GTKY What big purchase would help your relationship?

simplyelise

Someday, I'd love for us to get a king size bed. Preferably made out of that material where you can drop the bowling ball on one end and the wine glass doesn't spill. Or a sleep number. 

Both are crazy expensive and we can't really justify it seeing as how we have a decent queen bed now. But gosh, I can barely remember those nights four months ago when I slept peacefully without DH's weird jerky movements!

What big purchase would help your relationship? (Doesn't have to be realistic!)

Maybe it's a cleaning service or laundry service so you don't squabble over chores. Or maybe it's a basement build-out so your partner/you has/have somewhere for a hobby. Or a second garage space so you don't have to fight over one spot. I want to here em!

noffgurl

Memory foam mattress definitely, I have a hard time sleeping on the one we have (its probably 10 years old or so). But we went to a hotel not too long ago with memory foam and oh my goodness, best sleep of our lives.

lifeonthehill

Cleaning service. 

We are both really busy. We get the house work done on Sundays together and we don't argue. It works well but rather than spending that 2+ hours with each other we are running back and forth trying to clean and wrangle the animals away from anything that has cleaner on it at the time.

It isn't major but it would be so nice!    

Xstatic3333

A second bathroom, for sure.  It would make our mornings much easier.  We don't really fight about this yet but I know it will be much harder with kids.  This is technically doable, but will need to wait a few years.

A second computer would also help.  Our current computer is "mine" that was a graduation gift from my parents.  H doesn't want to get one of his own until he can get a MacBook Pro, but it's been hard to make that a financial priority (see my recent car thread).  We do squabble over the computer a bit.  

smbenevides1989

I wish we could buy a house, like yesterday. I live with my family, and while there are no issues since we all get along (DH calls my parents his parents and tell them everything), we would love to have a place to call our own. It's on our 5 year timeline (hopefully sooner than 3 years, but we will see). 

I don't know what else we could benefit from... 

MissChanandlerBong

A house. I am the financial planner in the relationship, and we are not financially ready to buy a home, but we are tired of renting where we are. He just wants to move to our own place, no neighbors, have a garage, etc. I absolutely want that too but we're just not ready yet. He understands but I think feels a little like I'm holding us back. We'll get there someday! 

jessica490

MissChanandlerBong said:

A house. I am the financial planner in the relationship, and we are not financially ready to buy a home, but we are tired of renting where we are. He just wants to move to our own place, no neighbors, have a garage, etc. I absolutely want that too but we're just not ready yet. He understands but I think feels a little like I'm holding us back. We'll get there someday! 

Ditto this exactly!! Luckily this will be happening for us this year but my other choices would be:

1. A man cave for H to watch his sports in ( I want nothing to do with that)

2. A hot tub for myself so I can sit in it every night, all night and just relax! I LOVE hot tubs!

CuriousKiddosMama

A third stall added onto our garage. We don't have room so this will never happen, but I know DH compromised when we bought this house. That was big on his list so he had a man cave and work room. Now he settles for his man cave being the media room and pulling a car out of the garage when he wants to work.

lifeonthehill

AprilH81 said:

A cook and/or cleaning service would be freaking amazing.  No more "what do you want for dinner" or "I cooked you clean" or frustrations over laundry being left in a basket for a week before it gets folded and put away.

This has been a pet peeve of mine for YEARS! The deal is that I will wash and dry and leave his stuff in a basket by the bed. I do fold his work pants so they don't wrinkle. If I "nag'' him long enough he will put it all away but then we fight about nagging and about me wanting a cleaner home and him thinking if it bothers me I should do it. Holy Crow. I hated laundry.

A few weeks ago I deep cleaned the closet and moved things around so now his basket is in the closet. It has a mountain of laundry but it is out of sight so we haven't even mentioned it again.

Problem Solved!

maple2

We already splurge on a cleaning service, which is definitely good for our relationship. If we got a second splurge, it would probably be a monthly babysitter and night out or an annual child-free vacation.

formerlyGDaisy09

Cleaning service, for sure! I care more about things being clean, but I work almost twice as much as H when you count all the hours that go towards volunteering.  Most spats center around basic house keeping things. 

hoffse

AprilH81 said:

A cook and/or cleaning service would be freaking amazing.  No more "what do you want for dinner" or "I cooked you clean" or frustrations over laundry being left in a basket for a week before it gets folded and put away.

Agreed 100%.  H really likes to cook, so the cooking thing isn't a big deal.  But he's a messy cook, and I hate to have the kitchen be a mess.  We also both hate doing laundry so it tends to pile up.  It would be so nice if our time together wasn't spent cleaning!

I'm seriously considering getting a cleaning service if/when we have kids.  I think that would be money well-spent for our sanity.

CuriousKiddosMama

Adding to my answer.... Day care! We are doing a mommies day out program 2 half days a week next school year. I'm excited to have time to go to the gym, and to be able to get cleaning stuff done without having to rush over nap or stop a million times to keep LO away from the cleaning products. It's going to be $200 well spent every month.

vlagrl29

vikingsfan711 said:

Adding to my answer.... Day care! We are doing a mommies day out program 2 half days a week next school year. I'm excited to have time to go to the gym, and to be able to get cleaning stuff done without having to rush over nap or stop a million times to keep LO away from the cleaning products. It's going to be $200 well spent every month.

ugh, I miss naps.  DD never takes them anymore and it's a fight just to get her to do quiet time

vlagrl29

we have a king sized mattress and it's the best!  For me - probably a finished off basement so I could throw all of DD's toys down there.

als1982

Another bathroom. We only have one - tiny - one that offers very little, ahem, privacy. And there's always a battle in the morning over who goes first.

We had a twice monthly cleaning service during the first six months of marriage. It was nice but we couldn't justify it with our current debt load. Maybe when our student loans are gone in 2016...

I have recently started taking H's cotton collared shirts to be dry cleaned. (My stuff has to go already anyways.) It's less then $15 a week and saves him 20 minutes a day in ironing. Totally worth it.

vlagrl29

als1982 said:

Another bathroom. We only have one - tiny - one that offers very little, ahem, privacy. And there's always a battle in the morning over who goes first. We had a twice monthly cleaning service during the first six months of marriage. It was nice but we couldn't justify it with our current debt load. Maybe when our student loans are gone in 2016... I have recently started taking H's cotton collared shirts to be dry cleaned. (My stuff has to go already anyways.) It's less then $15 a week and saves him 20 minutes a day in ironing. Totally worth it.

we do the same with DH's dress shirts.  I would be the one having to iron and I have enough stuff on my hands as it is.

Wulfgar

MW would love a larger house, the bad thing, is that in our area, to get a four bedroom house you are usually looking at 150k for a small one but the average is closer to 200k plus.

For me, I would just be happy to update our kitchen, water proof the basement, and make the attic a man-cave or master bedroom.

MommyLiberty5013

This is super vain, but I'd like a plastic surgery procedure to fix my belly after 3 kids in 4 years. I'm really flabby. It's my own fault.

vlagrl29

MommyLiberty5013 said:

This is super vain, but I'd like a plastic surgery procedure to fix my belly after 3 kids in 4 years. I'm really flabby. It's my own fault.

lol - not vain at all.  I've only had 1 kid and the mom pooch is a fact of life.  I'm not flabby and have gotten rid of 90% of the baby fat but I don't think it all ever goes away.  I can't believe I'm gonna have to go thru all that work again, but its what we have to do to have more kids.

HoneyBee973

A one family house, with a 2 car garage that has a built in car lift in it.  DH does most maintenance on our cars him self.  Oil changes, brakes, tire rotation.  A car lift would make his life much easier.  He would be able to do the job in half the time, and be less cranky by the time he's done with it.

Kahlyla

MommyLiberty5013 said:

This is super vain, but I'd like a plastic surgery procedure to fix my belly after 3 kids in 4 years. I'm really flabby. It's my own fault.

Oh my, this is a really good one! I would love to do the same; although it wouldn't change my husband's perception of me, it would have an impact on my own confidence.

For us it would be a hot tub. We have two young kids and don't get out to date much, but with a hot tub I feel like we could retreat to the backyard with a monitor and have kind of an intimate date. I find a lot of great conversations tend to happen in hot tubs, even just with friends. To be honest any kind of anti-mosquito infrastructure for our yard would be a nice treat. We have saltmarsh mosquitoes here and there are times when I'd love to be outside hacking brush or enjoying a fire with my husband but just can't.

I can say that our king-size memory foam mattress was a fantastic investment, and not that expensive actually - Costco mattress and IKEA bed. We also treated ourselves to a massage table (about $300 from Costco) and that has been pretty awesome too.

eta: Thought of something else - Rock Band and some sort of console system to play it, lol. We've played plenty on my sister-in-law's system and LOVE it, and it's actually kind of cool to create a virtual band with us as characters and play and sing in front of each other. But we don't own any consoles at the moment even though we do lots of PC gaming.

hoffse

Kahlyla said:

MommyLiberty5013 said:

This is super vain, but I'd like a plastic surgery procedure to fix my belly after 3 kids in 4 years. I'm really flabby. It's my own fault.

Oh my, this is a really good one! I would love to do the same; although it wouldn't change my husband's perception of me, it would have an impact on my own confidence.

For us it would be a hot tub. We have two young kids and don't get out to date much, but with a hot tub I feel like we could retreat to the backyard with a monitor and have kind of an intimate date. I find a lot of great conversations tend to happen in hot tubs, even just with friends. To be honest any kind of anti-mosquito infrastructure for our yard would be a nice treat. We have saltmarsh mosquitoes here and there are times when I'd love to be outside hacking brush or enjoying a fire with my husband but just can't.

I can say that our king-size memory foam mattress was a fantastic investment, and not that expensive actually - Costco mattress and IKEA bed. We also treated ourselves to a massage table (about $300 from Costco) and that has been pretty awesome too.

eta: Thought of something else - Rock Band and some sort of console system to play it, lol. We've played plenty on my sister-in-law's system and LOVE it, and it's actually kind of cool to create a virtual band with us as characters and play and sing in front of each other. But we don't own any consoles at the moment even though we do lots of PC gaming.

We got the Costco mattress too.  It's awesome.

simplyelise

hoffse said:

Kahlyla said:

MommyLiberty5013 said:

This is super vain, but I'd like a plastic surgery procedure to fix my belly after 3 kids in 4 years. I'm really flabby. It's my own fault.

Oh my, this is a really good one! I would love to do the same; although it wouldn't change my husband's perception of me, it would have an impact on my own confidence.

For us it would be a hot tub. We have two young kids and don't get out to date much, but with a hot tub I feel like we could retreat to the backyard with a monitor and have kind of an intimate date. I find a lot of great conversations tend to happen in hot tubs, even just with friends. To be honest any kind of anti-mosquito infrastructure for our yard would be a nice treat. We have saltmarsh mosquitoes here and there are times when I'd love to be outside hacking brush or enjoying a fire with my husband but just can't.

I can say that our king-size memory foam mattress was a fantastic investment, and not that expensive actually - Costco mattress and IKEA bed. We also treated ourselves to a massage table (about $300 from Costco) and that has been pretty awesome too.

eta: Thought of something else - Rock Band and some sort of console system to play it, lol. We've played plenty on my sister-in-law's system and LOVE it, and it's actually kind of cool to create a virtual band with us as characters and play and sing in front of each other. But we don't own any consoles at the moment even though we do lots of PC gaming.

We got the Costco mattress too.  It's awesome.

Looks interesting! Unfortunately the closest Costco to us is 2 hours away. Our community would be a great fit for one, so I'm hoping we get one in the next few years. It was a big deal that now we have an Ikea 2 hours away instead of 6+!

I think we'll probably try to get a king size memory foam after we buy a house. It wouldn't be a great fit in the apartment now and we've got a full size already in the guest bedroom. 

hoffse

simplyelise said:

hoffse said:

Kahlyla said:

MommyLiberty5013 said:

This is super vain, but I'd like a plastic surgery procedure to fix my belly after 3 kids in 4 years. I'm really flabby. It's my own fault.

Oh my, this is a really good one! I would love to do the same; although it wouldn't change my husband's perception of me, it would have an impact on my own confidence.

For us it would be a hot tub. We have two young kids and don't get out to date much, but with a hot tub I feel like we could retreat to the backyard with a monitor and have kind of an intimate date. I find a lot of great conversations tend to happen in hot tubs, even just with friends. To be honest any kind of anti-mosquito infrastructure for our yard would be a nice treat. We have saltmarsh mosquitoes here and there are times when I'd love to be outside hacking brush or enjoying a fire with my husband but just can't.

I can say that our king-size memory foam mattress was a fantastic investment, and not that expensive actually - Costco mattress and IKEA bed. We also treated ourselves to a massage table (about $300 from Costco) and that has been pretty awesome too.

eta: Thought of something else - Rock Band and some sort of console system to play it, lol. We've played plenty on my sister-in-law's system and LOVE it, and it's actually kind of cool to create a virtual band with us as characters and play and sing in front of each other. But we don't own any consoles at the moment even though we do lots of PC gaming.

We got the Costco mattress too.  It's awesome.

Looks interesting! Unfortunately the closest Costco to us is 2 hours away. Our community would be a great fit for one, so I'm hoping we get one in the next few years. It was a big deal that now we have an Ikea 2 hours away instead of 6+!

I think we'll probably try to get a king size memory foam after we buy a house. It wouldn't be a great fit in the apartment now and we've got a full size already in the guest bedroom. 

Yeah we waited until we had a house before we bought it, but it's been a huge (amazing) change.  We both sleep much better.

I'm pretty sure Costco delivers...  The one we have is the Novaform.  It gets really good reviews on CR.  It's been the "best budget buy" in previous years.

noffgurl

Does anyone have any experience with downgrading the size of your bed? We have a king size right now and it fits, but we want to upgrade the bed and mattress at some point and are thinking of going to a queen. Queen stuff is a little bit cheaper for one thing, and it would give us some more room in the bedroom. But, during the winter I don't mind sleeping so close, but during 100*+ summers and my husband being a human furnace, I am not sure if I can handle it.

brij2006

A California king size bed would be amazing in our house!  H is 6'5 and a bigger guy.  He takes up way too much space in our queen.

We've said we would love a sleep number since he likes the bed soft, and I like it hard.

hoffse

noffgurl said:

Does anyone have any experience with downgrading the size of your bed? We have a king size right now and it fits, but we want to upgrade the bed and mattress at some point and are thinking of going to a queen. Queen stuff is a little bit cheaper for one thing, and it would give us some more room in the bedroom. But, during the winter I don't mind sleeping so close, but during 100*+ summers and my husband being a human furnace, I am not sure if I can handle it.

I mean, I love my H but he needs to stay as far away from me as possible when we sleep. We can sleep on queens, but it's not great.  Our sleep improved dramatically with a king.

Memory foam also tends to retain heat.

Not going to lie, I'm sort of a fan of the days when people had two separate beds in the same room.

brij2006

hoffse said:

noffgurl said:

Does anyone have any experience with downgrading the size of your bed? We have a king size right now and it fits, but we want to upgrade the bed and mattress at some point and are thinking of going to a queen. Queen stuff is a little bit cheaper for one thing, and it would give us some more room in the bedroom. But, during the winter I don't mind sleeping so close, but during 100*+ summers and my husband being a human furnace, I am not sure if I can handle it.

I mean, I love my H but he needs to stay as far away from me as possible when we sleep. We can sleep on queens, but it's not great.  Our sleep improved dramatically with a king.

Memory foam also tends to retain heat.

Not going to lie, I'm sort of a fan of the days when people had two separate beds in the same room.

That I could get behind. 
We've joked about 3 beds.  1 big enough for sex and cuddling, then 1 for each of us separately for those nights we just want to sprawl out and have good sleep.  It sounds amazing to me.

formerlyGDaisy09

brij2006 said:

A California king size bed would be amazing in our house!  H is 6'5 and a bigger guy.  He takes up way too much space in our queen.

We've said we would love a sleep number since he likes the bed soft, and I like it hard.

funny story about a sleep number! my parents thought they had different sleeping preferences, they had a water bed that my mom loved, but didn't give my dad enough support, so they replaced it with an ultra-firm mattress that my dad liked and my mom hated. they got a sleepnumber and after the few months of adjustments they both ended up on the same number.  they love the bed, but are now wishing they hadn't spent quite so much and had gotten a memory foam or something similar since they actually like the same firmness. 

formerlyGDaisy09

hoffse said:

noffgurl said:

Does anyone have any experience with downgrading the size of your bed? We have a king size right now and it fits, but we want to upgrade the bed and mattress at some point and are thinking of going to a queen. Queen stuff is a little bit cheaper for one thing, and it would give us some more room in the bedroom. But, during the winter I don't mind sleeping so close, but during 100*+ summers and my husband being a human furnace, I am not sure if I can handle it.

I mean, I love my H but he needs to stay as far away from me as possible when we sleep. We can sleep on queens, but it's not great.  Our sleep improved dramatically with a king.

Memory foam also tends to retain heat.

Not going to lie, I'm sort of a fan of the days when people had two separate beds in the same room.

we spent money on one of the serta icomfort memory foam beds...it's gel infused memory foam, it does not retain heat. we put flannel sheets and tons of blankets on in the winter and niether of us have sweating problems. the cheaper memory foams, even tempurpedic have heat retention problems. 

We bought our king sized the day we closed on our house 3 years ago (we were less money smart then) and arranged to have it delivered on move-in day. we financed it on a 0% for 18 months offer (paid it off in 11 months). Honestly if you're spending 1/3 of your life (assuming you average 8 hours a night) in your bed it should be an investment.