Men Ask "What Did It Cost?"...Women Say "This Is What I Saved!"

“You saved $58.00,” the cashier said to me as she handed me the receipt for the cute summer dress.

“And that’s exactly what I tell my husband,” I replied.

She chuckled and we exchanged a knowing nod.

We each fully understood that this dress, marked down twice on clearance and then with a coupon tendered, was a total deal—it would almost be wrong not to have bought it.

Where men ask “What did it cost?” women say “This is what I saved…”

Somewhere into our second decade (yes, decade) of marriage my husband stopped trying to understand my logic when shopping. He stopped pointing out what I had to spend to save because he finally realized that my brain simply did not compute his logic.

Around the same time, I gave up trying to understand why he had 32 different kinds of string and dozens of power strips hanging on the pegboard in the basement. For me, what was most frustrating was that whenever we needed string—or a power strip—what we already owned “wasn’t the right kind.”

It made me crazy—and so for my own sanity’s sake, I had to finally stop staring at (and reminding him of) the numerous power strips and countless spools of string that we already owned but were never “right” for any job that needed a power strip or string.

Fortunately for our marriage, we each adopted a willingness to let go of that which seemed incomprehensible.

He no longer tries to understand why I have about 25 pairs of black leggings and I no longer try to understand why he has only one pair of lounge pants to wear on the weekend. (I can’t even tell you how many pairs of comfy pants I have purchased over the past 30 years that I’ve returned because he “doesn’t need them.”)

So next summer when I wear this adorable dress and he compliments me, I will tell him that I saved $58 and he will understand—not in a logical way of how I came up with that figure but in the way that makes our marriage work because he will know that saving all that money on the dress made me happy and, more importantly, that his power strips and string are safe on the pegboard in the basement.