In Which an Epiphany is Catalyzed By Preparing My Taxes, Of All Things

So today I decided to start getting the tax paperwork sorted in preparation for filing this year’s taxes. And I found myself feeling somewhat panicked, crying a little bit, and having what, if I had been in my therapist’s office instead of at my kitchen table sorting dusty papers into neat little piles, would be called a “breakthrough.”
But let me start at the beginning.

PART I: MONEY TALKS

As those of you who read this modest little diary know, I have of late been quite frustrated with my husband vis-a-vis money fights. And occasionally other things. Like his travel schedule, which had gotten to the point where it was basically “every week, coming home on weekends to unpack, do laundry, and repack before leaving again” until I sort of had a fit about it last month, and he seems to have made a fuss at his boss about how he kind of needs to spend more time at home because The Wife is Growing Increasingly Unhappy with his Travel Schedule. Although he is going to Las Vegas for a short trip this coming week, but we have made plans for Pseudonymous Kid and I to go with him on Friday and spend a family weekend at the incredibly fucking awesome Atomic Testing Museum and possibly either the Hoover Dam and/or Red Rock Canyon/Lake Mead/some other outdoorsy beautiful desert locale. Assuming we can figure out how we are going to pay for this this evening.

But I digress. The point is money, and fighting about it. Which we’ve been doing a lot of.

So anyway, Friday was payday, and there was consequently an argument about money. Which led me to finally do something I’ve been intending to do for a while: create a couple of spreadsheets based on our respective checking account statements so far this year (we having made a New Family Budget in December) in order to figure out what we are each spending money on, after bills and groceries and savings and such are accounted for.

The upshot is that I am spending my “disposable” money mostly on Pseudonymous Kid and various things that could be considered “household” expenses: books and new clothes for PK, a $40 (but so pretty!) hand-thrown ceramic butter keeper so that our butter can live on the counter (and thus stay soft and spreadable) without going bad, stuff like that.

I’ve spent a couple hundred in two months on eating out, which I am immensely proud of, as this used to be my biggest frivolous expense, but I have made a serious and apparently successful effort to cut back. (Not to mention that “eating out” almost always means “buying ice cream with PK after school, or taking him to dinner because the husband is out of town and Mama has gotten behind on the dishes and can’t handle cooking tonight.”)

The husband, in contrast, has spent $600 on eating out the last two months–not including eating out while he’s traveling for work, which I put into a separate category. (Yes, I am sounding accusatory here. It’s my fucking blog.) Mostly he spends money on going out to lunch at sit-down places with friends at work. He also took out about a thousand bucks over the course of two months in cash, which I can’t trace, but he says (and I see no reason to doubt it) that he mostly spends that on eating out, too. His other expenses are buying shit at Fry’s–blank cds, sometimes for work, sometimes not, or an occasional $50 splurge on cheap DVDs or used video games for PK or the like.

(We also each took a short, separate vacation this year so far, but I didn’t count those expenses in the spreadsheets because I wanted to focus on our usual spending patterns rather than the exceptions.)

So basically the upshot for me was that I have actually spent under budget according to my allowed “discretionary” allowance, and he has gone way, way over. Way over.

Now, part of the wayness of the overage, it must be said, is attributable to his having bought me a new laptop (!) for Christmas and an iPad (!!) for my birthday in January. So I realize, and I said this to him as well, that I am coming off as kind of an asshole for saying this, but first of all, dude, it is just flat-out fucking irresponsible to buy expensive gifts that we cannot afford. And I say that as a woman who bought her niece $200 boots for her 16th birthday last month–but I still stayed within my budget, because I took it into account with my other spending. (To be fair, I have the power to do this by cutting back on groceries–I spent about half what we’d budgeted. But then, since I do the goddamn cooking, that’s kind of my prerogative, arguably.)

But even without counting $2000 in expensive computer stuff, the husband was well over what he is “supposed” to be spending: in addition to his discretionary money, he’s been asking me (every paycheck) for “extra” (which I’ve been providing) and he’s been using the credit card that we paid off at the beginning of January; I paid it off again this weekend, to the tune of $1020.

To be honest, was relieved to see the results. Not just because it’s always gratifying to be in the right, but more importantly because part of the undercurrent of our fights about money is always me worrying a little bit that maybe I am being irresponsible, as the primary money-handler and bill-payer–after all, I spent $200 on boots for Niece last month–and maybe that’s why he’s on such a short leash, money-wise. Maybe the budget we worked out for groceries and bills was grossly exaggerated, and I am actually spending far less on the bills than I think I am–after all, I did pay that bill late last month–and maybe I’m somehow allowing myself a lot more spending money than he has. And it is frankly a huge relief to be able to see that I am not, in fact, being a greedy conniving bitch, money-wise, or arguing with him in bad faith by taking advantage of the fact that I do the bill-paying to elide or cover up my own financial indiscretions.

Which, it turns out, don’t exist. We do get the same goddamn amount of spending money. And I do handle mine a lot better, managing to entertain myself and Pseudonymous Kid–plus clothe him and pay various school expenses–on less money than the husband finds inadequate for entertaining himself alone. (Okay, <i>some</i> of my relief is petty competitiveness. I’m only human, and we <i>have</i> been fighting a lot.) Hurrah! Not only am I suddenly guilt-free, but (more practically speaking), we are now better able to figure out where we’re having trouble, budget-wise, and to figure out what we want to do about it.

Tomorrow: Part II