Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Wives and our HT obsession .....

I've been married almost a year and a half and am a father of a 10 month old daughter. My god how ones life changes. So much so that I wasn't expecting the incredible transition.

I went from buying $1000+ paintball guns on a nearly bi-monthly basis, as well as an easy $600 on paintball every month. It was my addiction, obsession, and life 5 months of the year. Martial arts is also part of it, but not nearly as expensive. Since having these new responsibilites of fatherhood and a mortgage, my spending has been DRAMATICALLY reduced.

Essentially now, all my savings bonds are my HT project money. However when it comes time to cash them out and splurge a little bit, the wife seems a bit hesitant to support my purchases even though they are my savings.

I guess I wanted to hear from others here that have more life experiance (in a sense) with being dads, and how you guys handle the HT bug of purchasing things.

I use the logic that although the initial investment may be expensive, in the long run it pays itself off. I use to goto movies a lot, but now to save money(and an overall better experiance) we watch them at home.

With the economy the way it is, this seems a better solution to going out, when we can have friends come over for a potluck dinner and movie night.

thats one of the only things I remember from the birth of our first. Everybody tells you its a huge change, but its really a ginormously huge change!

I always saved ahead for fun purchases. For my HT I decided anything I earned above a certain amount would go to the HT fund. At the same time I set myself another personal savings goal I had to meet at the same time so about 80% of total savings went towards the HT.

With a young family it is probably a very good idea to have some savings as a backup for unexpected challenges.

As a husband, my money became our money when we married. As a father, I prioritize things that benefit everyone over things that benefit me alone. I understand that not every man is comfortable with giving up his me money nor does every wife expect him to do so. We just thought it made sense for us. I earn most of the money, but she handles most of our life's details. You can't attach a salary to that.

My wife is coming around on the "need" for us to upgrade some of our HT equipment, primarily the TV -- we're still stuck in the tube ages. This is a benefit to the family, so it's an easier sell.

I completely agree with you. What used to be spending money before our child, now goes to diapers and formula,which leaves essentially nothing for spending money. We put aside savings every paycheck for emergencies, as well as another for a Holiday Fund. Thats why when I cash out my savings bonds ( usually every 6-9 months) it feels like Christmas. Thats actually how I'm funding my new speakers. Savings Bonds, and I sold a couple paintball guns.

Logic is often the worst way to sway someone to your point of view. People usually make decisions at an emotional level and then use reason to justify them. If you want someone to agree with you find an emotional hook to snare them and then use reason (logic) to help them justify their decision.

In your case if you have any friends with nice home theaters work a deal to start inviting each other over for movie nights. Your wife may then be more receptive to upgrading if what they have gives a substantially better experience than your system and she has a propensity for “keeping up with the Joneses.”

Another tack might be to start going to movies and using a babysitter. The whole babysitter thing may give her angst causing her want to stay home for “quality” movies.

Basically, think of an emotional reason that would motivate her and then create a situation to leverage it letting her lead herself to the decision rather than trying to push/pull her to it.

I can already hear the cries “that it’s manipulative and selfish.” To which I answer “yes” and “maybe” respectively. It’s definitely selfish if you manipulate people for selfish reasons, but not IMO if you do it for that person’s or the group’s greater good in which case we usually call it leadership.

So ask yourself how high upgrading your HT is on the list of things your family needs. In short don’t loose sight of the forest for the trees. Peter and Fred offer sage advice in that your goals now focus around the common good and to reach them you need a realistic financial plan. Before embarking on an HT upgrade project I would create an overall financial plan to ensure you’re family is protected in these rough economic times. Then see what you can afford to start putting aside for fun things.

Cheers,
Dean

P.S. I’m divorced so what do I know.

I gave up one expensive hobby (golf) for another (HT). I limit my purchases to one item per year and I usually make it my birthday gift to myself. I also save a bit each month for something that I really want. Sometimes the money that I have put aside for an audio purchase ends up getting used for something more necessary but I am thankful that I put it aside. Also, I am not opposed to buying used audio equipment to save money. Congratulations on fatherhood. It and marraige were the best things to ever happen to me!

Peter's statement....wow...it matches my thoughts, my purpose, my experience from the past 20 years. I could not say it better than he did. My oldest daughter is now 20 and a Junior at UNC. If you follow this path, (unless you make a boatload of money) you will make sacrifices of your personal wishes and desires - and you will not regret it in the long run.

One other thing......When my oldest daughter was about 10 months old, I was driving around town and some jerk did something stupid right in front of me. I dropped the "F" bomb and a second or two later out of the car seat in the back seat came a sweet little voice repeating back to me the "F" bomb. I am not kidding when I say my knees went weak. All I could think of was "please, please, PLEASE - never say that again" and I meant it to both me and her. Then I thought - don't make a big deal out of it and maybe she won't repeat it around my wife. She never did, but I was on pins and needles for several months after that.........Rob

I will enthusiastically and warmly applaud the comments so far, especially Peter and davidsch.

I'm firmly on the "Happy Wife - Happy Life" program. It serves me well.

I often tell my wife how much I enjoy our "home theater" (using that term ennobles the actual set up in a way that I'm not comfortable with). So, she knows "this stuff" makes me happy. Further, one of my very favorite things in the world is being with her, on the couch at the end of the day watching just about anything for an hour before bedtime. I tell her so. She has embraced this ritual.

So, while she is not as fascinated by the equipment as I am, she readily connects this hobby with joyful, shared moments.

Good call on the M60's, btw

Pmbuko and davidsch, I completely agree. I didn't want to come across as pouting that my days of frivilous spending are gone. Or that I'm upset that I have to spend money on responsiblethings.

My intent was rather at the shock of going from one extreme to the next in regards to extra spending cash. As a matter of fact, last month I had to use my saving bonds to pay $400 in unexpected vet bills, and some of my income tax return is going to buy us a bed frame.
In regards to the 'logic' in my thinking, it was for myself. Not to convince anyone else. That was simply the way I looked at it.

As Pmbuko pointed out about the 'our money' relationship I agree and disagree to a point. My wife and I are both bus drivers and make the same amount of money. We split whatever our total monthly bills are(actually I pay more as she's on Maternity leave) and whatever is left after that we get to use as coffee money for ourselves. If she wants to save that money for a year and buy a $600 purse then she can, and I have no right telling her otherwise. And vice versa. However, emergencies do come up, or hot water tanks need replacing, then the money for that new reciever I had been saving for goes to that. My wealthy Uncle and Aunt always did things that way and had their seperate accounts and it saved them a LOT of fighting. As long as the bills and needs of the family were met first, then there were no issues.

Phew. That was a long winded rant. So do your kids love your hobby and theater or video games ? I remember the first time my wife brought our daughter into the theater and I had Kung Fu Panda playing. The look of awe and fascination on her face was priceless. I look forward to pulling out the sleeping bags for movie night and building forts all over the house !

Good stuff in here. We're such a thoughtful bunch.

Unfortunately I can't add a whole lot. I'm lucky in that my wife actually encourages me to explore and buy 'nice' HT gear. She has a more critical ear than I do. While she could care less about how many acronyms are at work to produce the sound, she cares very deeply about the overall sound quality. She's far more critical of MP3 compression than I am, for instance. She actually came home from work somewhat grumpy one day because one of her coworkers had just but in a Bose system at home and wouldn't stop talking about wonderful it was. Seriously.

And we don't have any kids, so there's a huge part of the "equation-of-household-happiness" that we don't have to deal with.

It sounds like you've got a good plan. Before we got married, 9 years ago, we had to talk to the pastor that would be doing the service. He offered us what I feel is good advice. In his view, the #1 priority of marriage is to always support one another. And #2 is to keep each other happy. While those aren't big secrets, I think there's a lot of truth in there.

Just as my wife doesn't know why I want a Reala upscaler, she supports the decision to get one. Just as I may not understand why that Viking mixer is better than the Kitchenaid, I support her when she wants one. So long as you and your partner act responsibly and make realistic decisions with regards to whatever your finances are, there's no reason that either party should be deprived of something that makes them happy.