X
Xantippe
Guest
leonie said:
“I can’t really work right now (8 months pregnant with six minor children that I’m homeschooling), but it’s possible that if I worked at it harder, I could budget better and put the money aside.”
!!!
“That’s a good idea. Around here, $200 won’t buy you much in the handyman business, but I could save it up for a bigger renovation project. In five months, I would have enough to buy a new window in any case for the boys’ bedrooms–it’s been boarded up for 5 years now. That would be nice.”
!!!
“Another problem is that dh is reluctant to spend any money on the house.”
That sounds like one of the core problems. Remember, while he has the skills, when he’s out on a job, somebody else is paying for all the materials and (this is very important) he is getting paid for the work. At home, he has to pay for the materials and there’s no pay–fun, fun, fun.
If I were you, I would do a little research on normal costs of maintenance for a home your size and in your region and share your research with your husband. It isn’t reasonable to budget $0 for home maintenance as a homeowner. Heck, it’s not even reasonable for renters. As I was saying upthread, we are new homeowners with an early 1990s house and we budget $120 every month during the school year and throw in the odd $1,000 whenever we’ve got it. As you know (but your husband doesn’t), you have to keep putting money into a house just to keep it from falling apart. If he can’t deal with that, maybe you guys need to be renters.
It might help him quite a bit if you were to budget $100 a month for maintenance and save it up and then as projects arise, you can tell him what needs to happen and how much is in the repair kitty.
“I really don’t understand why a husband doesn’t care a bit about the maintenance of his home or even his wife’s depression over its state. It’s like a mental block.”
I expect he does feel bad about it, which is why he’s avoiding it. He probably has a very guilty conscience about it, which explains his anger when he finds you attempting projects.
“I can’t really work right now (8 months pregnant with six minor children that I’m homeschooling), but it’s possible that if I worked at it harder, I could budget better and put the money aside.”
!!!
“That’s a good idea. Around here, $200 won’t buy you much in the handyman business, but I could save it up for a bigger renovation project. In five months, I would have enough to buy a new window in any case for the boys’ bedrooms–it’s been boarded up for 5 years now. That would be nice.”
!!!
“Another problem is that dh is reluctant to spend any money on the house.”
That sounds like one of the core problems. Remember, while he has the skills, when he’s out on a job, somebody else is paying for all the materials and (this is very important) he is getting paid for the work. At home, he has to pay for the materials and there’s no pay–fun, fun, fun.
If I were you, I would do a little research on normal costs of maintenance for a home your size and in your region and share your research with your husband. It isn’t reasonable to budget $0 for home maintenance as a homeowner. Heck, it’s not even reasonable for renters. As I was saying upthread, we are new homeowners with an early 1990s house and we budget $120 every month during the school year and throw in the odd $1,000 whenever we’ve got it. As you know (but your husband doesn’t), you have to keep putting money into a house just to keep it from falling apart. If he can’t deal with that, maybe you guys need to be renters.
It might help him quite a bit if you were to budget $100 a month for maintenance and save it up and then as projects arise, you can tell him what needs to happen and how much is in the repair kitty.
“I really don’t understand why a husband doesn’t care a bit about the maintenance of his home or even his wife’s depression over its state. It’s like a mental block.”
I expect he does feel bad about it, which is why he’s avoiding it. He probably has a very guilty conscience about it, which explains his anger when he finds you attempting projects.
if you do a decent job, he will appreciate it, but if you mess up-back to square one.