Hiding how much something costs

[monsterz]

I'm sure we've all at some point hid or thought about hiding how much an item costs from our SO.   But this takes the cake.   

On the radio today a woman called in to win tickets to a concert by confessing something.  She is getting married next August, her FI and her set a budget of $30K.  She says she has currently spent more than double this and is hiding the fact from her FI.   She isn't sure if she will tell him before or after the wedding.   My first thought was that is a horrible way to start a marriage.  Second thought was she made it up to win the concert tickets.    I hope it was the later.   

[my4girls]

this is something I will never have to do with DH. He could not give a shit what anything costs and often times if I am waffling on something because of cost I will call him because I know he will find a way to justify it. He can justify buying ANYTHING. I saw this ADORABLE coat for dd1, I loved it. $200. nope, not happening. I was telling DH later, and he's well, all 4 can wear it. and she can get 2 years out of it and on and on. stop! no! this is why I handle our money lol

[halfpint]

I don't understand this game. There is no winner.

[raangoli]

How on earth do you hide that much of an overage?

[shortstax]

As with most things, I bet the truth is somewhere in the middle. I bet she's "over budget" but amped it up to win the tickets.

At least I hope

[Deleted]

I have never.

[v]

Oct 20, 2014 14:59:41 GMT -5 raangoli said:

How on earth do you hide that much of an overage?

If he isn't paying attention to the contracts and/or they have separate bank accounts, I'd think pretty easy.   

[kadams767]

Oct 20, 2014 14:59:41 GMT -5 raangoli said:

How on earth do you hide that much of an overage?

This was my first reaction.  That is the equivalent of a lot of people's yearly takehome!  It's so bizarre to me.  If you make enough that your SO wouldn't even notice an extra $30k spent on something, what the heck is the point of hiding it?  On the flip side, if you don't make enough that they wouldn't even notice, HOW DO THEY NOT NOTICE?!

[mainelyfoolish]

Oct 20, 2014 14:59:41 GMT -5 raangoli said:

How on earth do you hide that much of an overage?

Not that I would ever hide anything like that, but my DH has no idea what things cost and almost never asks because he trusts that I don't spend more than I need to. If I bought a $5k dress and told him it was $1k, he'd have no idea that a dress could costs 5x that much. Do that a few times over the course of wedding planning -- flowers, food, alcohol, photographer, band -- and you could pretty quickly rack up another $30k in expenses. 

[Pom]

Oct 20, 2014 14:56:49 GMT -5 my4girls said:

this is something I will never have to do with DH. He could not give a shit what anything costs and often times if I am waffling on something because of cost I will call him because I know he will find a way to justify it. He can justify buying ANYTHING. I saw this ADORABLE coat for dd1, I loved it. $200. nope, not happening. I was telling DH later, and he's well, all 4 can wear it. and she can get 2 years out of it and on and on. stop! no! this is why I handle our money lol

Yeah, we are in this club. No need to hide it, Mr. Pom is an enabler.  I always have to be the fun killer most of the time and I kind of hate it.  That said, we still do stuff we could "technically" be more frugal with but hey, life is short and we are responsible most of the time.

[raangoli]

I assume that it's either going on credit cards or coming out of her own accounts. So I suppose that could be 'easy' to hide, but dang. Way to start off your marriage. I hope she tells him before and not after when they go looking to make a large purchase and can't because there is no money.

[ddi741]

LOL, I can't even imagine. Although it reminds me of a couple I know, she always wanted the world - trips, expensive jewelry etc. He never wanted to dissapoint her so would charge it all. She would litterally tell him "this is where we are going in June, make it happen"

Fast forward to a year after they were married when she complained he had so much CC debt. It was all the trips, and $ he spent on her and he was afraid to tell her he couldn't afford it.

[mbcdefg]

Oh geez. Even if she can easily afford the extra $30k on her own, this is a terrible idea. I really hope she's joking for the sake of the contest.

I think the only expense I really didn't discuss with MH when planning our wedding was the photobooth.

I mean, we talked about it ... in the beginning I said I wanted it for the favors, he said he didn't think it was necessary, so we tabled the discussion. A week or two before the wedding I started emailing around for last-minute discounts and found someone, so I told MH that as long as he didn't object I was going to book it and pay for it myself, and he said go ahead. I put it on my CC and paid for it with the first post-wedding paycheck. Our guests loved it, we got a hilarious scrapbook, my mom was satisfied that we had a favor (she was aghast when I said a few weeks prior that we wouldn't be offering favors), and he finally admitted that it was fun and a good idea.

[monsterz]

Oct 20, 2014 14:59:41 GMT -5 raangoli said:

How on earth do you hide that much of an overage?

That was what people asked her.   She said he isn't looking at any contracts she is just lying about how much things cost.  For example videographer cost $4000 she told him $1500.  


Oh and she plans on placing the blame for the overage mostly on his large family.    

[SJ]

I don't hide anything on purpose, but DH doesn't really pay attention to what I spend.

We discuss long-term plans and goals together, and he has as much input as he wants, but he could not care less about the daily nuts & bolts.

This case is insane though. I would be furious if my spouse was lying and deliberately going above a pre-set budget.

[v]

Oct 20, 2014 15:04:02 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

Oct 20, 2014 14:59:41 GMT -5 raangoli said:

How on earth do you hide that much of an overage?

This was my first reaction.  That is the equivalent of a lot of people's yearly takehome!  It's so bizarre to me.  If you make enough that your SO wouldn't even notice an extra $30k spent on something, what the heck is the point of hiding it?  On the flip side, if you don't make enough that they wouldn't even notice, HOW DO THEY NOT NOTICE?!

People who have enough money that they wouldn't notice $30k missing still can be super cheap.  So maybe you hide it because you know it won't be a big deal for you financially, but you also know that the other party would never say yes to it if they knew the specifics.

If my husband knew how much we spent on our wedding, he wouldn't have been okay with it (or at least, he wouldn't have been okay with some of the individual line items).  His idea of a realistic budget definitely didn't fit the type of event we wanted to have and while he knew that we went over our original "We think we should spend x" target, I doubt he has any idea by how much.  Lucky for me he never paid enough attention to the details to be able to add it up   (Also, he definitely blind-eyed some of it).

[spunkarella]

v I can relate. H willfully does not know exactly how much out Italy vacation ended up costing.

We had been married over 6 months before he asked how much the wedding was.

I didn't totally blow the budgets, but I did spend more than he would have. He was happy with both events and was able to enjoy them more without thinking about/knowing the detailed cost.

[tacom]

Oct 20, 2014 14:59:41 GMT -5 raangoli said:

How on earth do you hide that much of an overage?

i totally believe it short term. So far we've only put down deposits that are 10-50% the cost of services

FI is too observant for me to hide a thing. He monitors our card activity daily. This weekend I used store credit for new pj pants. When I put them on he asked me where I got them from. Who notices pajamas?!

[h]

Oct 20, 2014 15:38:09 GMT -5 SJ said:

I don't hide anything on purpose, but DH doesn't really pay attention to what I spend.

We discuss long-term plans and goals together, and he has as much input as he wants, but he could not care less about the daily nuts & bolts.

Same. I have never hid stuff or lied about what something costs, and I never will. But there is a lot DH just doesn't care about and doesn't ask about, and it is not like I call him to get his approval before buying stuff. I am certain he has no clue how much we have spent on home renovations this year, for example. Fortunately for me he wildly overestimates the cost of everything, so he is generally pleasantly surprised when he does ask.

But, yes, this situation is crazy. And really not the best foundation for a marriage.

[sillygoosegirl]

I don't think I've ever tried to hide the price/cost of anything from DH. It's so much easier to answer to him for my spending than to myself.

[Deleted]

Oct 20, 2014 14:59:41 GMT -5 raangoli said:

How on earth do you hide that much of an overage?

Well not wedding specific, but I joke that I could divert all of our funds to an offshore account and my husband would be none-the-wiser. He has no idea what's in our accounts.

[v]

Oct 20, 2014 20:28:16 GMT -5 BirdGirl said:

Oct 20, 2014 14:59:41 GMT -5 raangoli said:

How on earth do you hide that much of an overage?

Well not wedding specific, but I joke that I could divert all of our funds to an offshore account and my husband would be none-the-wiser. He has no idea what's in our accounts.

I kind of get concerned about what would happen if I died because he knows nothing about any of my accounts.  Not that I hide them from him -- he just shows no interest and has a bad memory for those kinds of things.  Even our joint credit accounts were all opened by me and he doesn't know how to log into the accounts.  So he has no idea what I spend on anything on a monthly basis, whether on joint expenditures or my own whims.  And it is definitely better that way

[flatlan]

Oh man that marriage sounds doomed. I could totally hide how much things cost from DH. He never looks at our accounts/credit cards, etc but I would feel terrible being so deceptive.

[mskitkat]

Oct 20, 2014 16:47:34 GMT -5 spunkarella said:

v I can relate. H willfully does not know exactly how much out Italy vacation ended up costing.

We had been married over 6 months before he asked how much the wedding was.

I didn't totally blow the budgets, but I did spend more than he would have. He was happy with both events and was able to enjoy them more without thinking about/knowing the detailed cost.

This is me. I haven't the slightest idea how much my Greek cruise cost, and I don't want to know. DH knows that I have trouble spending money on myself, so when we need/want to spend a lot of money, I just give him the cards and don't ask.

[kadams767]

Oct 20, 2014 20:33:28 GMT -5 v said:

Oct 20, 2014 20:28:16 GMT -5 BirdGirl said:

Well not wedding specific, but I joke that I could divert all of our funds to an offshore account and my husband would be none-the-wiser. He has no idea what's in our accounts.

I kind of get concerned about what would happen if I died because he knows nothing about any of my accounts.  Not that I hide them from him -- he just shows no interest and has a bad memory for those kinds of things.  Even our joint credit accounts were all opened by me and he doesn't know how to log into the accounts.  So he has no idea what I spend on anything on a monthly basis, whether on joint expenditures or my own whims.  And it is definitely better that way

I wish I were kidding, but I made DH an "if I have an emergency and can't use the computer" spreadsheet with all of our accounts' websites log-ins and PWs so that he knows how to get to our money and pay bills.

[tine]

Oct 20, 2014 21:39:22 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

Oct 20, 2014 20:33:28 GMT -5 v said:

I kind of get concerned about what would happen if I died because he knows nothing about any of my accounts.  Not that I hide them from him -- he just shows no interest and has a bad memory for those kinds of things.  Even our joint credit accounts were all opened by me and he doesn't know how to log into the accounts.  So he has no idea what I spend on anything on a monthly basis, whether on joint expenditures or my own whims.  And it is definitely better that way

I wish I were kidding, but I made DH an "if I have an emergency and can't use the computer" spreadsheet with all of our accounts' websites log-ins and PWs so that he knows how to get to our money and pay bills.

I did this too! I send H it via email every 6 months or so. It includes where our life insurance is too....

[kadams767]

Oct 21, 2014 6:33:31 GMT -5 RockNVoll said:

Oct 20, 2014 21:39:22 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

I wish I were kidding, but I made DH an "if I have an emergency and can't use the computer" spreadsheet with all of our accounts' websites log-ins and PWs so that he knows how to get to our money and pay bills.

Based on past posts, I think many of us have this.  Totally not what you're supposed to do from a security perspective, but sometimes the practical trumps the ideal.

I can't imagine hiding any spending from DH, but we also have very similar money philosophies.

I don't hide anything either, and we definitely talk about big amounts like $30k in wedding costs, but it would probably take him a bit to notice if I started spending down all of our money without telling him.  

[raangoli]

Oct 21, 2014 6:33:31 GMT -5 RockNVoll said:

Oct 20, 2014 21:39:22 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

I wish I were kidding, but I made DH an "if I have an emergency and can't use the computer" spreadsheet with all of our accounts' websites log-ins and PWs so that he knows how to get to our money and pay bills.

Based on past posts, I think many of us have this.  Totally not what you're supposed to do from a security perspective, but sometimes the practical trumps the ideal.

I can't imagine hiding any spending from DH, but we also have very similar money philosophies.

We have a list of all of the shared accounts in something called KeePass. It stores all of your login IDs and pwds in a secure file. All you need to do is remember one password. There are plenty of other applications that are similar as well if you're interested. We keep a copy locally on our computers and then one on a secured thumb drive as well. 

[Deleted]

If you have to LIE, the marriage is doomed.

[UnderProtest]

Yeah, I'm in the same situation as RockNVoll and v. My husband has no clue about the day to day stuff. He has no clue how much money we have in our accounts and even how to access most of them. He also made the comment about how the UK puts a large emphasis on the sacrifice a partner makes if they give up their career to take care of the kids while the other one works. So basically, if I want to divorce him, I should do it while we are in the UK. We have odd conversations.