When you start to notice that the extra money leftover from paying off the mortgage is disappearing every month, and your spouse’s credit card bills have gone up by several hundreds of dollars. Nothing suspicious, like Strippers R Us. Just Costco, Lowes, etc. Places they shop all the time, only the bills are going higher and higher, while you are trying to move towards FI/RE.
Do you:
A) Go ballistic and demand receipts from all shopping trips, going over each purchase line by line?
B) Melt down, asking if they want you to work forever while sobbing uncontrollably as you ponder another 20 years of taking call?
C) Try to schedule a calm, loving budgeting meeting over dinner? Which they have prepared with the food they purchased, in between fixing home maintenance problems you were too busy working to notice?
D) Say eff-it, if they are going to spend more and torpedo our plans to retire early, then I will stop curbing my purchases and buy whatever I want?
E) Realize you had a tough week at work, and tell yourself to chill out and ignore the household finances for at least a week or two?
Asking for a friend.