A North Carolina couple sets the mood for poring over budgets by eating dinner at a fancy steakhouse, a practice dubbed a “money date” by financial advisors. The idea is to carve out time for the sort of conversations couples dread by making it an event to look forward to.
The Wall Street Journal
It was either Oliver Wendell Holmes or Yogi Berra who called the common law a “brooding omnipresence in the sky,” but either way, I think they got it wrong. It’s quarterly tax payments that loom over our financial situation like a dark cloud.
Real estate taxes in our little exurb are the highest in the state, thanks to an anti-business policy favored by residents who, on the whole, would rather drive ten miles away to shop than have an unsightly strip mall spoiling our New England quaintness. With no commercial tax base, the burden falls more heavily on homeowners.
And then there’s estimated state and federal taxes which, because I’m technically self-employed, aren’t deducted from my pay every two weeks, like ordinary working stiffs. Despite our state’s reputation as “Taxachusetts,” the bite out of our disposable income from the IRS is much harder, I guess because Massachusetts doesn’t have to pay for aircraft carriers and fighter jets–the really cool stuff that the feds buy.
But all this is water off a duck’s back to me. I have to get up and go to work every day regardless, so why complain? My wife, on the other hand, does the bookkeeping and so watches our (read: my) income fly out the door with every check she writes.
“We have quarterly taxes coming due,” she will say, like clock-work, or maybe calendar-work, four times a year.
“Again?” I’ll reply facetiously. “Why can’t they invent a year with only three quarters?”
“Are you going to bring in any more money by the 15th?”
“You know, I resent the fact that they’re due quarterly, then they chop off the last two weeks and make you pay early.”
“I don’t like to be this low on cash.”
“We should do what it suggests in The Wall Street Journal,” I said, holding up the paper to prove I wasn’t reading the sports section.
“The ‘Daily Diary of the American Dream’?”
“That’s the one. Look at this article–it says when you have to make financial decisions, you should go out for a fancy dinner!”
“Let me look at that,” she said as she snatched the paper from my hands. “Hmph. Well, I suppose if it’s in the Journal . . .”
“We should get ‘dressed to the nines’ and go out to the most expensive restaurant in town!”
“It seems counter-intuitive to me,” she says.
“Frankly, I’m disappointed in you,” I say after audibly clucking my tongue. “You were the one who studied Keynesian economics in college.”
“I did . . . but what’s that have to do with eating out at a pricey restaurant when we have big bills to pay.”
“He said–‘In the long run we are all dead’–so why worry about a trifling little thing like next month’s Mastercard or VISA bill?”
“Well, it doesn’t sound right to me, but you’re the one who has to work for it so–your call I guess.”
“Great–let’s get dressed.”
For some reason it takes me less time to make myself presentable for a fancy restaurant than my wife, who had lots more clothes than I do, and a smaller body mass. I was already out in the car, chomping at the figurative bit, and getting a bit impatient. Finally I couldn’t restrain myself any longer, and went back inside to see what the hell was taking so long.
“Would you hurry up?” I shouted up the stairs. “I want to go spend some money.”
“I’m coming, I just need you to do my necklace.” Always a tender moment, this fiddling with tiny jewelry clasps, and it made me think sentimental thoughts.
“You know, you really should go get yourself some more expensive gewgaws.”
“What’s a gewgaw?”
“A bibelot.”
“Can you stop with the synonyms and just tell me?”
“Jewelry–we aren’t going to work our way out of our current financial problems with a simple strand of pearls, however tasteful it might be.”
“Well, if you insist, I’ll go shopping Monday.”
“Great! But for now, let’s go blow some dough on an unhealthy steak dinner!”
Our local watering hole attracts the creme de la creme of the upper crust of our town: the local zoning attorney, who flits from table to table handing out his card, hoping to land a demolition permit or a variance for an oversize jungle gym; the dads who stay-at-home not to watch their kids, but the invested proceeds they made when they sold their start-ups during the last financial mania; the dowager heiresses of fortunes made in industries that have long since been sent offshore to India or China, like shoes.
Because we hadn’t planned on eating out we don’t have a reservation so I discreetly ask the maitre d’ (actually, I guess she’s a matitresse d’) how long a wait to get a table for two.
“It will be . . . about an hour,” she says, looking at me as if I’m a pat of butter someone dropped on the floor.
“Perhaps,” I say, as I palm a $100 bill from my wallet, “you overlooked that table–there,” and point to a “high-top” with a view of the roaring fireplace.
“Why, you’re right . . . so I did,” she says as stuffs the Benjamin in her bra. “Walk this way.”
Since it’s a special “Money Date” night I spare my wife the pain of the million “If I could walk that way” jokes I’ve collected over the years, and we take our seats.
“If you don’t like this place, why did you want to eat here?” my wife asks as she eyes the menu.
“Because it’s the most expensive one around–so it has to be the best!”
“I don’t know what’s come over you all of a sudden,” she says, shaking her head as looks at the prices. “You’ve always been a penny-pincher.”
“And picker-upper,” I remind her. “See a penny, pick it up/All the day you’ll have good luck.”
“We’ll need more than a single penny next week,” she says grimly. “By my count one million five hundred thousand, to be exact.
The waiter arrives and asks if we want “still” or bottled water.
“Which is more expensive?” I ask, being the financial wizard that I am.
“The still water is free,” the waiter sniffs. “Prices on the bottled water range from $1 per glass to $11 for the bottle.”
“We’ll take a bottle of your best, my good man,” I say.
“Very good. Would you care to order drinks now?”
“I’ll have a glass of oaky chardonnay,” my wife says.
“And for you, sir?”
“I don’t usually drink scotch, but do you have some obscure single-malt that runs about $25 a glass.”
“The Glenmorangie Macklowe Dalmore is slightly higher than that.”
“Good–pour me a double!”
“Honey, you’re running up quite a bill!” my wife says as the waiter departs. It’s time for what high-powered business types call a “Come to Jesus” moment, even though I seem to recall Jesus having a soft spot in his heart for the poor.
“Are you on board with our new financial regimen or not?” I say, lowering my voice to a radiator-like hiss so as not to disturb other diners with our little domestic economic disagreement.
“Well, sure, if it means we can get off the hamster-wheel of always playing catch-up with our finances.”
“You know the old saying–you’ve got to spend money to make money.”
“And?”
“I’m just thinking about our future when I spend all our money in the present.”
The real question is, who can afford a fancy steakhouse?
I don’t like steak but my kids do, so we go to Smith & Wollensky when they’re home. Very overpriced but . . . wait a minute—there’s no “but” side of that equation.