When we were young and overflowing with love, I tried to impress her with a dinner outing. She had said yes to me not long ago and the man in me wanted to flex his ego. I took her to a restaurant and when flipping through the menu she complained of everything being expensive. I told her, “We don’t do this every day. Let’s forget about the price and spoil ourselves tonight.”

For several minutes she couldn’t choose. “Should I help you to choose?” I asked. She didn’t answer at first until she later told me, “This much can prepare a whole meal for three people for two days. I feel guilty wasting it just in a night.”

My words couldn’t nudge her to choose just anything so when the waitress arrived to take our order, I ordered for her. She enjoyed the meal, I could see it on her face. The ambience was made for lovers. While we chewed, I looked inside my heart, looking for the right words to say, “I love you.”

We dated for a year but that became our last date night. She didn’t encourage it. She called it a waste of money. “We should save what we waste today for future use.” She advised and I agreed.

We got married a year later, got pregnant a couple of months after marriage and just when we were about to settle into marriage, I had an opportunity to travel abroad to study for my master’s. Everything in life is hard but leaving a fresh bride behind to travel for two years was harder. We prayed about it and later decided it was a good thing. My wife had a good job she was doing. Until the pregnancy, she was also preparing to do her master’s.

I left the country and the family in her hands with promises to study and return home as soon as I was done with the program. Instead of two years, I stayed for three years. I was learning and working so I didn’t have to return empty-handed.

My wife called one day and told me she needed an iPhone. She wasn’t the type to be making such demands so when she did, I figured she really needed it. I told her I would be coming soon, “When coming, I will bring you the latest one, don’t worry at all.”

At one point, I changed my mind. A year sounded too far to keep a wife waiting so I sent her money to buy the phone herself. It was enough to get her the latest iPhone then. She was happy and to make a wife happy is every husband’s desire. A year later, I came back home to see her using a Techno phone. I was like, “Babe, what happened to your iPhone? Did you lose it or it was snatched at Circle? She laughed. “This is what I got and I’ve been using it for close to a year so it’s a good phone.”

“I mean the iPhone. The one I sent you money to buy.”

“I didn’t buy it. I couldn’t look in the face of God and use all that money to buy a phone. It’s just a phone.”

I didn’t have to look far to be a witness of “It’s just a…” in the lives of my family. Our child was a boy. His shoes were just a pair of shoes. His school bag was just a school bag. He didn’t have toys, because they were just toys and a child didn’t need to toy with things else he would grow up and toy with the feelings of women.

I was home and ready to make a change. The idea wasn’t about living outside our means but instead, living a dignified life within our means. It’s different when you can’t afford something and buying cheap when you can afford better is sickening.

It started with what we ate at home. She didn’t come home with whole tomatoes. She bought cracked ones. To her, it’s the same tomatoes but cheaper. She’ll come home with tomato juice dripping off the bag. “Didn’t you get fresh whole tomatoes to buy?” I would ask. She would answer, these are also fresh ooo. They are just cracked and cheaper. We are using it as soon as possible so why waste money on the other ones? It’s just tomatoes.”

You should know how a woman was raised to understand the way she thinks, the way she goes about her life and the decisions she makes. I knew her home and I knew how she was raised. They were not poor. Her father was an educationist and her mother was a nurse. They lived in a beautiful house but cut corners with their expenditure because, to them, savings are what save a man’s life. My wife was just a reflection of how things used to be in her house.

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I couldn’t tell her the prices of things I brought home. I could buy a GHC100 shoe for our son and tell my wife I bought it for GHC20. Because if I told her the right price, she would nag for days and might not allow the boy to wear the shoes anyhow. So instead of training her to open up, I was rather closing up just to make her happy. And she’s the type who would ask the price of things immediately after you take them home. To her, value was nothing. Price was everything.

I changed the TV in our room.

“How much?”

“A little over GHC5,000”

“For just a TV?”

I changed the carpet and changed the sofas.

She screamed about the prices and told me we would die poor if I didn’t change my spending habits.

I bought a new fridge and changed the cooker. She screamed, “If we continue like that, what will we leave for our children? We’ll be poor and they’ll be poor too.”

There’s something I learned while abroad. They say if you can’t buy it thrice, you can’t afford it. That’s the measure of affordability for me and I wasn’t overspending. There’s nothing right about eating ants when you can afford the elephant. It’s stinginess.

I had to spend on her for her to learn how to spend on herself. I would buy her a perfume she loves. Once it’s finished, she would love to own the same thing again. She would have to buy it herself. It was slow but she was picking up. We went out often as a family. She paid for a playground for our kid. She complained but once our boy didn’t want to leave the playground because he was enjoying it, she was happy. We learned how to travel as a family. She complained that I couldn’t bring the abroad lifestyle here but soon learned it was a good exercise for the family.

I showed her a wig advert on Facebook. Honestly, I’m not a fan of wigs but you don’t have to be a fan to know what my wife was wearing wasn’t the right deal. I said, “This will look good on you, don’t you think so?” She went through all of them and pointed at the ones she thought would fit. I said, “Get them. What are you waiting for?” She laughed. “Do you know how expensive they are, call and ask the price.”

We did the call together. They were truly expensive. If I were a woman, I wouldn’t buy them for myself. For once, I agreed with her that something was expensive and beyond our means. Days later, I came home from work to see her standing in front of the mirror, trying something on. I thought it was the dress but it didn’t look new until she turned and asked, “Does it fit my face, the wig?”

“How much did you get that for?”

“It was on sale. I could afford it so I bought it. Does it look good on me?”

“Of course it does. And it’s different from all you have.”

From that day, I knew she was home with me. It didn’t just buy a wig. She made a statement. We won’t starve today and look forward to a tomorrow that may never come. We’ll buy what we can afford. We’ll save what we can afford to save. Balance is important, living within your means. We won’t starve and live poor just because we are scared of tomorrow. My father left us a big house. When he was alive, he lived for the future of his children. It wasn’t a bad thing but guess what, none of his children live in that house. We don’t want it.

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She’s not all out, my wife. Old habit takes forever to die. She still buys those types of tomatoes when I’m not looking. The most important thing is, she gets the idea. That we don’t have to suffer in the name of suffering sake when we can afford the things that can make us comfortable.

—Hanson

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