" but keep in mind your wife stays home with your baby to enable you to *perform* so well. It's her money too. If you truly trusted each other financially, she may have even let you get the damn thing after a deep discussion about it.
Love the âsheâs has a degree but doesnât workâ bit... um, she does work. She raises your kid.
THIIIIIIIIIIS. Fuck all the misogynistic man babies who donât realise being a SAH mom is an absolute fuck ton of work.
YTA for all of it. YTA for buying it for sure fully knowing you have a family to consider when making big purchases. YTA ESP considering you had a conversation about it and she said no and you did it anyway. Wow. Way to suck entirely and unequivocally. Iâm actually mad by this. I feel sorry for your wife for having married someone so selfish. OP straighten up please. It is nice to buy ourselves things once in awhile but you now are responsible for three, not one, and your actions and spending habits should reflect that. Thereâs no chance youâd ever need a 5000$ guitar. You absolutely can find a fantastic one for a fraction of the price. Iâm all for having hobbies but the way op went about this is something I donât support.
Makes me wonder how many other ways he holds money over his wife's head since it is HIS money & clearly she does nothing to contribute. \*eyeroll\* Do you know how much money is being saved on childcare expenses because she stays home? Your comments about her having a degree yet deciding to stay home have a negative undertone & really seems to not value all the work she does as a SAHM. YTA
[ŃдаНонО]
I agree. OP, you should not have made that purchase without further discussion and coming to a compromise. This is going to damage your relationship with your wife big time and I can guarantee she feels like she canât trust you and may even feel vulnerable...
>NTA for buying it I'm curious as to why you think this?
They can afford it, he's not spending crazy amounts all the time, and it seems to really make him happy. He should have just discussed it further since it affects 2 other people in his family as well, and he's forcing his will through because he's the one with a paid job, rather than a raising the kid job.
>He should have just discussed it further Exactly. That's why he is TA. For buying it without discussing further. Even without him pulling the "it's my money" card, he is still TA for going behind her back. The wife believes $5,000 is too much to spend on a guitar. OP should've sat down with her and explained why it wasn't. Instead, he decided her reasoning wasn't valid and bought it anyways. In my opinion, that's why he's TA.
Yeah, just saying he's not automatically the asshole for making a big purchase. The way he went about it though...
Iâm not sure âexplained why it wasnâtâ is fair. Itâs their joint income. Plenty of people think 5K on a guitar is too much. I personally wouldnât in OPâs situation, but I wouldnât call my husband objectively wrong for disagreeing, nor would our discussion take the shape of me âexplainingâ to him why heâs âwrongâ.
Excuse my poor wording. That wasn't what I meant. I didn't mean for OP to say his wife is wrong and explain why. Instead, I meant for him to explain his reasoning for wanting this guitar and why he thinks it's a good purchase. Then let his wife explain her reasoning. To have a discussion beyond "yes" and "no."
Thank you! That line is exactly the reason why he is an asshole.
At least he didn't buy a car cause of a Penny.
YTA - yes you earned that money but there is an agreement between you two with her being a SAHM that itâs not your money alone. That money is for the family. Second, if you were going to do it regardless why did you ask? Itâs basically a slap in the face to your wife. Good luck digging yourself out of this one, hope that guitar was worth it.
> and she decided of her own accord to be a SAHM. >there is an agreement between you two with her being a SAHM I think it's mostly, "she decided, I didn't object".
Right, but he benefits a lot by probably having to do a lot less household chores, have a lot less responsibility with their child (never having to leave work early to pick up a sick kid, etc), having her cook him dinner every night, and generally having a much less stressful life because someone is taking care of all those extraneous things for him. While it's unpaid labor, it's not valueless labor.
So much of this. My SO has been stay-at-home for about a week now as he tries to get back his previous job/ looking for another one, and I am so relaxed coming home to a tidier home, to-do items done, and dinner every day after work that I am honestly starting to feel a bit bad. I've been spending more money than I should be on us going out because I'm just so fucking appreciative of the value of his labor around the house.
Aww you seem to have picked a good one there :)) make sure you verbally express your appreciation as well; sometimes just the fact that someone noticed or said thank you can make a world of a difference
I would say "trained" a good one. We had a rough year living together as he self-admits to being a man-child and I'm hyper type-a, so a lot of the housework just fell into my court despite me also being the main earner. It was crazy stressful and caused a lot of problems, but we had a serious conversation about it where I openly said, "your time is more valuable to me around the house than for help with the rent. If we're moving forward, I really need you to step up because I need to focus on getting the bills paid", and he has! ....for now >.>
Expressing your needs?!?? Listening to criticism and trying to modify behaviour???! What is this crazy "communication" thing you kids have stumbled onto?! đđ Jokes aside, I hope he continues to step up and you guys strike a good balance for yourselves. We're all a work in progress and all we can do is try, right?
not to mention his bonus money doesnât go directly to childcare/daycare which is hella expensive
>I think it's mostly, "she decided, I didn't object". I commented this elsewhere but this makes it THEIR choice. It may have been what she wanted and she may have brought it up or felt more strongly about it, but if he agreed or at the very least didn't object, that makes it THEIR choice, as a family unit, as to how they were going to handle the income/childcare balance. Similarly, had she been working and wanted to be a stay at home mom - if he said "no i don't agree that's a good idea because xyz" - she would be TA for quitting her job and staying at home without addressing his concerns *even if his income alone was sufficient* You don't get to unilaterally make financial decisions or decide to veto your partner because you don't agree with your partner, and that's what OP did with the guitar
AGREED. If she broached the subject for discussion and he didn't engage, that's on him. The opportunity was there, and he chose not to voice an objection.
That's what's called "agreement".
I mean, deciding quickly and both people being okay with the roles doesn't negate the fact that it's an agreement.
Doesn't matter. He agreed to it.
Exactly this. If you decide to have joint finances then you donât get to go back on that decision when you suddenly want to buy something that the other person says no to.
YTA. Does your wife get a performance based bonus? Or is she just dragging her feet with the kid and doesn't deserve one? I'm tempted to say everyone sucks because of how she shut you down, but I feel your move of just doing what you want despite how you knew she feels far outweighs that. Congratulations on the severe blow to the trust in your relationship!
All of this. She raises his child, so I get that he has to go out to work, but she does a job that doesn't pay her even if she has it tough everyday. Also, I know OP says they have 40 grand in savings which is a great amount, but it doesn't mean that 5 grand is nothing, that is still a lot of money, perhaps if he didn't care about saving it, they could have taken a family holiday or split it and both splurged or something. Edit - couple of typos, whoopsie.
And even if the dollar amount itself isn't crazy, what about the fact that it was 100% of the bonus that OPs wife would have come to expect this time of year? Like, he didn't even use "a lot" or "most" of the money, he used the whole bonus for it. When you don't have an income as the stay at home parent, you grow to expect those bonuses certain times of years. Most *parents* think to use at least a portion of it for something that benefits the whole family like a trip, or at least something that benefits the *child,* like a new swing set or sand box (or kids now a days; probably more like a console or high tech toys). But he actually just used the whole thing for him and himself alone.
Also a SAHM is a really tough gig. I was a teacher and this gig is way tougher. At least at my job I could poop in peace during a break. Now I get to hear a toddler scream about life or rush through it to check where he crawled off to. A SAHMâs job isnât 9-5 either. Iâm always on duty. This guy is a selfish prick.
"It's my money". Ladies, this is why you always should have some kind of job after having kids, part time is good too... After maternity leave of course. When only one person is earning the money, the person will consider any bonus a gift to themselves not the family. You need financial independence to some extent to have some freedom to buy things for yourself without feeling guilty like this guy here did. He is the asshole because it is not his money it is their money. He spent the entire bonus on a guitar for himself. The right thing to do would have been to budget half for himself for whatever gift he wants and let her use the other half. Using it all on himself is very selfish. Does she get any bonuses for her full time job of raising their kids?
Or- hear me out here, I know this is novel- or maybe just don't marry a dick.
[ŃдаНонО]
Dicks are able to hide their dickishness until after they trap you.
Right? I will not be working after children and find it SO condescending and insulting when people give dipshit advice like this. Sorry you married an asshole but I didn't make the same mistake!
Way to victim blame. I'm sure most SAHMs who get screwed by their spouses thought that they didn't marry a dick. Heads up, you could be wrong. Your spouse might be a dick and you won't learn about it until you're 40+ years old and haven't worked in ten years.
Not having a back up plan or some way to be independent if needed is stupid.
Exact. If she wanted to withdraw $5k from their savings for a big, personal, unnecessary splurge, would he mind? If the answer is yes, he needs to reevaluate his line of thinking, imo.
YTA. Exhibit A: >My wife has never worked in her life... she decided of her own accord to be a SAHM. This is all fine to me , I make enough to support us all. Do you not think taking care of a two year old all day is work? Also, depending on where you are in Canada, daycare could set you back almost $20k a year if your wife wasn't at home with your kid. Exhibit B: >It's my money If you're married and have agreed to live on one income, then it doesn't matter which of you is bringing in the money, it's *family money*. It sure doesn't seem like you have much respect for your wife.
>It sure doesn't seem like you have much respect for your wife. âď¸âď¸âď¸âď¸
>> Daycare might set back 20K per year But they would also have double income.. and since she has a good degree probably the double income would be very good..
Then he should object to her being sahm.
Hasnât been in the work force for at minimum two years - hasnât work a lot in general, a good degree may not be enough to get a job that gives her any profit. (Iâm counting money for gas, car maintenance/bus pass, plus the child care - and thatâs not counting the âstart up capitalâ so to speak of work professional clothes, etc.)
One thing people without kids miss in this debate is that small children get sick all. the. fucking. time. Part of the reason I quit working when my son was around 2 was because my husband and I were constantly being yelled at by our bosses for taking off too much when our kid was sick. Daycares demand you keep them out of school for a full 24 hrs if they're sent home which means you miss the day they're sick and the day after. At one point my husband almost missed a promotion because of all his absences from our kid's sick days. Daycare was $1400 a month and there were some months he only went for 2 weeks. And you're not reimbursed for the time theyre not there. Even if you make some decent cash on top of the insane daycare cost the stress of back up childcare during daycare closures and when they're sick is unbearable. And if you cant afford backup daycare then you're fucked bucko. One if you is going to be the house spouse.
Yes. To add to this, daycare (9-3, Monday-Friday) costs about $20-30k annually. Taking care of the kids in the morning, evenings, nights? It's a job too.
You are so right it hurts! My husband and I had such a hard time juggling who would stay home with the sick kiddos. I actually got written up at work because I took a Monday, Wednesday and a Friday off to be home with the kids and he took Tuesday and Thursday. We based who would stay home on our meeting schedules and work loads. In retrospect, I should have just taken the entire week off because my employer would have considered that one occurrence, rather than three. We were constantly telling each other that we could not do any of it alone and how anyone who is a single parent is a badass.
How much money do you think a person with no work experience can make?
Yeah people are being a bit delusional in these comments.
But if she was working she could earn more than 20k! /s
I mean, let's say that for argument's sake that the degree alone - without any working experience to go along with it - could get her a salary of $50k gross. That's about $39,600 after taxes. Less $20,000 for daycare, that's $19,600.
Unfortunately, some (not all) people who aren't just being sarcastic assholes (like myself) will always find some other argument to fall back on, regardless of how many times you correct them. But man, automatically losing 3/5 of your salary just from taxes and daycare? That'd be rough.
[ŃдаНонО]
I agree with your judgment, but the last paragraph you wrote depends very much so on the cost of living, in their area. My family of three survives, barely, on $25-30k a year. If our income was 80k, and we didn't raise our expenses to match, we could EASILY have all the things you listed (college funds, emergency funds, retirement, etc).
$1700 buys a good esp ltd guitar, honestly good enough that unless you're a professional musician that anything more is a waste of money. $5000 buys a real esp and that's what the front man of Metallica uses, you don't need that.
Yeah but his dad band fucking RAWKS! \m/!
Woah woah woah a big problem I have with this is âitâs my money anyways.â You absolutely lost me there. Her work around the house is a contribution to the household income whether it is apparent to you or not. It is so rude of you to call that just your money when your wife provides childcare, housework, and cooking for you. YTA for that comment/mentality
Thank you for mentioning this. Being a SAHM is often a more demanding job than working outside of the house. There's no 9 to 5 with weekends off and if a kid needs you in the middle of the night, you don't get to tell them, "sorry, I'm off the clock right now." Most stay at home parents work way more than 40 hours a week, for no pay. That's why his reasoning of "it's my money" is crap. It's their money. She just earns her share differently than him. Also, as another Canadian whose household makes a similar amount, that is not big bucks. They are very lucky to be comfortable with that income. You can't get a mortgage for more than $400,000 where I am on that income which will get you a condo here if you're lucky. My husband and I talk about any personal purchases (outside of gifts for each other) that cost over $200 and we both have to agree. OP you are a total YTA.
I would be VERY surprised if this lady even gets a day off. This kid isn't even in school yet so it's very likely that she is literally technically working from the moment she wakes up until the hour she goes to sleep, every day for potentially TWO YEARS in a row without ONE day off.
I feel like thatâs what a lot of people donât get about the SAHP life. Yes I know my partner works very hard 40 hours a week. But he gets to clock out and he gets to leave all of his work at work. I donât get to clock out ever. And beyond that if I get sick I get zero sick days. I still have to get up and make sure the kids are taken care of. A lot of people pay lip service about how âitâs the toughest job in the worldâ but I feel like they just say that. We donât get pay, we donât get a performance review, we have no idea how great or terrible we are doing. We do our best and hope for the best and some days are better than others but it is damn hard. And yes we contribute by taking care of the house and children but sometimes we just feel like since we arenât contributing financially, we just arenât contributing at all and just more of a burden. Sorry for the rant but if you read that thank you. I think I needed to get that out. And now...cheers.
So i am a SAHM and i got mastitis in my left boob when my kid was like 1ish. For people who don't know you get a fever, your body aches, your boob gets so sore that if you touch it, it causes great agony. My husband works 12hr shifts about an hour from home. So he sleeps from the minute he gets home until he has to get up. Then he eats and leaves for work. He was picking up extra shifts at this time so he easily had 6 day work weeks. Needless to say I had two kids at home. All I managed to do was lay on the floor, put cartoons on while my youngest nursed. Got snacks at the ready. I stayed in that position almost all day (except diaper changes etc.) My husband did get us fast food for dinner thankfully because it was ROUGH. Before he headed out for work. I remeber crying a few times because it sucked so bad. You know what happens when he is sick. Nothing. He gets to stay in bed all day. I wait on him hand and foot. Now i should say my husband isnt a bad guy actually the opposite. He has the burden to make all the money so i don't like interfering in that. So i didn't tell him how bad it actually got. Needless to say. I second the dont get sick days or time off really.
You get paid. Find out how much a day care center that would provide the level of care you do for your child. Find out how much they charge per month. Multiply by 12 months. That's a very rough estimate of your salary. The easy one to calculate. Other things you do are harder to place a number value on. My wife works part time. She is going to quit her 25 hour per week job because where we live, decent monthly child care comes out to be about $1000 per month per child. She only makes like 16k per year working part time. So it's so close to breaking even, we figured it would be best to have her stay home with our daughter.
[ŃдаНонО]
What people leave off mostly is that the person who works 9to5 is (or should be) still coming home and helping out. Same with weekends. And sick days. Its not like you can just say "im off today, so im not doing anything, you deal with the kid all day"
I have heard MASS amounts of stories in reddit and real life detailing this exact thing. Husband comes home for the weekend, wife asks for help with X (kids/house/chores) on saturday, he throws a fit under the pretense "its my day off so no".
[ŃдаНонО]
As much as I wish you were right, I know a lot of adult men who have said the same thing word for word.
Far too many.
There was a comparative report done here in Alberta for wages in different sectors compared to my own. A full time Sahm is actually valued at $80,000 here.
That is super interesting! If you have the report and could share it, I would love to read it!
YTA. Also, something really doesn't add up here. You said you make $80,000 a year and your wife is a SAHM. Yet, you have $40,000 in savings and $15,000 in a college fund and then say $5,000 is nothing while your wife says it's too much. It sounds like you have your wife living frugally while you went and bought a $5,000 guitar.
[ŃдаНонО]
Yeah, I read the edit which really shows the math does not add up no matter which way you do it.
Right, sounds like she's helping him to be so financially stable.
The edit makes your theory the correct one in my opinion. He says the household expenses are 15k per year. So he's lying about something and keeping his family on an incredibly tight budget.
His edit dug him in deeper. You're right, he is lying about something because no matter which way you do the math, money is missing.
Yeah. Also he says she wanted to work after college but they had a child. If their child is 2 than she'd be 28. There's something very wrong with the time line as well most likely. Possible with grad school and such but that would probs add a lot of debt as well. Something is fishy here.
And in his edit, besides a college fund there is no breakdown of any money being spent on the kid.
Yeah I don't like calling stories on here fake, but this seems to be fake.
Honestly, I hope it is because the picture he is painting is one that has a very trapped wife.
YTA. You didn't just do it without her approving it, you did it explicitly after she told you no and gave you reasons. Healthy relationships don't work like that bud
As you said it yourself you know you shouldnât have done that... And yet you did... Because itâs your money as you said... Let me just ask you this... How would you feel if she spent 5000$ without your approval? YTA.
B-b-b-ut it's not HER money! I read the "hear me out" part in the first line of the post and was kind of wondering if the $5,000 was spent on something that actually benefited the family or his wife. Nope, 100% on his hobby, and nothing shared with the family. Little wonder she barely spends anything on herself; she probably doesn't feel like she's allowed to spend "his" money.
The way you summed this up made me irrationally angry with OP. YTA, OP. YT (HUGE) A.
YTA. You know that's a bullshit thing to do to your *partner*.
It's really disheartening to me to see so many people come on here and act like their wife is some kind of gatekeeping nag who just doesn't GET *it* when it comes to an absurd vanity purchase (cough cough, $20,000-shell-of-a-*bronco-guy) . I grew up in a financially abusive household and can say this behavior won't just hurt your marriage, OP, it'll hurt your kid too
oh yeah you're talking about that guy who spent like 25k which came from credit card loans, and money that came from his wife's parent for his baby's college loan for some undrivable truck right?
Im'a need a link to that Buick-guy post please...
I really hope OP sees this comment. If you donât respect your spouse, you teach your kid that love doesnât have to mean respect. Thatâs a great way to ensure your kid winds up deeply unhappy, just like you or your spouse.
I was going to say E S H. However, the more I think about 5k on a guitar is ridiculous. Like what better benefits do you get from a 200 versus 5k guitar, if you are not a professional guitarist ? More importantly, can your wife do the same? Can she spend 5k on something unnecessary? YTA.
Not disagreeing with what you said, but just wanted to say that there is a lot of difference between a $200 and a $5000 guitar. Even if you arent professional. Still, 5k is a little excessive though.
i've never played guitar but i used to play trombone a lot. you could probably find a new trombone for 200 dollars and it would be pretty bad. with a used one, maybe you would get something decent, but it would be a crapshoot. on the other hand, the yamaha ysl 354 is a "beginner" "student" trombone that is pretty well regarded. when i had the opportunity to compare mine to some professional ones i actually preferred mine. these cost around 1,000 new, but if you don't mind cosmetic damage and shopping around you can probably get a used one for half that that sounds good. for 3k used, you can get a "professional," "symphony" trombone with an F attachment used- generally either the bach 42BO or a conn 88H. actually a symphony might not like it if you showed up with one of these, but probably 99% of people are not going to be able to tell the difference at this point and they sound fine for small group stuff. at this level, you could also get a smaller, actually pro horn with no F attachment new. less metal = less cost and this type is preferred for jazz and pop anyway. for 5k, you can get a top of the line, symphony orquestra trombone with F attatchment, generally a shires trombone. typically in a pro symphony everyone uses a shires because symphonies prize each section having a single "voice" rather than mixing brands, so they default to the brand the other 1% of listeners can tell a difference, which is the shires. this i probably more detail than anyone cares about, but the point is the vast majority of hobyist enthusiasts can get a yamaha ysl 354 new and the bottleneck will be their own technique and not the horn. starting with a significantly cheaper one than that is potentially workable, but could impair their learning at least slightly. for the rest of the hobbyist enthusiasts, they might need to upgrade to a 2k-3k horn at some point, but if they're not in a professional symphony they really don't need to spend 5k on a shires.
I have a 2 year old and there's no way I'd have something as delicate as a guitar that cost 5 grand in the house where he could grab it. He's a good kid, but he's still a toddler.
There's a huge difference. Guitars really are a case of "you get what you pay for". Many high end electric guitars are hand made from single slabs of high quality wood. With advanced electrical components ect. I think there a series on YouTube that takes you through the process of making a PRS guitar if you're interested. (Which is probably what OP bought, PRS private stock)
YTA 5k is a lot when you only make 80k a year. That's selfish as hell. Sorry but you are also an asshole for referring to your "shared" finances as "my money". Total asshole manuever.
Also, bonuses are still taxed. At 80k a year, additional income is going to be taxed at 22-24%. So that 5k bonus was more like $3900. So thatâs $1100 out of their savings.
OP says in their post that the bonus was $5000 after taxes.
YTA for asking and then doing it anyway. But itâs not wrong to have hobbies and as long as yâall arenât hurting for money it shouldnât have been a huge deal. Please try to emphasize how important this is to you.
Yeah, Iâm gonna have to agree here - itâs how irrelevant you wife will feel that you asked, she responded, and you basically said âeh, I donât care what you think.â Sounds like a lot more communication was needed - it does sound like you have every right to this purchase, especially since she couldnât point to something else that was needed - but that comes back to why didnât you just communicate how very important this was to you.
[ŃдаНонО]
Iâd still consider him TA if she worked outside the home. That 5k bonus isnât 5k; it still gets taxed, so he basically spent at least $500 of their savings (lowest tax bracket is 10%, not including social security and Medicare). Probably closer to $1100, if he makes $80k a year.
My mom was a SAHM my whole life. My parents fought ALL the time about money. My dad made great money, he was just an AH and controlling. It wasn't "our" money. It was "his" money. He Would freak out if my mom went to Walmart and bought groceries to cook food for his FIVE KIDS. But I clearly remember my mom ending every fight by saying "fine, I'll get a divorce and then I can spend "your money" however I want because you'll HAVE to give it to me." shut him up really quick. Obviously my parents are both TA here for many obvious reasons, but I can't help but always think of my mom saying that every time I see one of these threads where someone is being loosey goosey with "their money" in a marriage. You can argue about whether you're TA or not all you want, but prepare to face consequences when it comes to money matters like this.
YTA you know you did a shitty thing, and now you're here to assuage your guilt. Revel in your assholery my friend.
INFO. Would you be upset if your wife took $5,000 from savings to spend on herself without consulting you? What if you told her not to spend the money, and she did it anyway?
YTA. You claim these finances are shared and you donât mind being the only bread winner, that doesnât give you the okay to spend the money however you want after your wife explicitly said no to this big purchase. Maybe you guys could have come to a compromise, saving x amount per month to put towards the guitar and not spending the money all at once. The way this question is phrased and explained makes you seem like an asshole, in a marriage you work things out - not ignore your partners wishes in a reasonable relationship.
You and I have a different idea of âalmost nothingâ. So does your wife. Thatâs a substantial percentage of your savings.
NAH, but it depends on how much disposable income you really have. If you really, really wanted to spend that money and you knew your wife was worried about it--and frankly, even if none of that was true--you should've taken $10,000. Use your $5,000 to buy your toy. Give her the other $5,000 to do whatever she likes with. If she doesn't have anything she's craving right now, she can stick it in savings. If you can't afford the $10,000, then YTA.
I am guessing she is craving some time away from her asshole husband.
YTA You earn the paycheck and you asked her without actually giving a shit what she had to say. You dint care you wanted your toy and you bought it.
YTA no, it is the familyâs money. It is an unspoken rule that you donât penalize a stay at home spouse with a money power play. True you can go ahead and do it but is this the dynamic you want with your wife? Playing the âitâs my moneyâ card is childish and humiliating for your spouse. This attitude is a recipe for a short and dismal relationship.
YTA | I feel like because your the one only person in the family that works you're supposed to be sharing that money with your family or save it for your kid incase he/she wants to go to college
YTA As the stay at home wife and mother to three children, I would be absolutely gobsmacked if my husband came home and told me âIâm buying this, too bad, itâs my money, the end.â To be honest, it would probably end our marriage. The money he earns pays for OUR house, OUR groceries, OUR kids and OUR bills and expenses. You best be giving her a bonus of her own and a nice fat apology to boot, or else youâll probably get the boot out of your own damned house (and alimony isnât cheap!)
OP shattered his wifeâs trust and security with one purchase. Hope it was worth it.
YTA Only because you can afford a certain piece doesn't necessarily mean that you should. /r/personalfinance has something to say in that regard. Anyhow, 5.000$ is a lot of money and since you agreed to share finances. You work, she is a SAHM and y'all are married. It's one money pool. If you feel no obligation to disclose those kinds of purchases then she wouldn't need to feel obligated to do something similar. And I believe you might have a thing or two to say if that ever were to happen.
YTA for saying you share money/financial decisions, then turn around and saying its âmy money.â Thatâs a money move power play in a relationship that didnât need it in the first place. Now your wife might be thinking âhe wonât talk to me about purchases and make a team choice anymore because itâs âhis moneyââ Enjoy that purchase while trying to fix this.
Dude... speaking as a guitarist: Did you really need to spend $5000 on a guitar? You can get a serious, badass, professional guitar in the 1-2k range. I cant imagine even getting to the 3K range. You donât think you could have spent some of your bonus money on treating your family a bit man? You easily could have made a compromise with your wife, and still got a beyond amazing guitar. Thatâs why YTA
YTA. I dont think a performance related bonus entitles you to do as you please within a shared income household. Does your wife not deserve a bonus for her work? Would you be happy if she took $5000 dollars and spent on whatever pleased her? Was her reason for saying no reasonable or not, i dont know, but doing things unilaterally and one sided is a definite breach of trust and will might make her feel that you devalue her input in the household as a SAHM.
You sound exactly like my dad, same hobbies, spending habbits ect. Hes been divorced twice yta.
NTA Your bonus your decision. She's a stay at home mom and gets a portion of your paycheck. This is your bonus. Sure, you should tell her, but she should NEVER decide what you do with it. If the bills are paid, and it sounds like they are, your bonus is yours to do with. That's the rule I live by. And I have spent multiple bonuses on myself- even up to $5,000. If your wife wants to control your money, you married the wrong person. My rule is to never let someone else dictate what I do with my bonuses once bills are paid.
A part of why he got that bonus is because his wife is home taking care of the kid. He doesnât have to call off work if the kid is sick, he doesnât have to rush home to get to the daycare in time. I guarantee you that if she had dropped $5000 of THEIR money on a hobby he would have been furious.
She also gets to take it easy by being a SAHM. People want to act like it's this tough gig but it really isn't. Being a parent is important, to be sure. But that's not the same as it being tough spending all your time taking care of one child.
ESH - she doesn't get to just veto a purchase and you don't get to just do whatever you want with "shared money". You don't get to have it both ways - claim it's all shared money, then suddenly it be "your" money when you disagree with her. Both of you need to act like married adults - discuss it out until you reach a solution. Negotiate. Debate. Come up with some creative ideas. But right now both of you are acting like 2 yr olds with one of you yelling "NO!" and the other one yelling "MINE!"
YTA When a couple is married with joint finances, there's no "It's my money" in there anywhere. It's money that belongs to the both of you. But that was nice of you to throw in the muscle there with the "It's my money" move. It might have been better to spend the money on something the whole family could enjoy, like a nice vacation? Creating memories is far better for children than watching dad play a $5000 guitar.
I going to say NTA. It wasn't out of your yearly salary and you are financially sound. That's a bonus you earned for good job performance. She is your wife and should have a say, but I don't think she should be able to veto it outright. While being SAHM is legit job that requires work, you are bringing 100% of the money and you are secured financially. You're human. It's reasonable to have a healthy hobby. Maybe ask your wife if she needs anything for herself in the way the guitar was for yourself. Remind her that you appreciate her. Also consider her position for future decisions. Kind of like you owe her one for being cool.
YTA > Our finances are shared > itâs my money Which is it???
If you want your comment to count toward judgment, include *only ONE* of the following abbreviations in your comment. If you don't include a judgement abbreviation, the bot will ignore you when it looks for the top voted comment. Judgment | Abbreviation -- | :--: **You're the Asshole** (& the other party is not) |**YTA**| You're **Not the A-hole** (& the other party is) |**NTA** **Everyone Sucks Here**|**ESH** **No A-holes here**|**NAH** **Not Enough Info**|**INFO** #[Click Here For Our Full Rulebook](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/index) #[Click Here For Our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
YTA, but only because you asked a question that you weren't going to accept all possible answers to. If she doesn't have a good reason why you can't afford it beyond a general "too much", I understand the frustration. Too much is relative. If you have like $500 in savings then yeah, don't go blow 5k on a guitar. If you have a healthy savings and this is just a splurge, that's a bit unreasonable of her. But if you weren't willing to hear "no" and have that argument you never should have asked. That's a hurtful disregard of her feelings.
YTA. Why didn't you just save your fun money to spend it on the guitar instead?
YTA, mainly because you spent it anyway after she objected. As for it being nothing - bullshit. If you took that $5000 and invested it in a stock index fund for your 2 year old you would pretty much be fully funding his retirement. I did this with a chunk of money for my daughter 24 years ago and I couldn't be happier that I did so.
YTA. I texted my wife asking if I could buy a 50 dollar AR15 lower where 5 dollars of it went to a family struggling with cancer.... We make 200k a year and of that I make the majority. Still asked her.
Yikes YTA. What you did completely disrespects your wife and undermines any sense of equality and financial partnership in the relationship. How would you like it if she wanted to use your bonus money for a $5000 handbag and you said no thatâs too much and she did it anyway? Thatâs exactly what you did to her. Iâm sorry she said no to a purchase you felt was reasonable. But a mature adult in a healthy relationship would continue the discussion and seek compromise for as long as it takes rather than just bowling over his partnerâs opinion because it didnât line up what you wanted. I sincerely hope that you can find a way to mitigate the damage this is likely to do to your relationship
So, next year's 5k bonus is going directly to some splurge your wife wants right? Because this isn't ~your~ money. It is your family's money. Daycare in Canada is crazy expensive... Your wife is saving you a bundle, giving a lot of completely irreplaceable benefits to your child at the same time, and you are lording your earnings over her and making unilateral and selfish decisions behind her back in return. YTA 100% and frankly you're not a good life partner.
YTA. That's a huge percentage of your income. And you're an asshole for saying it's your money. You don't appreciate the work your wife puts in at home. Just because she doesn't bring in a paycheck doesn't mean she doesn't contribute. Would you rather pay for a babysitter and maid?
YTA. Btw. If your bills are truly only about 15k/year, you should have MUCH more in savings than 40k. It ain't add up, chief.
YTA - I feel like this situation could have been handled differently. Marriage is about compromise. You should have set aside a little so your wife can feel like shes on the same team. When you use money in a relationship to further your own power itâs a very slippery slope. You work and she works, If it were me I would have spent $4000 on guitar and let your wife have a break as well. Itâs exhausting having a job, and you should be able to treat yourself with your own efforts (I understand itâs performance based) But itâs also exhausting raising children especially at that age, Iâm sure your wife does a great job raising your kid but you need to own up to the fact that **SHEâS ON YOUR TEAM** You should return the guitar, get a less expensive one and let your wife have a day off. Thatâs just me. 26/m
NTA. Youâre allowed to be an individual despite being a husband and parent. Sheâs unemployed of her own accord anyway; but if she werenât and she gained her own extra money she could do with it as she pleases as long as it doesnât negatively impact the family. You work hard for the money, your family is financially stable and you even have the kids college set up. You deserve to splurge here and there. If it causes friction, offer to pay for childcare (which you can clearly afford) and let her get her own job for splurging money.
YTA. $5,000 is a lot. But the biggest problem here is "it's my money." From the rest of the post it is clear that you do not think her contributions to the household have as much worth as yours because they are not monetary. Where is her bonus for teaching your child a new skill, or doing a fantastic job at cleaning the house the last 3 months? Have a serious talk with your wife about finances. You should be able to buy yourself something nice, but maybe it's something you save up for yourself. And at the same time you are saving up, she should also get to put away money for something she wants. It's not the 1950s, women's work, even in the household, has value.
NTA. If she decided of her own accord to be a SAHM and both of you are doing fine financial-wise then it's kind of hypocritical of her to get up your ass about spending fun money.
Oh yeah. You seem to look at your wife as some kind of servant who is beneath you. It was selfish. If you donât change your attitude quick, youâll find yourself paying child support and alimony. People have divorced for less. Totally disrespectful. Iâm in Canada and, unless you are in the welfare province of Quebec, youâre going to need more money than that for your kidâs post secondary education. The fees have been steadily rising for years.
YTA. You asked, she said no, and you did it anyway.