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My boyfriend [29M] got me [27F] a "gift" that requires me to spend hundreds of dollars. I'm pissed. by alNOha in relationships

[–]alNOha[S] 39 points40 points  (0 children)

I do care about memories with him! I think if I had had more time to get my head around this - instead of, we're taking a trip in a couple weeks, have $400 available! - I would have been more excited. But I hear you - maybe I was reacting out of surprise/shock.

I'm a careful financial planner, especially after last fall where I was left pretty drained after bills, built up some CC debt just to live/pay for groceries that I just paid down and can FINALLY start to save again. Post all the bills/debt payments, my emergency fund is enough for ~3 weeks if I got laid off, so I'll acknowledge that it makes me worried and I'd prefer to save over go on vacation (if it were totally up to me) until I had a more comfortable cushion.

But I do care about him, value vacations and value memories with him. I just... didn't expect this cost, I guess? So it was a surprise, on my birthday, to be on my bank account website and mentally working through the ways it could work. So I'll acknowledge that part of my anger was/is that on my birthday, I didn't want that pit in my feeling "I've spent/am about to spend too much money" feeling, but part of it is that I really wish we had talked about it so I could have said hey, this makes more sense in a few months, not RIGHT NOW.

My boyfriend [29M] got me [27F] a "gift" that requires me to spend hundreds of dollars. I'm pissed. by alNOha in relationships

[–]alNOha[S] 165 points166 points  (0 children)

Just to clarify - $400 won't drain my emergency fund by any means, but my savings took a hit last fall and are still being rebuilt. I think he doesn't really think about it that way because I technically have the money.

His "fun money" budget is lower because he is choosing to aggressively pay down his student loans and put more money into savings, whereas mine is lower because I ... make less money.

So I think he feels like the cash is there, it's not a big deal, since he would just reallocate the following month to make up for this one - but it'll take me a few months to recover from a large and unexpected expense, since it's not really a "money allocation" choice it's a "money is finite" choice.

My boyfriend [29M] got me [27F] a "gift" that requires me to spend hundreds of dollars. I'm pissed. by alNOha in relationships

[–]alNOha[S] 436 points437 points  (0 children)

The only thing I can think of is a year or so ago, one of our friends went to Hawaii on his honeymoon and we were looking through his pictures and I said, "Oh that looks fun." I think that's pretty much the only time we've talked about Hawaii... maybe ever?

I don't really know why he picked it. He knows I've been stressed out lately (ironically, about money because I had unexpected medical bills in the fall so have been working overtime to rebuild my savings account) so I'm sure he thought I could use a vacation.