The Wii game topic summary -
Her son was at her sister's house playing the Wii unsupervised in the basement.
Son is a bit clumsy with games and taking care of them.
Sister writes an email explaining that the son ruined one of the games during his time there.
OP implied that she would like to purchase the game for her own child for christmas, but if she has to replace the messed up one, then there would not be enough money to buy a second copy for her own son.
OP wanted to know if her sister was implying that she replace the game, or just tell her son not to play with any CD/Discs that may be at the aunt's house.
Of course, she had to bring up the whole, We're a family of 5, stay at home mom, tight budget, and she was going back to school. And then say how much "more" her sister has for her children.
I think the OP is jealous of her other family members and wants what they have. But through their life choices, they have not achieved what every one else has. I think making frequent trips to Disney or Orlando, even though doing it cheaply, she's still keeping up with what the rest of her family does. She needs to learn to be happy with what she has, and worry about what needs her kids will have in the future (like college funds). A big house, vacations every year, and whatever else she thinks she's withholding from her kids being kids are not the only things in life.
OP here again - quite a bit of summary you have provided. It's actually interesting to read this, because it helps me see the other side of a situation, so thank you.
Just a few quick comments - the Wii game situation is over. The big issue was not knowing if DS had actually broken the game (he says he did not) - because no one knows when the game was used. It was equally likely a neighbor (or rather, neighbor's daughter - toddler allowed to tear things apart) did it too. Regardless, it was not brought up again, and we supplied my sister with some items she needed from Sam's Club.
As to "bringing up the whole family of 5 - SAHM" thing - that has a lot to do with my family dynamics that no one on here could possibly know about. To clarify a bit, we made the choice to live rather modestly and have me stay home with the kids. My sister works, and receives free childcare from my mom (not offered to me - I asked once when I tried to take a p/t job and was turned down). My sister also had her first house essentially purchased for her, had tens of thousands of credit card debt paid off by my parents etc. It's a sore subject in our house, but just the way things are. But it certainly puts a slant on things. Is there some jealous - sure - it's a pretty unfair situation. Is it going to change? No.
I am a BIG TIME budgeter. Every penny is accounted for. If I had to replace a Wii game, the money needs to come from somewhere. Yes, it would come from the xmas budget (as it happened, we took it from the grocery budget) if DS did break the game. We do have an emergency fund, and college educations are taken care of (DH and I both work for colleges), and I do work p/t to bring in some extra income (work when DH can be home with the kids). We are on a cash-only system right now, and working to pay off the bit of cc debit we have leftover from some emergencies alst year.
I keep repeating this, but if there is any cc debt at all - WE WON'T BE GOING ON VACATION. Period. We're both in agreement with this. We will only go if we have cash to pay for it.
In reference to THIS thread, I did talk to my DH the other night when he got home from work. It seems our biggest communication failure is in how we define things. His concern is that we are very frugal, and therefore that means we don't have money. For example, my family likes to go out for dinner for each person's birthday - there's a lot of us, so a lot of birthdays, and it gets expensive to go out all the time. It's not something we normally do, so last year I mentioned that we would like to invite the entire family to our home for cake/coffee after their birthday dinners. They are all still welcome to go out, and we can still see them and celebrate with them, but we weren't locked into going to 11 expensive birthday dinners a year. I saw this as a budgeting move - my DH sees it as "pleading poverty."
It also seems it's more an issue of him specifically NOT wanting to do Disney simply because it's Disney and we've done it, rather than the money (since we both agree that we won't go anywhere if there is any debt and no cash).
But we were at a family wedding last night and his cousin started asking us about Disney (they are planning their first family trip) and DH started getting excited about it. He even asked his mom if she'd be interested in going this summer if we go.
So - in summation - budgets are written, Wii game is a non-issue, and vacation is only a possibility if debt is paid off. We still have a long time before June.
