For love or money
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published Saturday March 9, 2013

Money is a delicate subject in our house. So delicate my husband likes to refer to me as Paris Hilton. I take offence because Paris Hilton is a vacuous party princess and I’m a down to earth toilet-scrubbing kind of princess with calluses on her knees.

The laws of marriage demand we define ourselves as either Scrooge or Squanderer. Rarely are we on the same team. Agreeing on whose label is whose is a barney in itself.

Some spouses grudgingly accept they’re a Scrooge because they imagine they are sensible with money. They also know a teabag can make three consecutive cups of tea if it’s wrapped in plastic and kept in the fridge.

Others leap the trench and proudly embrace the title Squanderer.The Squanderer’s catchcry is: ‘Keep the change!’ or ‘I’ll take one in every colour.’ They understand they may die tomorrow and never again take delight in a David Jones sale. That’s how a Squanderer justifies buying three pairs of basket-weave platform sandals in buff, nude and sand.  

My husband is a tightwad but doesn’t know it. Secretly he loves me for being lavish and reckless. I might be a compulsive spender but that doesn’t mean I’m not good with money. I run the house, the children and my wardrobe. Our phone has only been cut off once in the past year. If I forget to pay the gas bill, I just use the electric oven.

When I bought four stools for the kitchen bench, the man of the house said ‘Blossom, you do know we only have three children?’ (Doesn’t he realise I like to sit down while I’m counting out his peas for dinner?)

It’s a mystery to me why my Scrooge’s wallet is always bulging with fifties. I like to relieve him of a few because my purse is always empty and his wallet needs clean lines. In return, he tells people: ‘She’s light-fingered.’ Then he lectures me about how annoying it is that I never have cash, and how a Squanderer should love visiting the automatic teller: ‘You won’t believe it Blossom, money comes out of those things like magic!’

A girlfriend gets around her own Scrooge by telling her husband everything she buys costs 20-bucks: ‘It’s 20-bucks to have my hair done’; ‘I got these shoes for 20-bucks!’. She’s getting divorced now, but her bloke still thinks a girl’s lunch costs 20-bucks.

My husband happily pays the mortgage (he calls it a ‘co-habitation tax’). He buys me Lindt chocolates for our anniversary (the ‘spousal levy’). Yet he can blow big sums of cash when the mood strikes him. Six years ago he paid some serious dosh for a dinghy we’ve only sat in three times. He bought a kayak that has seen rapids just the once, (from the roof of the car), and shelled out for a top-of- the-range electric mower that snips six square metres of grass owned by the Council.

My snarky Scrooge is also a forensic accountant who knows how to bust me when I try to cover up a spending spree. I come unstuck when I forget to shred receipts or he trips over the shopping bags I’ve left in the hallway. It’s even more embarrassing when he catches me out on my bad arithmetic. Last week I blithely waved in the direction of the new ottoman:

‘Oh that thing? It was 25-percent off, virtually cost price.’

‘So what was the discount?’

Me (dumbstruck): ‘Um, 35-bucks?’

Then I take the blasted ottoman back to the shop and ask for my $200 back.

I know that money goes off if you leave it on the kitchen bench. Idle cash needs to be exchanged for something new, like another juicer. Or other shiny things.

For five years, we’ve had an ongoing tiff about the prized soccer table I bought at auction. You remember how much fun it is flicking balls past rows of little soccer men? Well, my husband doesn’t.

But the auction house was selling off the contents of the Old Raffles Hotel and I was excited. It was like being back at school and knowing the answer to everything. I repeatedly shot my hand up in the air until even the swarthy men with the big gold watches stopped bidding:

‘Do I have $400? Once? Twice? SOLD! to the young lady in the tracksuit with the crying baby.’

My husband delights in telling people: ‘Yes, she went to town on a crappy piece of pub history – now a soccer table is parked in the garage and my car is parked on the road.’ He claims the kids have played with it ten times in five years: ‘Blossom, I’m telling you for the last time – sell it!’

I suspect an ulterior motive. Yesterday, I spotted some papers in the study that look a lot like ads for second-hand caravans. He wants me to become a trailer park wife. That, or he’s planning to be a ginger nomad. Either way, the soccer table’s coming with us. The kids and I can have our 11th game while he’s loading up the dinghy, the kayak and the electric mower.

PS. Ros has agreed to sell the soccer table when her husband agrees to get a vasectomy. Fair trade.