Talking About Gear Purchases With the Significant Other

[DOSS BS-1]

Hold up. I thought that "Judgenabling" was like, the entire purpose of BILF???

I want you to buy stuff and I want you to feel bad about it.

LOL. Don't worry, that happens plenty. Maybe next BILF we can have a category for "regrettable purchases board".

My wife is totally cool with things as long as they come in small boxes. Seven $200 pedals is no problem. One $600 guitar and it's like "HEY WHAT'S GOING ON HERE???"

[Jwar]

OMFG! Regrettable purchase board will have all pedals on it! LOL!!!!


It's the money usually that makes me regret. hahahaha

However, you could just do a board with a single Luck Duck pedal on it. I'm sure that purchase would be regretted instantly.

[cantremember]

My wife is so patient. She listens to me talk about whatever rando gear I’m lusting after, and usually helps me decide whether I actually need it or if I’m just shopping because I’m bored. Usually I’m just bored

It’s interesting hearing all you folks who have separate finances. For simplicity, we joined our finances together relatively early on. So, each month we have our separate fun money budgets (the same amount for both of us). If we want to spend more than one month’s worth we can save up.

That's exactly what we do and I find it way less stressful than having separate finances. It's much easier to plan for the future when we can see all our savings in the same place.

Same here. Its actually a lot easier for us to save money this way. I don't even have access (forgot the password, got locked out and never bothered calling the bank to fix it) to see where we are on funds I usually just ask her if we're cool. I usually had money in my paypal because I would sell stuff but that has recently changed with reverb switching things up. Now I tell her I have cash coming in and I'm about to blow it haha. She never asks about what I'm buying and probably doesn't care.

[starmansam]

My wife loves vintage stuff, and is always stalking etsy/ebay/poshmark in the same way that I'm constantly trawling through reverb/ebay/etc. we've got a shorthand for it at this point.
"hey, what are looking at?"
"...scrollin'"
"oh ok."
and that's either of us.
there's not much follow up after that because she knows that if she starts talking to me about the furniture they have in colonial williamsburgh, then I'll rebut with some nonsense about aluminum necked guitars or cool preamps, which she'd definitely like to avoid happening as much as I'd like to avoid hearing about antiques.

she loves my verellen though. I've tried to sell it a couple of times (due to being in an apartment) and she's decided its a cool status symbol like a fancy handbag so I'm not allowed to get rid of it. shrug. I guess I'll get to crank it again someday once we land in a house

[frigid midget]

I'm super nitpicky and concious about my gear purchases. Or at least the bigger ones. Or all electronics purchases for that matter. I think my wife knows that from watching me reading a zillion of reviews before buying some random kitchen appliance or whatever.

And I think she's aware that I kinda run a tight ship. I won't justify keeping a $250 pedal around if it never gets used. Or I'll replace one of my favorite pedals with a cheaper equally good alternative, just to save a couple bucks on the trade.

And at the same time, the other reason why she doesn't nag about my growing pile of pedals, is that she spends good pedal money on clothes and shoes nshit.

There needs to be balance in The Force

[goosekevin]

my partner encourages me to buy more gear all the time - 'hey you know how you've been really depressed lately? buy something to make you feel good! do you need a new pedal?'
also loves to hear me talk about gear and asks me a lot about pedals and things.
very in love and lucky!

[fcknoise]

my partner encourages me to buy more gear all the time - 'hey you know how you've been really depressed lately? buy something to make you feel good! do you need a new pedal?'
also loves to hear me talk about gear and asks me a lot about pedals and things.
very in love and lucky!

[oldangelmidnight]

Wife: Are you having fun with your weird noises?
Me: Yes.
Her: I'm glad.

I haven't ever gotten into the weeds about which glitch pedal does the best reverse or whatever because I don't think she'd care.

I have my own money for gear/fun purchases and don't feel compelled to report on that. The balance on that is usually a couple of hundred dollars in the black but sometimes gets pretty low.
Shortly after Covid came to town, I found a guitar for sale that I love but didn't have the money for. I mentioned it to my wife and she said just buy it with household money. We don't have to worry about money and I said I'd sell off another guitar to pay it back. I'm grateful that she doesn't give a crap and I have all of you to talk about the details with.

[backwardsvoyager]

Neither my partner nor I communicate with each other in our first language(s), so actually explaining what any of the shit I buy does is really difficult (and the process of trying to do so tends to make me reconsider why I even need it )

She's actively encouraging when I buy things in her favourite colours, and likes drawing pictures and stuff that I'm in the process of turning into stickers to put all over my gear.

Wholly disinterested in the technical aspects but happily listens when I can't help but ramble about why flangers need to be in purple enclosures, or the respective benefits of offset and reverse offset guitar shapes. That's all I could ever ask for.

my partner encourages me to buy more gear all the time - 'hey you know how you've been really depressed lately? buy something to make you feel good! do you need a new pedal?'
also loves to hear me talk about gear and asks me a lot about pedals and things.
very in love and lucky!

This is wholesome and nice

[K2000]

Nice thread that didn't go in the direction I was expecting it to go.

I'm single, but one aspect I've seen people mention when shopping for new practice amps: SAF (spousal approval factor).

[coldbrightsunlight]

Ms Dos

Somehow the best bit of the thread never got celebrated though.

[John Matrix]

Sometimes when my wife has trouble falling asleep she will ask me to tell her about gear. Works like a charm.

[coldbrightsunlight]

[Lurker13]

I'm just going to say that I'm envious of those of you with understanding SOs. My ex-wife was not at all understanding of music gear.

[Lurker13]

Initially I think my girlfriend was worried after we moved in together and she witnessed the pedal pile multiplying but now she just asks lots of questions about them because she knows they keep me sane.

She is getting savvy though and will say things like "another HM-2 clone?? you haven't gotten a delay in awhile..." so there has developed this mix of judging and also enabling I guess?

Ha, she's judging your gear collection based on functionality - that's awesome!