Christmas lights and my mad girlfriend

[Stlbroke]

She texted me some store has them on sale tomorrow and wanted me to buy them for our house.  I responded with they aren't in my budget. I don't really have a budget I just try not to buy stuff I don't need. And this is something I definitely do not need. She said well maybe I'll sell the new call of duty you just bought to make money for the lights. I thought this was pretty funny and kind of agree.  I know happy wife happy life I should do it, but do not feel like I should. WhaT do u all think? Am  I being cheap or frugal?

[kel]

Is there any reason she can't buy them, if she wants them? If you guys have a shared account or something like that - yeah I think you're maybe being kind of cheap, it's a fairly inexpensive item, reusable, and hold a lot of charm and happiness for some people (seemingly for her). If she doesn't want to foot the bill because she has her own spending problems, then that's dumb and maybe you should tell her that. If you don't want to buy them because hanging them up is a pain in the ass, you should tell her that. Lying to her about a budget is maybe the worst thing you can do because being dishonest with each other (especially over something so trivial... really?) is toxic to a relationship. Why don't you feel you can just tell her the truth?

[surfhb]

Just buy the lights!   Jeesh! 

[RoostKing]

Seriously, how much can the cost and can they be used next year and the year after?

[marty998]

If you have to buy, please for MMMs sake buy LEDs.

They last forever and you don't need to worry about fading and replacing bulbs or high electricity bills

[big_owl]

Well if she's your girlfriend, you don't live together, and it's your house...then she can buy them for you if it's that important to her.

If you live together, plan on marrying her, and consider her your wife already...then just buy the f'ing lights.

[ontheroaderic]

Christmas lights are an absurd waste of resources IMHO.

[jprince7827]

Buy the lights, and apologize, lol.

[LibrarIan]

Don't buy the lights and get rid of the game. Now no one's happy. Wait...

[MrsPete]

She wants the lights.  Nothing wrong with that.  We all want things now and then.

The real problem here is that you don't have a budget; thus, you don't have a "measure" of whether it's okay to buy these lights or not.  On your own, yeah, you can muddle through with the quite vague, "I try not to buy stuff I don't need", but if you two are combining your money -- and the fact that she asked you to buy them hints that you might be doing that -- you need to coordinate your thoughts.  The tool for coordinating those thoughts is a budget. 

Once you've established your spending categories, then you'll both know, "Okay, $10-20 for lights is something we can do", or, "No, we're not at the point that we should spend on non-essentials, and we can live without lights." 

[RetiredAt63]

The sun came up here at 7:12 and will set at 4:19, and it only gets worse until the solstice.  Plus right now we are in the grey November days and we rarely see the sun.  Once it gets colder we will be back to mostly blue skys and brighter ground (snow reflects light nicely).  "Christmas" lights keep us sane in the long dark nights.  Their electricity consumption is minimal if they are modern LED lights.

I am not saying you should have your house lit up like high noon.  But some around the house entrance are a real boost.

Christmas lights are an absurd waste of resources IMHO.

[GuitarStv]

Christmas lights are an absurd waste of money to me.  That said, so are computer games.  How come you get to have what you want, and she doesn't?  Why does she have to ask you permission to buy something anyway?  There's something wrong there.

[dude]

They are cheap, last forever if you take care and properly store them, and new LED types use negligible electricty (and shit, you don't have to leave them on 24/7).  Don't be a grinch!

[Primm]

How come you get to have what you want, and she doesn't?  Why does she have to ask you permission to buy something anyway?  There's something wrong there.

This.

[Professor Ecks]

How come you get to have what you want, and she doesn't?  Why does she have to ask you permission to buy something anyway?  There's something wrong there.

This.

Interesting. I read:

She texted me some store has them on sale tomorrow and wanted me to buy them for our house.

That doesn't sound to me like she's asking permission, it sounds like she's asking him to make the purchase. And it sounds like he's balking because he doesn't value them in the same way she does.

She said well maybe I'll sell the new call of duty you just bought to make money for the lights. I thought this was pretty funny and kind of agree.

He also seems to recognize the hipocracy of spending money on one "non-need" which he enjoys but she seems quite willing to live without, while denying her the "non-need" she would enjoy but he would be willing to live without. Which is why I predict the lights will, in the end, get purchased. Let's just hope he gets it done before the sale ends ;)

[Bob W]

Buy the lights and enjoy life!   I bought 4 hundred new ones for 10 bucks at Walmart.  At the end of the season donate them to a thrift store.   Or if your like me,  I buy the white ones.  We adorn our deck with them and they magically transform from xmas lights to summer lights.   

Probably not worth it to buy LEDs as they are very pricy and the hours of use (what about 100 hours per year?) equation may not pencil out.

[OSUBearCub]

As long as she's not expecting Clark Griswold levels of holiday lighting, buy the lights.  The world has enough Grinches already.  Find a way to trim out $10-15 in January. :-)

Clark - "250 stands of lights, 100 individual bulbs per strand, for a grand total of 25,000 imported Italian twinkle lights."

Art - "The little lights aren't twinkling."

Clark - "I know Art. And thanks for noticing."

[roboclimber]

As someone who recently went through a breakup in which my [excessive?] frugality was a contributing (but not sole) cause, I'd like to throw in my $.02.

Getting into this, it's very exciting and empowering to dive in head first and try to optimize your savings rate. For certain personality types like mine, it is very easy to make sacrifices in nearly every area of life for the pursuit of a single objective. However, this can cause significant stress for the un-initiated people in our lives. My ex-girlfriend was only lukewarm supportive of my efforts, and my desire to close the purse-strings on what I perceived to be frivolous spending slowly grew into a big issue.

I would implore you to re-read two posts: the very recent

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/11/23/not-extreme-frugality/

and

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/11/23/not-extreme-frugality/

It's important to develop the restraint to say no to stupid spending that you don't need. It's important to adopt lifestyle habits that set you up for success. But it's also important to not miss the forest through the trees. Saving a few bucks you didn't need to spend, at the expense of your significant other's perceived life-satisfaction is a pyrrhic victory. Good news: you've already made it! You've successfully internalized the MMM philosophy. You've demonstrated that you have sufficient willpower and resourcefulness to make it happen. Now it's time to let the pendulum swing back ever so slightly. Every decision no longer has to revolve around "how many extra days of working will this delay FI?". Once you have the fundamentals down, it's time to optimize your lifestyle rather than your FIRE date. Remember the 80/20 rule; trying to squeeze out that last little bit of performance causes the most strain on other areas of your life, so think very carefully on whether or not the sacrifice is truly worth it before jumping head-first into extreme frugality.

So go buy those lights. If this turns into an excessive recurring theme, then it's worth having a conversation about. But fighting a one-time minor purchase is not worth the interpersonal cost. Take this as a good opportunity to sit down with your girlfriend and talk about your long-term plans and why this is so important to you. If she's worth it, she'll understand where you're coming from and you can reach a happy middle ground.

[Cpa Cat]

I would base the decision not on the price of the lights, but on whether or not she expects you to put them up and take them down.

[Professor Ecks]

I would base the decision not on the price of the lights, but on whether or not she expects you to put them up and take them down.

^ This. I HATE the idea of putting up and taking down lights.

Although, maybe he already knows the answer and that's the REAL reason he's reluctant. If you're going to look bad either way, maybe it's better to appear cheap than lazy?

[Breaker]

 Good news: you've already made it! You've successfully internalized the MMM philosophy. You've demonstrated that you have sufficient willpower and resourcefulness to make it happen.

I agree with the rest of your post but am not so sure about this.  The OP is still spending money for a computer game.  IMO, totally unnecessary.  Maybe this is what his girlfriend is really trying to tell him.

Fair's fair.  Go buy the lights and act like a gentleman about it.

[randommadness]

I'm having this internal debate with myself too. I want to buy one of the table top trees or some lights, but I hate having "stuff" like that/hate storing it.

In other news, I hit 28 hours on Dragon Age Inquisition that came out last week, so currently at $2.50/hour of entertainment that just keeps dropping. =D

[frugalnacho]

I bought my led lights at big lots after xmas the year I bought my house.  They were very cheap, they use dick all electricity (especially when on a timer for 6 hours/day), and they give me warm fuzzies inside.  I'm usually against wasting resources, but the costs are really low and I get enjoyment out of seeing the lights, so I feel it's worth it.

[randommadness]

I bought my led lights at big lots after xmas the year I bought my house.  They were very cheap, they use dick all electricity (especially when on a timer for 6 hours/day), and they give me warm fuzzies inside.  I'm usually against wasting resources, but the costs are really low and I get enjoyment out of seeing the lights, so I feel it's worth it.

This is basically what I'm thinking. May as well get the month's worth of warm fuzzies, haha.

[The Money Monk]

Why can't she buy them herself?

I'm assuming you didn't ask her to pitch in and pay for the game that she doesn't care about, why does it make sense for you to have to pay for something that she wants that you don't care about?

Buy the lights if you want, but if you do it just because she shames or nags you about it, this issue is only going to come up again and again.

[Bob W]

I would base the decision not on the price of the lights, but on whether or not she expects you to put them up and take them down.

I'm pretty sure baked into the question everyone assumed he is the putteruppper takerdowner. 

[Dicey]

Ha! I saw some nice icicle LEDs at Costco last week. Normally, I just shop the perimeter, but I had time (and apparently money) to kill that day. Called DH to see if we had enough on hand (new house). He said to buy five more strands, so I bought six. Dunno, six boxes just felt right. And hell yes, he's the putterupper takerdowner! Love that, Bob Werner. When DH is finished, I'll feed him a nice, warm home-cooked meal.

[TGod]

Well....

1) Do you have shared finances where a purchase like this would come out of the money pool? If yes, is she asking you to pick them up because it's more convenient for you to get them, maybe you drive past that particular store on your way home from work?
2) Do you have separate finances and she wants you to pick them up because it's convenient for you and you guys can balance it out after?
3) Do you have separate finances and she just wants you to pay for them cause she's broke.
4) Did you buy your game using allotted budget money, or were you willing to go outside of your budget for something you liked?

I love Christmas lights...not Chevy Chase kinda lights, but strings a twinkly white lights make me happy. In fact I just bought 2 new long strings this weekend cause they were on sale. If I'd asked my hubby to pick them up for me, he would have, but he would have also asked me where we they fit in our budget (we just restarted the MMM thing so we're being a bit militant which each other). But I bought them using my monthly personal money and the store was on my way home.  Aaannnd I put them up.

The comments in this thread are interesting because it seems most people are saying "Buy Them", keep her happy. But really that seems to go against everything I'm learning on this site. The "buy things to keep me happy" mentality is what gets people into financial hot water. Sure maybe all in all, she just wanted 50$ worth of lights...not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but the point is to question your purchases, do you need it or do you just want it. If you need it, buy it, but if it's just a want, figure out where that purchase fits in your financial story and decide if you have the funds and/or flexibility to spend that cash.

If it's not so much the money aspect, and she has some wiggle room in her spending this month to buy them, and it's more about the fact that you don't want to put them up, then in that case I say, Keep her happy. Put up the lights.  That way she won't feel the rage building inside her over the holidays every time she looks outside and doesn't see twinkly lights while you are hunched over your game console playing Call of Duty.

[civil]

I would base the decision not on the price of the lights, but on whether or not she expects you to put them up and take them down.

I'm pretty sure baked into the question everyone assumed he is the putteruppper takerdowner.

No. If I buy Christmas lights, they are my responsibility. If my SO buys Christmas lights, they are his responsibility. Obviously, we do not own Christmas lights.

I assume that if a girl is texting her boyfriend to buy some Christmas lights, she is going to pay him back for that purchase, and then she can do whatever she likes with the lights. If she wants his help as putterupper takerdowner, she should ask about that before the purchase, or she is on her own. She can put the lights around a window or porch without help.

HOWEVER,
if at any point in this process, one SO lies to the other ("I don't have time [I'm playing video games]", "I don't know how" [...really? time to learn], "That's not in my budget" when one has no budget) then that SO loses their get-out-of-honey-do-free privileges. My SO and I quickly learned that we need to say, "That doesn't seem like a good buy," instead of making excuses.

At this point, get the lights, apologize for lying, and put them up if she asks.

On a lighter note, I might have responded to the text with, "Is that what you want for Christmas?" This puts it in the category of frivolous things that are traditionally budgeted for; buys you time; and her response will tell you if she's dead-set on getting these lights.

[ltt]

They're Christmas lights for goodness sake.  They're not expensive.   

Buy them.  And if you want to score some extra points, put them up. 

If you don't have the extra space to store them, when you take them down, throw them away.   

[BPA]

I wouldn't buy them.

This is why I don't live with my boyfriend of seven years.

[Professor Ecks]

HOWEVER,
if at any point in this process, one SO lies to the other ("I don't have time [I'm playing video games]", "I don't know how" [...really? time to learn], "That's not in my budget" when one has no budget) then that SO loses their get-out-of-honey-do-free privileges.

I'm not sure I follow this. If he says he doesn't have time to put them up because he's playing video games, it sounds like he's telling the TRUTH about his usage of time, not lying. If he says he doesn't know how to put them up, and maybe he doesn't, he's not necessarily lying. Maybe it IS time to learn, but ignorance or inexperience does not equal lying. And while it may be a technicality, saying they aren't in the budget, when one doesn't have a budget, isn't necessarily lying either. They AREN'T in his budget. Of course, neither is rent, utilities groceries, etc.

I don't know, your criteria for the loss of "get-out-of-honey-do-free privileges" comes across to me as having less to do with "lying" and more to do with "not offering a reason that satisfies me."

[FireYourJob]

She texted me some store has them on sale tomorrow and wanted me to buy them for our house.  I responded with they aren't in my budget. I don't really have a budget I just try not to buy stuff I don't need. And this is something I definitely do not need. She said well maybe I'll sell the new call of duty you just bought to make money for the lights. I thought this was pretty funny and kind of agree.  I know happy wife happy life I should do it, but do not feel like I should. WhaT do u all think? Am  I being cheap or frugal?

Never knew one could get c*** blocked by Christmas lights.

[BPA]

She texted me some store has them on sale tomorrow and wanted me to buy them for our house.  I responded with they aren't in my budget. I don't really have a budget I just try not to buy stuff I don't need. And this is something I definitely do not need. She said well maybe I'll sell the new call of duty you just bought to make money for the lights. I thought this was pretty funny and kind of agree.  I know happy wife happy life I should do it, but do not feel like I should. WhaT do u all think? Am  I being cheap or frugal?

Never knew one could get c*** blocked by Christmas lights.

Bwhahahahahhahahahahahha!

[rocketpj]

My kids and I enjoy going to the store and picking out a single new strand of lights to add to the house each year.  Of all the things we buy at xmas, the $6 string of lights is not the problem (not that we have a problem).

One off holiday things, especially cheapish ones, are not the cause of financial success or failure.  It's the cup of latte every day on the drive to work that kills the budget, not a cheap string of lights.

[mpg350]

Don't buy the lights and get rid of the game. Now no one's happy. Wait...

ha this made me chuckle

[paulc]

Buy the lights is not a financial failure ... There are other things that lead us to this.... for example...I was persuaded to invest (Mod Note: Link Removed) my savings on buying a vacation home in the city of Panama and now I find myself with an apartment full of construction problems that only rent to foreigners and that makes me spend a lot of money ... do not buy the lights makes me laugh

[Guses]

To all those saying that LEDs last forever, think again.


LED xmas lights are often made in low QA facilities and their expected lifetime is much less than "forever". We had two different sets go "bad" in as little as 2 years.

Make sure to buy from a reputable company if you go with LED sets as you probably don't want to replace them every second year.

[Goldielocks]

Buy the lights with your little pool of 'fun' allowance.

What, spent it on the game?  You have true reason to say " not this month. ".  What, you don't set a limit on shared ' fun' spending?  Then you are either a martyr about to buy your SO lights and anything else for the next 20 years, or you are a tightwad control freak with a tight grasp on the wallet.  A no win situation.

Even better is if you each have same but separate fun allowances.  Hey, even $10 per month will do if that is your budget.  Now she can save four 4 months just like you did to buy call of duty.

[P1]

Normally I'd be on your side but good luck convincing any woman you have money for a video game but not enough for Christmas lights.

[Seņora Savings]

They're Christmas lights for goodness sake.  They're not expensive.   

Buy them.  And if you want to score some extra points, put them up. 

If you don't have the extra space to store them, when you take them down, throw them away.   

That's the frugal environmentalist advice I come hear for.

[Sid Hoffman]

They are cheap, last forever if you take care and properly store them, and new LED types use negligible electricty (and shit, you don't have to leave them on 24/7).  Don't be a grinch!

That's pretty much how I see it.  It's a quality of life issue to me.  While I don't often put up lights (maybe only half the years I've been a homeowner) it's easy to run a half dozen strands on a single outlet with a timer to only run the lights from 6-9pm.  The highest I've measured was something like 350 watts.  That's 1KW/h per day, which is maybe 8 cents of electricity per day, or about $2.50 if you run the lights for a full month.  That's really flippin' cheap for a way to make your house more of a home for 1 month a year.  I didn't get lights up last weekend but have at least 5 strands I'd like to hang some time in the next week.  It's cheap & easy.

[Stlbroke]

Lol there are some really funny replies in here.  I wanted you all to know I bought the lights!

[Professor Ecks]

Bravo! Now go enjoy them!

[HawkeyeNFO]

I'm pretty sure baked into the question everyone assumed he is the putteruppper takerdowner.

In my neighborhood, people are asking if there is a good company that will put up lights at their house and take them down after Xmas.  These are the same people who have nannies, au pairs, dogwalkers, gardeners, etc.

[The Money Monk]

That's pretty much how I see it.  It's a quality of life issue to me.  While I don't often put up lights (maybe only half the years I've been a homeowner) it's easy to run a half dozen strands on a single outlet with a timer to only run the lights from 6-9pm.  The highest I've measured was something like 350 watts.  That's 1KW/h per day, which is maybe 8 cents of electricity per day, or about $2.50 if you run the lights for a full month.  That's really flippin' cheap for a way to make your house more of a home for 1 month a year.  I didn't get lights up last weekend but have at least 5 strands I'd like to hang some time in the next week.  It's cheap & easy.

yeah but how does a 'quality of life" issue for her become something that he should pay for just because? You could use the same argument for why she should pay for an equal amount of his video game.

[Sid Hoffman]

yeah but how does a 'quality of life" issue for her become something that he should pay for just because? You could use the same argument for why she should pay for an equal amount of his video game.

As was pointed out, Christmas lights if used in moderation should cost you maybe $3 in electricity.  That's one time a year, $3.  As for the strands of lights, I still have some regular old-style lights from about 10 years ago that work just fine.  If you're not trashing your light strands and/or doing outdoor lights in a very harsh climate then they should last a long time.  You might even be like me and nearly all your lights were given to you for free, either as gifts or second-hand from someone else who simply didn't want to untangle a perfectly good strand.

This forum is all about getting maximum enjoyment out of life at the minimum cost.  I spend quite a lot of time at home and enjoy making my home feel like a place I actually want to live.  For me, Christmas lights are part of making a house into a home.  I've been doing this now since year 2000 and figure my amortized cost of lights is maybe $15/year.  Add in electricity and I'm still at less than $20/year.  Unlike video games, you don't put up Christmas lights one month, then take them down to Gamestop and return them all for 1/4 value and buy another brand new set of lights to put up in January.  It's easy to spend $500-1000/year on video games if you're a real addict.  It's hard to spend more than $20/year on Christmas lights if you buy quality lights to begin with and get many years of life out of each strand.

[GuitarStv]

I'm pretty sure baked into the question everyone assumed he is the putteruppper takerdowner.

In my neighborhood, people are asking if there is a good company that will put up lights at their house and take them down after Xmas.  These are the same people who have nannies, au pairs, dogwalkers, gardeners, etc.

So you said . . . "there is now" and gave them your number right???