I’m cheap. I don’t buy something until I am ready to use it. Bob is not a spendthrift, but he will buy something – a product or a service – in order to motivate him to use it and get a job done.
Bob: “I’m going to sign us up for some business coaching. $47 a month.”
Me: “We haven’t even completed the business projects we know how to do yet.”
Bob: “I know. This will give us a timeline and force us to do it. If we’re going to move ahead on this, we have to do it.”
We are different. The upside of my cheapness is that we don’t waste a lot of money under my system. The downside is that sometimes I don’t get things done. The upside of Bob’s system is that he pushes himself toward completing tasks. The downside is that we have a lot of unused products sitting around. Somewhere in the middle is a balance. He would have wasted more money without my input. I would be even further behind without his.
How about you and your spouse? How are you different? Where do those differences cause irritations? Is there another way of looking at the situation? Is there a better result you can achieve by balancing your two perspectives? We think there is.
