Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. So my husband spends a lot of our landscaping budget on trying to get grass to grow in the desert. Is it fair for me to ask him to spend feudal grass spending from his fund money? How much is he spending? I gotta know this number. well like in a summer season between sod and seed and water it's probably like 250 to 300 bucks out of our 500 budget your 500 budget for what the the 500 the 500 is the line item for landscaping yeah for like a season okay it's Not a lot. Okay. And what's your household income? I mean, it's a trivial amount compared to our budget. What's your household income? We make $210,000. What? Sorry, $210,000. $210,000. Okay. All right. Yeah. And so, yeah, and it's, so is it the futility that bothers you? I think so. And we just have like, even though we have a high income, we have a lot of other things that we're putting that money towards. So it's like we've carved out this number that we agree on. And yeah, so maybe it is the futility. And I don't mind it that he wants to experiment with growing grass, but this is three seasons now. So is it fair to just call it a hobby? How much does he enjoy it? Apparently, a lot. Well does he enjoy it or does he just feel like it really ugly and it more of a thing that bothers him versus he really loving the time spent on it That what I trying to get at I think that he an analytical person who doesn like to lose And so I feel like it almost like Sisyphean It's me against the grass. By the way, great word. You win caller of the day for using that word. That's fabulous. And him trying to beat the sun is, that's a tough one. That's a tough one-on-one battle. The futility seed is another one. These are some great lines. Oh, man. okay um because it is a very small amount of your world and it gives him joy i don't care which line item it's in it still leaves your house they're still you're still spending 250 dollars on futility regardless of what you what you label it you could label it futility in the budget. Have you customized the feudal seed budget? That's a different kind of utility. Yeah. And so you just put it right there under, you know, subset of landscaping and it's, you know, you name it what it is, but it still leaves your budget. I mean, if you take it out of his hobby, oh, you're saying though it doesn't leave your budget because you're saying you would not increase his hobby by that amount. Right. Oh. And you've got another line item you want that money to go to, correct? Yes. Which one? What is it? We're saving to put in a shade structure in our backyard. A what structure? Like a shade awning thing. A shade structure. Okay. Okay. And what does the shade structure cost? It'll be about seven grand. Okay. All right. And so there's $250 a month for six months is $1,500, right? Yeah. Okay. So I think the way this would sound at our house okay net I agree with you that this is futile probably And net I agree that it cool for him to want to do it anyway And net-net, we're all in agreement on these three things. You have the money. It's no big deal, okay? So it's not killing your family. Your children have diapers, all that. I mean, we're okay. So at our house, it would sound something like this. Look, it's bothering. Sharon would say, it's bothering me that we're wasting money on X because we're saving for Y, and I think we could get there faster. And I'll say, yeah, but it would bother me to not do the futility seeds. I need to do those. It's good for me. And so let's cut the budget some other places and let's get the shade thing a little faster by cutting in other areas. And she and I would end up negotiating some other area that we cut that didn't mean as much to either one of us. Because in this case, this actually means something to him. He has a valid vote in this process. It means something to you to increase the speed at which we buy the shelter from the same son that's killing the grass. I wonder if these things could work together. Yes. Oh, there you go. We'll have a little patch of grass. Yeah, under the shade. Underneath the shade. Dave, that's actually brilliant. I'm telling you. This is why I'm here. You know what Stacey would say? It would go like this at our house. She would say, so how do we feel? How do we feel? And she always does that, and it snaps me out of it. And I always go, we? You don't feel— You got a mouse in your pocket? Yeah, you're never out there. She'll say to me, like, we should weed. I go, you don't weed anything. It's not weed. It's a passive-aggressive statement. But it's a great one for a wife because it snaps me out of it and lets me know that she's probably questioning my investment. We have a trash problem. Oh, that means I have a trash problem. That's right. We should go to the dump. That never the two of us That funny That funny I like that Stacey the queen of weed No wonder Stacey and Sharon get along Right The passive queen And it snaps me out of it because I realize oh the queen is not happy with something We. Right. We are buying seed in futility. Here's why I am on D's husband's side. I'm not anti-D. D, I get it. It's kind of a fun call. It is. But here's the deal, Dave. Yard work for me is very therapeutic. I enjoy getting out, doing a little bit of landscaping. I'm no architect, as you know. But I do enjoy the time out there. My brain frees up. I get some good thinking done because I'm on this menial task. I get it. He doesn't want to give up yet. So I think the approach is, how do you feel about this season? You think it's going to work? How many more seasons are we going to try this? I'm going to give you the Stacey tip. We kind of felt that way about our Titans tickets. Oh, exactly. How many more seasons are we going to try this? How many more seasons? That's right. Yeah. Talk about futility. Boy, that's so true. You NFL fans know what we mean. Our beloved Titans. We got another uniform, another new logo. I don't think we have any new results. We'll see. Dee, it's fun. We're not giving you much of an answer, but I think he has a valid point. It is that, but I also think it's valid for you to bring up that because you feel like this is futile, we need to squeeze somewhere else in the budget if you're not willing to give up the futile seeds. And I actually love Dave, and I'm being serious, D. I love Dave's suggestion. We save up, we stop the futility, we save up for the shaded structure, and then he tries to grow grass underneath that. I think that's actually a stroke of genius. I don't think it'll work. I think you need sun, but what do I know? It's the arid climate, Ken. It's not. That's it. That's it. Just get a bag of rocks. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.
