I posted recently about wanting to purchase a luxury item from my hobby budget. There was a poll in the thread where most people here on the forum said it was not a purchase I should make until I pay off the PMI on my mortgage. I listened and did not make the purchase.
So my wife and I are continuing to save money to refinance into a conventional loan where we wont have a PMI, saving us several hundred dollar each month. Christmas is over, we probably spent too much on gifts, so now we're back to our mustachian ways of very low spending, bringing lunches to work, not eating out often, and SAVING money.
My wife is a "Sales Engineer' at a software company so she has a lot of interaction with executives from potential customers, and executives from her own company. She makes roughly twice what I make (Her: $100k, Me: $50k) and we're both 29.
On to the question.. We had a discussion last night about shopping. We have Mint.com and set her "shopping budget" at $150 / month which includes any type of make up, normal clothes, shoes, work clothes, etc.. I think that amount is high, but she disagrees and thinks it's reasonable. What are your thoughts?
Her arguements:
1) My job requires that I have nice looking work clothes. I can't have pants that are freyed at the bottom or undershirts with holes in them or shoes that are visibly falling apart.
2) You have your hobbies, my hobby is shopping - it makes me happy to shop. I stick to my budget every month so it shouldn't matter.
3) I make a good amount of money, I should be able to spend $150/month on clothing, especially since a good majority of that is work related.
My Arguements:
1) $150 is a lot of money
2) Look at the other budgets on Mr Money Mustache - people get face punched for $150 clothing budgets and i'm a little embarassed to even post it (Her response is: Find me a female mustachian that is in sales and let me know her monthly clothing budget)
To be clear, she's not a Paris Hilton spending money on goofy designer clothes, she looks for deals, shops at outlets, etc.. She says it's depressing to think she can't go out and buy something if she needs it for fear that I'll give her a hard time about wasting money.
Thoughts? Any females in sales here? Is $150 not that bad, or is it really high for a sales consultant ?