In Her Words

He Spends, she Spends

How honest are you about your shopping habits?

By: Julie Ryan Evans

I know a woman who keeps a red pen in her car. After she goes shopping, she adjusts the price of her purchases in her car. Her husband thinks she's a great bargain shopper and has often wondered how everything she finds seems to be $19.99.

I've heard and read about other women who go to elaborate methods to keep their spending habits from their husbands - buying gift cards at the grocery store (so it looks like they're a part of the bill) and stocking them away for a big purchase, hiding packages and flat-out lying about whether something is new. Cookie magazine did a piece recently titled "The Other Adultery" on this apparently popular trend of financial infidelity. They even found a woman who has an arrangement with the UPS carrier to say he has the wrong house if her husband answers the door. Then the UPS carrier actually takes the package to the woman's neighbor, who holds it for her!

Clearly there are women who take this to an extreme and really are cheating their husband and family with their stealth shopping. For the most part, though, I think it's a little bit of a game that our husbands turn a blind eye toward and then tease us about in front of their friends.

I've never flat-out lied about a purchase, but there have certainly been some bags and boxes that rest in my closet until it's a "good" time to reveal them. There's also a little bit of rounding I do occasionally. A shirt that cost $69.99 plus tax would be "Oh, I think about $60," which sounds much better than the final $75-plus final purchase price. Call it my little bonus for being the bill payer.

Before I got married, I couldn't imagine anything worse than having someone tell me what I could or couldn't buy. I'd gladly eat ramen noodles for the rest of the month if I wanted to splurge on a $200 pair of shoes. I can't really ask my family to do that, so, over the years, I've become more responsible, and really, it hasn't been nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

Of course, that's because, for the most part, we have a don't-ask, don't-tell policy. And that's fine with me. If he was always asking and I always had to tell ... well, I might have to think about getting a red pen of my own.

Do you hide your purchases from your husband?