My Wife Spends Over $1500 on Christmas Decorations Every Year – And Throws Them Away. I’m Fed Up. What Should I Do?

A Redditor (34M) shared his frustration over his wife’s habit of spending upwards of $1500 every year on new Christmas decorations, only to throw them away after New Year’s. Despite agreeing last year that she wouldn’t do it again, he recently found several new bags of decorations in the garage.

This has caused him to feel disgusted, especially considering their financial struggles and the waste involved. He’s now at a loss about what to do and is contemplating drastic measures like moving out. Read the original story below…

‘ My Wife Spends Over $1500 on Christmas Decorations Every Year – And Throws Them Away. I’m Fed Up. What Should I Do?’

Wife and I have been married 10 years, we have two kids 5 and 3. Wife is a good person but has no concept of money, budgeting and spending. I’ve gotten her following a pretty decent budget but she comes and blows her was during Xmas. I don’t mind her being generous to friends and family. It brings her joy and I appreciate that.

But what disgusts me is her “need” to spend money to decorate. Every single year she goes completely overboard and essentially buys an entire brand new set of Christmas decorations. Everything from tree holders to candle stands to ornaments. Every year it’s all brand new and every year she’s so exhausted by the end of the holiday to store and organize it all that she just throws it all away.

To best exemplify how it works let’s talk about stockings. She will go to target, see cute stockings buy four of them. Then she’ll go to world market and see even cuter stockings and she’ll buy four of them there. Then she’ll see one at Walmart which features lighting McQueen for my son and buy it and buy one for my daughter to be fair.

So we’ll have 10 new stockings for Xmas and all of them will be thrown in the garbage on January 2nd. The rub is my grandma hand made stockings for the entire family, so we don’t even need any, let alone 10. Replace stockings with any other Xmas item and that’s how it goes until we have $1500 at least in credit card bills for stuff that’s just going in the garbage.

Last year we couldn’t afford it all so we ended up paying interest until about April on her xmas purchases. I told her enough was enough and frankly I’m also sick of the amount of junk that were just sending to the land fill. We went over all the decorations we already have and how we could just use those. She agreed.

However I was getting ready for work (I work extra Saturday shifts in Novmeber and December to afford the holidays, another post I guess) and found two huge bags of all brand new Xmas decorations hidden in the garage. I would guess it’s $300-$500 worth of stuff. I’m so disgusted I can hardly see straight.

I’m up at 4:30 on a Saturday to work my ass off for stuff that were going to pay interest on that is going to give us 20 minutes of joy that will rot in the landfill. I feel exhausted and just want to get into bed and tell her to go work. What do I do here? Sitting in my truck really fighting the urge to go grab the kids and move into my moms house until we get to some resolution here.

Here’s what the community had to contribute:

fuzzay −  Throwing it all away in January actually disturbs me. What a wasteful world we live in.

KintsugiExp −  Me and my wife have a system: We do not buy ANYTHING regarding xmas decorations until January. The fever is gone, everything is dirt cheap. Yes, we buy everything and then we go store it directly in the garage, where it sits for ten months, but “unboxing” day is now a thing, we’re all in pajamas drinking cocoa and we re-discover all the crazy xmas stuff we bought a year ago.

lovelynoms −  I work with individuals with Hoarding Disorder, which isn’t what your wife has from the sounds of things, but there is a often a component of the compulsive acquiring, so I am going to give you some of the advice we often give family members. I would maybe send the kids to your mom’s so you two can have what will likely be a very emotional discussion.

Take a little time to calm down before you talk so you can be in control of yourself. What she’s done/doing is incredibly upsetting and you have every right to be angry, but the best chance of getting her to see what she’s doing, admit that she’s out of control, and agree to necessary actions is not to do things behind her back (i.e., return the items without her knowledge) or yell.

As a doctor, maybe you can try thinking of her as a patient? The fact that she’s hiding things in the garage is a sign (as someone else said) that she’s aware at least that you’d be upset and she’s going against her word, if not that what she’s doing is wrong or truly harmful. “Low insight” is the term used to describe lack of awareness of a person’s actions/behaviors being problematic.

If your wife is an otherwise considerate spouse, it’s likely that she’s got a combination of low insight and impulse control issues. If you are working extras shifts to “afford” the holidays, she is directly taxing you with her behavior and taking their dad-time away from your kids (as well as time you two could spend together).

This damage is what you want to focus on when you talk to her. She is having trouble seeing the consequences of her actions, definitely during the time she’s engaging in purchasing, but possibly after the fact as well. I would suggest sitting her down, telling her you saw (not “found” as that comes across as if you were looking and didn’t trust her,

something you don’t need to add to the mix) the bags in the garage. Ask her what they are. If she admits to what it is, you can move forward in the conversation. If it seems like she’s lying, ask her how she thinks it looks to you (don’t confront what she said directly) and how she thinks you should handle that. The idea is to make her walk in your shoes.

Remind her, gently, of the outcomes that result from her overshopping. Often people are aware of the consequences, but their brains aren’t putting much importance on it. Continually, gently, bringing those back into the conversation helps them to reframe their behavior as harmful. Ask her what she thinks you two should do about her behavior.

You’re a married team and she needs to understand that. If she doesn’t have a good plan, you can offer her a set of options too–different things suggested in the comments here–ranging from least to most restrictive. Let her say where she sits before you tell her where you sit. Explain your reasoning as gently as possible.

Remind her that right now you and the kids are the ones paying for her actions. Try to reach a comfortable compromise with a realistic plan. It’s also completely reasonable to suggest that since she went behind your back, things need to start out stricter while she gains your trust and move to to less restrictive with time.

Maybe suggest that you stop working the extra shifts to stay home with the kids on the weekend, and she gets a job where she can earn spending money for the things she wants because right now it sounds like she’s in a very powerless, consequence-less place. Her behavior may be masking depression, anxiety, or other things as well.

Getting some grounding and responsiblity may make her feel more like a partner in your finances. Overall, my message is to approach this as your wife _having_ a problem instead of _being_ a problem.

Try to help her understand that because she has a problem, you both have a problem, and that you need to fix it cooperatively.. Best of luck. Edit: Thank you to everyone for your kind words and thank you to whoever gave me my first gold! Second Edit: And silver! Thank you. 🙂

csForShort −  Are the receipts still in the bags? Return the stuff. Invite her to go along if you want, or return it yourself. But don’t just tell her to return it and expect it to happen.

DangerouslyMe007 −  You need to put your foot down harder. Cancel all credit cards. No more using credit cards. Keep one not in her name for an emergency. I understand your anger. If going to your mom’s with the kids will help you cool down, go for it.

Just remain calm in front of them and warn your wife you’ll be having a serious talk soon. Edit: some couple therapy may help you get the message through to her of the impact of her spending is doing to the relationship and the finances.

coldbloodednuts −  Buy her one of those prepaid gift cards for her personal spending. Totally cut her off from all access to any of your finances. Don’t throw those things in a landfill, donate them to the Salvation Army or Goodwill. Or, put a for free ad on CraigsList and let someone pick them up.

She is spending money outrageously to fill up a void in her life. She needs counseling or your marriage is going to be going to the landfill. You need to put your foot down and tell her that you’re ready to leave if she doesn’t agree to get professional help.

Dawn36 −  One of my friends went through something similar with his wife, it got pretty bad. The solution he took was to completely cut her off from all accounts. He removed her name from everything, and then gave her an allowance. She gets $X per month, with additional funds for various holiday/events.

It took a few months for her to adjust, but now she understands that she has a strict budget, and actually started taking work outside of the house (they have small children, so sahm). Seemed callous at the time, but she was hiding a lot of purchases, and the money was starting to impact their living situation, like actual missing mortgage payments.

kishi5 −  Are you sure that is the only thing she is splurging on?? I’d be very wary of other unknown spending if I was you!

[Reddit User] −  If you have to work extra shifts to fund her spending addiction, this is much bigger than just the decorations. Freeze all cards she has access to, drop the extra shifts, and tell her that individual and couples counseling is necessary or you’re considering leaving. She doesn’t just have an addiction…she doesn’t respect you.. Does she work?

jesuschin −  What do you do here?. You tell her this: I’m up at 4:30 on a Saturday to work my ass off for stuff that were going to pay interest on that is going to give us 20 minutes of joy that will rot in the landfill. I feel exhausted and just want to get into bed and tell her to go work.

This situation highlights the tension between personal values and financial realities in relationships. How would you address such a pattern of behavior in your partner? Have you faced similar challenges with spending or waste in your own life? Share your thoughts below.