Purchasing high priced products without telling the partner

[Life360_Dave]

Have any of you purchased a high priced product without telling your partner and had to return it after it arrived because you did not ask them before as it was really expensive. You bought it because you know they would say no and just had to have it?  Also have any of you that did this kept the product after a discussion?
I have done both

[Londres70]

No.....I am frugal by nature, so money doesn't fly out of my pockets so easily.

Chutzpah......I don't think that has anything to do with it.  I think it is more a respect issue.  If you want to make decisions by yourself or buy what you want when you want than be by yourself not in a committed relationship or in a marriage.

[specialmom]

Annie, I'm the same way,  I worked many years and earlier in our marriage, I had my 'own' income.  I didn't feel bad when I had a splurge.  Then kids came along and I stopped working.  Finances changed and so did my shopping!  

Life, I don't know if it is hoospa involved for me.  My husband values feeling like he and I were a team.  When I did the landscaping all on my own, what bothered him was not the money or the landscaping but that he felt like he had no say and it was behind his back.  I'm sure there was some deep down reason I had it done while he was gone----  I had shown him some plans from landscape architects so he knew I was working on it.  But perhaps I feared he would balk when it came time to do it.  Or that the price tag would mean he'd make me not have that cool lighting or something else I was determined to have in the front.  Or that he'd say "now's not  the time, let's wait until next year."   I wanted it.  And I wanted it my way.  And I didn't allow him to be my team mate and make that decision with me.  

I think when you have combined income and view your marriage as a team, that big ticket purchases should probably be run by the other.  If you have not a financial care in the world----  maybe it is different.  

But I would still say that it is good to let one's partner know when you are buying a big ticket item.  Otherwise, they may say you are being sneaky and that is the kind of thing that builds a wedge between people.  

[AnnieBrooke]

I was usually limited by the limits of my money, not the limits of my nerve.  

[Life360_Dave]

I would like to add. Are there any of you out there that wanted to buy that special thing but did not have the hoospa to do it?

[AnnieBrooke]

ps -- that wasn't really the digression it sounded like.  What I meant was, I'm glad to be in the Mommy Zone, because I distrusted my own motivations for the earlier costly purchases, especially if I kept the details secret from my husband.  He is more conservative than I am, and I didn't want to have to argue with him about future appreciation on the art and have to somehow promise him that the value would go up (who knew, really, if it would).  And I thought then (though I didn't explore it much) that I was buying to feel special, and that is just a terrible motivation to buy.  You know, the way some people feel about drugs, others feel about shopping.  It gives them a zing.  I'm glad motherhood came along and took that away by putting a clear and present need for the dollars right in my face all the time.  It took away the impulse to go crazy financially.

[AnnieBrooke]

I bought some things with my own earnings and never admitted to my husband that they were as costly as they were.  Some paintings (with an eye to investment) and some antique jewelry.  It was my own paycheck, for sure, but if I had not spent it on those things I could have spent it on joint costs of living, which during that time my husband mostly covered.  So in a way it was mean of me.  On the other hand, I did not squawk when he bought himself a 350Z.  (Partly because I had not revealed to him how much the last art purchase had cost.  He had one coming, though he didn't know it.  And it was bad of me to accept his gratitude that I hadn't fussed over the cost of the car -- I should have come clean about why.)  

Looking at it now, gee ... 350Zs and paintings, those were really the days. And I had a paycheck then!  Now it's hot stuff if I can buy my son Saltwater sandals new (instead of looking for them used on eBay) when summer comes around.  The funny thing is, as long as we can keep the grocery bills covered and the mortgage, and insurance and clothes, I really don't care about the other stuff that was tons more glam and expensive.  I'm into being a mommy now.  It kind of explains why my mother wore such crummy clothes.  She didn't have bad taste, she had just lapsed into the Mommy Zone, where as long as your butt is covered and tempera paint washes out of it, you're fine.

[specialmom]

Ha.  Well, how is that corvette purchase coming Life?  

I can say that I've never purchased that high of a ticket item but have definitely pushed the limit before.  Once when my husband was on a two week trip to Asia, I had our whole front landscaped.  I had everything there pulled out, new put in, extensive yard lighting, a walkway change.  It was a BIG landscaping project and man, that stuff is expensive.  I just was tired of being embarrassed of how the front looked and I can only do so much with old, overgrown bushes.  They had to go.  

So, my husband came home and it was night when he got back.  He walked up the front which is totally different than how it was when he left right down to the lighting up the walk way, the walk way, all the plants . . .   etc.  He came in the house and didn't say a word.   In fact he didn't mention it for a whole week.  

He was a bit upset with me.  

He later acknowledged that it needed it done but said he'd have appreciated a heads up about it.  So, since then, I haven't really done 'big' things when he is gone.  :>)