Back in the day when DH and I first got married, he was paying BM in cash for everything. The bookkeeper in me put a stop to that and everything has been done with checks ever since for tracking purposes. Another thing I put a stop to? Handing over a wad of cash for school clothes every season. Instead of BM demanding a certain dollar amount, we started taking the kids shopping ourselves so that we could have more control over how our money was spent – plus it was nice to be able to help the kids pick stuff out and know what came from us.

Fast forward 10 years and we are still doing our own shopping. Now it involves the kids giving us a wishlist from a specific store (mainly Old Navy because we have a store card and can use coupons to make the money stretch). So this year the skids gave us their wishlist and most of it was pretty normal; however, there were a few expensive things on it that were very clearly not necessities. Like a $50 jean jacket for SS who just got a rather expensive bomber jacket from us last year (that still fits) and a $25 pair of suede black flats for SD when I know that girl already has more shoes that The Shoe Dept.

So before hitting ‘Submit Order’, I headed out to the garage for a quick pow-wow with DH. I said, listen, new jeans I can understand. Even a couple of long sleeve shirts or a hoodie, but some of this stuff on their list is quite obviously just stuff they want and not stuff they need. I’m not digging it. Not to mention it chaps my ass a bit that these kids get everything brand spanking new every year and I can probably count the number of “new” things that our littles have in their drawers on 10 fingers or less. Can we pare this list down a bit, maybe ask them to only get a few new things and fill in the gaps at resale shops?

Well what do you know – DH actually agreed with me! He even said that some of the stuff on their lists were ridiculous and we can get it cheaper going second-hand. If that’s not wonderful enough, he even volunteered to lead the conversation with the skids that evening to lay down the law and he TOTALLY followed through and supported me. I think he may be starting to realize that I’m not just being a b*tch about watching what we spend on the skids. There’s actually logic behind it.

So I’m counting this as a small win for me – and us as a couple. We’ve been having so many uncomfortable conversations about money lately. It was nice to have one go in a positive direction for a change.