House purchase advice

[Judge Jude]

I am really empathizing with you. one of the absolute keys to life is "know what you know, and know what you don't know."

what your wife knows, as is obvious from your posts, is a LOT - across the board.

but personal finance? she doesn't know that she doesn't know, which obviously is the problem.

I still am trying to imagine a scenario where you both go to a Certified Financial Planner, supposedly for advice nibbling around the edges of this issue......

[Sour Masher]

I am really empathizing with you. one of the absolute keys to life is "know what you know, and know what you don't know."

what your wife knows, as is obvious from your posts, is a LOT - across the board.

but personal finance? she doesn't know that she doesn't know, which obviously is the problem.

I still am trying to imagine a scenario where you both go to a Certified Financial Planner, supposedly for advice nibbling around the edges of this issue. boy, to be a fly on the wall when she lays out the financials and then describes her subsequent idea!


it seems like the root here is that she figures out what she wants, then does it - without factoring in whether you can afford it. quite a shame, because obviously no one is perfect, and she no doubt has a ton of great qualities. that's why you're together.

but I doubt your flaws - all added up - twist the family finances into pretzels like this blind spot.

I guess all we can do is wish you luck. 10K a year on vacations and $500 in the bank and credit-card debt - my neurons are malfunctioning.

Yeah, she is a grasshopper, not an ant. We balance each other in that regard. I've traveled and seen a lot because of her. She has good credit because of me. She works very hard, as a mother and as a professor. She is always willing to teach an extra class or have a side hustle to be able to afford what she wants, and the travel has to do with us being a thousand miles from family and friends and us wanting our kids to know our families. I feel very much the bad guy when my grandmother and mother say they will due soon and her parents are crying to see the kids, so that is the one thing I have given in on since the kids were born.

But on the other hand, if she saw Suze Orman crossing the street, it would be like that scene in Pulp Fiction where Bruce Willis tries to run Ving Rhames over, and she wouldn't go back to save her from Zed either. Me saying that name to her or suggestion a financial planner is a insult to her. She intellectually understands full well how dumb financially this is for us, but she still wants it. And she is willing to work harder to make it work. Me, I'd rather wait, but it isn't like she is living off my labor. She works as hard as me or harder and now the she got tenure, is making a bit more than I do to boot.

But I do think a lot of her sheets to the wind attitude has to do with how conservative I am with these things. I am always the one saying "we can't afford it". She has done a 180 in the last 24 hours now that I am going all in on making an offer. It is really great fun for me to see this. She is so used to me pushing back, I think she is shocked and re-calibrating now that I am not. It is fun being the careless one, and it is really fun to have her whip out a calculator and have concerned lines on her brow for a change. It is hard always being the heavy. Makes me feel like the bad guy.

[DMT]

2 points on the reverse, well done!

[revo]

Hey, as I always tell my clients, "I gave you my opinion, but I can’t change your mind!" Whatever you decide to do, good luck.

[Sour Masher]

Hey, as I always tell my clients, "I gave you my opinion, but I can’t change your mind!" Whatever you decide to do, good luck.

Thanks. I think my wife has come around on the idea of waiting one more year. We should be in a much better place by then. If she changes her mind, we agree we must make an offer low enough that I'd be both surprised and not disappointed if we get it. It would not be ideal timing, but if the builder (who still owns the home after 9 years of renting it/trying to sell it) takes the number we have in mind, it would be workable for us. I very much doubt he will, not now, and my wife seems to agree, at the moment at least, it would be a waste of time to offer what works for us right now. Maybe he will still be trying to sell it in 10-12 months and we will try again or find another option (although contemporary builds in this area are as rare as hen's teeth).