The One With Aldacron

My wife is generally rather frugal when it comes to spending, where I am quite the opposite. For most of my single life, saving money was something I had heard a lot about but hadn’t experienced much of myself. It took a while after marriage–specifically after a particularly hard stretch that resulted from living beyond our means for an extended period–but I finally came around somewhat. Only recently have I really gotten into the habit of saving money every week (I have multiple paydays in a month, which works out quite nicely). But I still throw more cash around than I ought to.

When it comes to big purchases, I’m not one to hold back. I’ll usually look at purchases at the extreme upper limit of my budget, usually getting the most expensive version of something I can afford if it means better quality. Price is secondary. When I recently built a computer, I actually went a little beyond my budget (and that after a painstaking process of deciding which components didn’t need to be the latest and greatest). My wife, on the other hand, tends to spend near the lower end of the budget. Price outweighs all other factors. Well, that familiar world turned upside down last Friday.

My wife and I abandoned the common Korean habit of marital financial management, where the wife gets all the money and doles out an allowance to the husband (who, in many cases, has a secret stash anyway) a couple of years ago. Half of my regular salary still goes to her bank, but I have several other sources of income from freelance work. Not only did this eliminate a point of contention between us, it also restored an opportunity we last experienced while dating. Even though the money still belongs to both of us, the fact that we manage it separately allows us to buy gifts for each other that genuinely feel like gifts. It ruins the experience when you have to ask your wife for the money to buy her a present. It also allows us to sort of bribe each other into doing things we don’t want to do.

Since this year’s Chuseok holiday was so short (only three days compared to the normal five, thanks to it falling on a Sunday this year), I really didn’t want to visit my in-laws like we normally do. The shorter time span meant less of an opportunity to avoid the outrageous traffic resulting from a majority of Seoul’s population migrating to the countryside at the same time. I was determined to convince my wife that we should stay in Seoul this year, until she offered to buy me a new monitor. I have a long list of to-buy items and a new monitor was one of them. There are other things of higher priority, so I wasn’t looking at getting one until early next year. This was one bribe I was happy to accept.

So last Friday we decided to meet at a local electronics chain after work to make the purchase. I arrived first and, knowing my wife’s attitude toward big purchases, I was looking at mid-range products. Before she got there, I had picked out a nice 22″ LG Flatron model. Weighing in at just under 400,000 won (around $400 USD, give or take) I wasn’t confident that she would go for it, so I was prepared to throw in some of my own cash. If she still wouldn’t, I was going to just buy the thing myself (though, I did have a back-up pick that was 100,000 won cheaper in case that strategy caused any stormy weather).

My wife arrived, I showed her my pick, and she immediately started looking at cheaper models. This, I expected. Then she stopped in front of a 25.5″ Samsung SyncMaster T260HD, which has a built-in HD tuner and costs 600,000 won (upper end monitor, low end TV — not sure how to classify it). It took a minute for me to understand what she was talking about when she asked, “How about that one?” Once I recovered from the shock, I still couldn’t find my voice so I just nodded my head. She did browse around for a few minutes more, but in the end she bought the monster. It was delivered Sunday.

So now my 19″ Syncmaster has a bigger cousin to keep it company and my old 21″ Korea Data Systems CRT behemoth has gone whereever monitors go when I leave them out on the street at night. To say I’m happy is an understatement. Lord of the Rings Online has never looked so good. And now when watching DVDs on my computer, the video goes well with the Dolby speaker system I bought a couple of years back but have rarely made use of.