The Disagreement

Chuck and I are usually on the same page about things. We rarely disagree about finances. Tonight though is an exception. The backstory is this - Chuck's dad's computer is broken. The hard drive has crashed. The computer itself is 7+ years old and Chuck has fixed it many times for his dad, the last time being just a couple months ago. His dad turned 60 in September and Chuck has talked about replacing the computer for his dad as his gift for his birthday and Christmas. Now, though, he's going in on it with his brother and sister for a birthday present only. Well, with this latest crisis, Chuck has been computer shopping again. His dad needs a reliable machine as he runs a consulting business out of his home. We can loan him our laptop (we also have a desktop) for an interim fix but that's not a long term solution. Here's where the disagreement comes in - Chuck called tonight to tell me he found a good deal on a computer and that he was going to order it and put the $326 expense on his credit card. Of course, I resisted. This was our old way of thinking - if an unplanned expense came up, instead of finding a way to pay cash or to save up for the purchase, we just put it on a credit card. I explained to Chuck that I was frustrated with using a credit card. We talked about how we are so close to paying his off. He agreed that using the credit card was not the best path and that he didn't want to use it either. We need the new computer by his Dad's 60th birthday party in a couple weeks so we do have to make this purchase relatively soon. In an ideal world, we would have his brother and sister's contributions in hand before ordering it. What will most likely happen is Monday we will pay off his credit card, his billing cycle ends on Tuesday and mid to late next week we will order the new computer. Hopefully we can pay for it with cash. We should be able to but then we'll have to re-evaluate Chuck's November budget again. If there's one good thing out of this it's that we didn't automatically put the computer purchase on a credit card. We talked about it and are strategizing ways to pay cash instead. And that, to me, is progress.