The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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This makes me feel maybe you are overdoing it a bit. Unless your colleagues regularly lunch in Michelin star restaurants, you should be able to afford a lunch. You may choose not to go, still - though I always found it's good for team relationships - but you should be able to do it without having your budget ruined.
I think there are two issues at hand here. First is "keeping up with the Joneses", with the Joneses being your wife's family. I think it may be a good thing to talk about how comparing their lifestyle with yours is not a good idea - they do their thing, and your family does yours, and the only two persons that should have a say in it is yourself and your wife. If you both think something is ok, the others should not have a voice to call her a "miser" and she should not feel obliged to live by their standards.
The second question is what your wife wants. You should come to agreement about what are your goals, and you should talk about how wasteful spending makes it harder for your to achieve these goals. Don't make it "you bad, me good" conversation, make it "how we can make it happen" conversation. And yes, it may create some resentment, at least initially, and if it proves hard for your wife to follow through with what you agree - there might be a moment where you have to choose - either you risk a conflict by taking more control over it, or you find means to increase the budget so you don't have to do it. Only you can make this choice.
Lunch costs $40 here. I can afford it with my $1000 budget, but I prefer to spend on my hobby, when I do spend.
We're actually on the same page in principle, pretty much. It's just that she feels like she's already denying herself a lot, but somehow the numbers at the end of the month say otherwise, and she gets defensive about it.
This is a recurring theme. My upbringing shaped me, of course, but I don't care that much what my family thinks of my lifestyle. She was recently in her home country for her sister's wedding, and the amount spent on gifts and clothing was mind-boggling to me. She describes the lives of her sisters and mother as vicious social status seeking, but she can't help but be sucked into it to a milder extent on occasion.
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