Spend versus save

How come when I have a plan, when I want to save money, I'm the miser? But when I suggested that perhaps I could go out on my own, there was questions about whether we really have the money to do that, perhaps I should keep my job while my husband (who can't find a job) goes to graduate school. When does what I want to do with my life matter more than what my husband thinks we should do?



When Tom and I first started talking about kids, he was the one who suggested that perhaps I quit my job to be a stay at home mom, or if I really wanted to keep working, my job was much easier for me to work at home (despite my trying to explain to him that writing grants actually takes concentrating, which a screaming child may not be exactly condusive to.)



Now that I am interested in it, he says, "well, since I can't get a job (not that he is really trying that hard in my opinion, [though he is working hard at school, so how upset am I really allowed to be?]), maybe I should go to grad school and you should continue working at CVIT, even though you don't like it to continue putting me through school and so we can have insurance." Tell me how this is fair! Granted, I didn't exactly put him through undergrad, with the Marine Corps paying him each month, but I helped pay all the other bills.



Oh, and have I said just how much cheaper I would have lived on my own, versus how much we have spent together? Ouch! You know he had the nerve to say to me that we would really have to work at reducing our monthly budget to live within our means if he went to grad school and I worked on my own. I must admit that I snippily replied, "I don't have a problem living on less money than we are right now!" Not nice, I know. I just don't think he has ever had to work or save for anything.



Now don't get me wrong, I don't think that his parents were always giving in to him or giving him whatever he wanted. They aren't like that. But I think that once he had a job and certainly once he got out on his own with the Marine Corps, that he had never had money be tight or really had to save for something he wanted. He just went out and bought it. That just isn't the way that things have been for me. I had several years (yes through my own stupidity and indebtness) when money was tight, I was in over my head on credit card debt and I struggled to make rent, etc.



I just don't think he thinks of money like I do. I can accept that, but what drives me crazy and as a reverse, no doubt drives him crazy, is that my first instinct is to save and while I'm not saying it is his first intinct to save, he just doesn't think about what it does to his savings plan when he wants to go out and buy something. You know?