My wife is foreign-born, and grew up extremely poor and hungry. She was bussing tables in a restaurant when she was 11. I believe this deprivation has caused her to believe she needs to have several hundreds of dollars’ worth of canned food, preserves, and frozen meat on hand at all times.
We have two electricity-hungry fridges already, and she wants to add a 5-foot deep freeze. We have two tall pantry shelving systems stocked with non-perishables, and we just added a third.
She freaks out worrying that if any disaster or global crisis ever disrupts the process of moving food around the country via 18-wheelers, most Americans would likely starve in about a month. If all our interstates shut down tomorrow, we’d wish we had done more to provide for and defend our children. The threat of atomic war, bird flu, even the (scientifically, very silly) idea of a zombie apocalypse have all caused her, from time to time, some loss of sleep. For me, it is a concern (I was by rapture enthusiasts) but mostly it has caused not loss of sleep, but loss of ‘stash!
Optimism is inherent to the MMM philosophy, and a hopeful optimism is something I’m striving to cultivate within myself. Buying stuff, whether out of impulse or fear, won’t solve our problems.
My wife hates to run out of anything (bananas, milk), for even one day. She also hates to rotate shelves or fridge contents so that the oldest items are out in front and get used first. We throw away a lot of stuff by forgetting we have it and only finding it after it has spoiled. She also hates it if I try to organize the food to minimize spoilage. It’s a “hands off my kitchen and pantry” situation.
After reading my recent case study (
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/reader-case-study-move-large-family-to-city-to-save-on-commuting/?topicseen) she’s volunteered to reduce her portion of my $71,500 per year salary from $20,000 to $18,000. She says only about $600 of that per year goes to feed our farm animals. The rest is food and household items like soap and paper towels. She is increasingly covering our clothing needs from her portion as well, though that was not the case until the past month or so. I believe the grocery expenditures are out of control, though my wife doesn't see how.
Note this $18,000 is also WAY less than the $30,000 per year we experienced at the beginning of our married lives, when my wife had a pocket full of credit cards and would go shopping 3 or 4 times per week for entertainment. This “low” $18,000 is a compromise; on my side I see it as exorbitant and full of luxury, while on her side it is a budget appropriate only for a hermit monk. At times I’ve wondered if she has a gambling habit I don’t know about (just kidding) or if she is actually wiring a big chunk of this money back home to her family overseas (not kidding). Yet, I suspect that is not even possible because every once in a while I go with her to the grocery store, and VERY carefully watch prices and make thrifty and frugal choices, giving the middle finger to anything that is overpriced, and I see firsthand that just a few small bags of groceries easily tops $200 and fail to even fill up the shopping cart. I’m at a loss on the food budget issue.
My wife has gritted her teeth over every budget discussion, and every time I replaced an old-school light bulb with a “too dim” CFL, and every time I suggested our next car should be EVEN OLDER than our current cars (and should be one in number). Recently she enthusiastically yelled, "Yes!!" when I read her the title of the MMM post,
"Is Mr. Money Moustache ruining your marriage?" but then she refused to read it or hear anything more about it. She now refuses to participate in any conversation in which MMM is mentioned. She perhaps feels she deserves more luxury and frivolous expense, being the wife of a white collar executive. So yeah, MMM is impacting my life in a big way, and the only way this will pay off is if I really do retire in 10 years!
EDITED/UPDATED 11/16/15 to respond to FAQs/comments. None of this is meant to be complainypants answers or defenses; I’m just providing more info for anyone who was asking a question non-rhetorically.
Food preservation suggestions:Rotating food stock: Definitely worthwhile, but a) she won’t do it and b) she doesn’t like it when I do it. She just puts it back like it was. Maybe going to have to just live with some spoilage. Or when she asks what vegetable I want for dinner, maybe I'll swing by the pantry and look at the far-rear of the shelf before replying.
Canning as a solution: She does can, and a lot. One of the three pantry shelving systems is currently stocked with home-canned vegetables.
Electrical supply: We’re in a rural area that suffers fairly frequent interruptions in power, but usually they are brief. We had one this month that lasted a few hours. Perishable food items make for very poor Emergency Food stock. I’m not looking to invest thousands in a generator for the purpose of maintaining perishables. Fuel for a generator would be just as hard to come by as anything else we might run out of in such a crisis affecting the entire food distribution network.
Cultural differences: Should I learn more about my wife’s culture, and become bilingual, to facilitate communication? I am fluent in her language, and I lived in my wife’s country for over 2 years. The communication issue is a cultural difference that is foreign to many Americans. It did take me many years to learn what turning away from me means during a conversation. That’s a cultural thing with her and her family, apparently. She’s multicultural, but Asian culture had a big influence on her upbringing. The absent look and vague smile towards the wall roughly translates to
“I don’t want to belittle you, or cause you lack of face, by responding with what I truly think, or by disagreeing with you verbally, so I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you. Read into that what you will.” Marriage & Life suggestions:Wow, I expected potential face punches for consumer or spendy habits, but not for my marriage or relationship. Definitely surprised by some of the suggestions in this area. Regardless, I appreciate your input here because it can give me valuable insight to what she might be thinking or what an outsider might think of the situation. So thanks. I've given these comments serious thought and will use them to reflect further.
Is our marriage ok other than this issue? I definitely think so. We get along quite well together, with our 4 kids, and I do a lot to show her how appreciated and loved she is. The honeymoon is over, but we're still very lovey-dovey affectionate, both emotionally and physically. Some areas are just "no go" for discussions, and I'm learning to deal with that, or live with that.
Regarding my use the word “my” when describing “my salary” – that was merely a shortcut to explaining that this is not a double-income situation in which both parents work. The one paying job is the one that I have (she doesn't, we don't, but I do, so, even if the possessive pronoun seems politically incorrect, it is accurate). I work my job for the purposes of obtaining my salary, which is money that belongs to the 2 of us for the benefit of all 6 of us. It is my salary for my job. It is our income.
Retire now so she can go back to work now? It has come up from time to time. Only problem with that is, with my experience I can get these $70k a year-type jobs, whereas she’d be in the $30k ballpark. The fact that she has been wanting to work but has chosen to stay home with the small kids may be one reason she says she'll return to work as soon as I retire, if not sooner.
Could she handle more of the home’s income? Yes. She doesn’t want to. I’ve suggested that she be responsible for paying bills and doing the budgeting, and she doesn’t want anything to do with it. Every year or two, I remind her that she’ll need to learn it one day, since women often outlive their men. It's not a safe financial situation to be in, to have no idea what the bills are or how to pay them. I have listed the bills and accounts for her as an enclosure with my will.
Suggested resources: Counseling is off the table (she firmly doesn’t believe in it, and suggesting it would be a much bigger javelin-throw at the marriage than suggesting we need to control our expenses). Just ordered Independence Days book via library. LDS resources: we have additionally followed some of those practices, and that particular hoard of super-long-lasting food is in addition to the ones currently spoiling in our pantries.
Conclusions: Based on reflection on these great responses – and my first couple of chapters in reading “How to Win Friends and Influence People” (summary: You can’t make anyone do anything unless they want to…), I’m going to hold my peace about the food/household budget. She’s recently proposed a reduction to it anyway, and is including more things in it (like school uniforms) going forward. She’s definitely on board with eliminating credit cards from our lifestyle. Regarding further expense reduction, I don’t want to win the budget battle at the expense of a relationship, so I’m going to focus on those areas I can manage (which index funds to have in our IRAs, and shopping around for healthcare, etc.), and the kitchen and pantry are just not my areas of expertise. Definitely don’t want to take optimization too far! Thanks to everyone!
