Hunting... The financial side.

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Originally Posted by Zim

"As far as savings and financial stratagies go, when my wife and I got married, we decided that it would be in our best interest to keep separate checking accounts. Each month, we each place an agreed upon amount into a joint checking account for our joint monthly expenses like the mortgage and other bills. The rest of our money stays in our separate accounts. That way, I don't get bent when she spends our money on a stupid Coach purse, and she doesn't blow a gasket when I spend a bazillion dollars on elk and deer points."

OMG. For all you young guys out there, shoot for this deal from day one. My ex quit her job after the first kid and never looked back. We only had a joint account and she never deposited one dollar in there in 20 years. I had to pay 100% of the bills for her and our 3 kids plus myself. What a nightmare. On top of that she cotrilled and conditioned my kids to dependency on her alone. Pathetic soul wiped me out for life.

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Damn Zim, that's horrible. I think our decision is probably the best one we've made. When we got married, right out of school (actually, she was still in school), neither of us had a dime.. Everything we've built from from that day is ours. I like that.
When studies show that the vast majority of marital disagreement is about finance, we figured we'd just cut that part out. It's worked like a charm. I suggest it to all of my friends who are getting married. My brother listened, and it's worked great for them as well.
I suppose it's not for everyone, but we feel like even though we are married, we are still individuals, and part of being an individual means having your own dayum checking account.

I'm also with CC. A week or so long vacation with the wife, to a destination of her choosing, will go a long way come September.

August 19 my wife was at Mayo In Rochester Mn. Our surgeon said he could do surgery the following tuesday or we could set a later date. My wife said let us wait until september 25 for surgery, we can go back to Arkansas and you can do your Colorado bear hunt. As soon as we got to Ar. I sent the bear tag in to Colorado for a refund. I decided to keep 3rd rifle unit 67 with 9 points. My wife passed Oct 12, not from the surgery, but from the disease. She would have insisted I go on the mule deer hunt, in fact, of the three scouting trips, she was on one of them. We drove the jeep pretty much all over that unit looking. She almost never complained about hunting expenses.
I seldom do anything but diy hunts. Spring bear on the Jicarilla was an exception and expensive all things considered. May have been a bargain at that. I estimate the bear hunt with taxidermy to be about $6000. The mule deer, gas $750. License $350 plus and lodging was about $250. Total will be $1800. Too much.
I bought a new cheap camera, an Olympus model no. SP-820OZ It has a 40x digital zoom, so far so good. My thinking is to take some wildlife pictures on the cheap while not too crowded in the field. Weather is mild pre season.
I do have 4 elk pp. Four pp should get me a decent elk hunt this fall and I expect to apply for deer pp and unit 81 as a second choice. I don't want to hunt elk but I have been helping others get their elk out, I may as well hunt my own.

I just pay my child support and tell her when I'm leaving town, I have an 18 mo old son and his mother and I are not together. I keep track of all the kid time I miss during hunting season and make all that time up in the off season. I also give her a round trip plane ticket anywhere she wants to go at the end of hunting season provided she is agreeable during the season and doesn't give me too much hell. I start traveling in August/September, will be gone for a week or so at a time 3-4 times in the fall and every other weekend I'm in town Nov-Jan I will be duck hunting Saturday and Sunday morning.

This seems to be working out ok so far. The big thing for me is managing her stress levels. I can tell when she's getting at the end of her rope and then I'll take a Sunday off from hunting and take the boy so she can decompress. Keep the pot from boiling over, its all good, but if it blows up, it requires a lot more maintenance to clean up.

On the financial side, I love my son and would not change anything about how things are, but man, I think of all the awesome hunts I could go on if I kept that $1500 a month!

As far as how the wife and I deal with the expense of hunting, we have seperate accounts. We both work full time and we share the household expenses. She has her $ I have mine, its the only way to go. I am still trying to figure out where the extra $ for out of state apps/tags is going to come from though. She alway has said, as long as we have our house, food on the table and no 72 hr notice on the door from the utility companies, she doesn't care what I do with my mad money. Bringing her flowers to her on the way home from hunting doesn't hurt either.

I guess I am a little old school for this discussion. Been married for 30 years and only ever had one checking account. My wife is frugal, as am I, generally, but we hunt and fish together as much as possible. We never count food and fuel in the cost of hunting trips, nor taxidermy. These are either "extras" or something we would be spending money on anyway. Just like I don't count the cost of my truck or guns in the cost of a hunt - I would have them anyway.
About this time of the year we start our discussion and planning for the following year. "Where do you want to go dear?" followed by "I'm thinking of going (sheep/moose/muskox/whatever) hunting myself this year." Together with a realistic look at what we should draw in the fall in various states. My wife isn't interested in hard core backcountry hunts, and in many cases prefers fishing trips to hunting trips. I've already been told that if we spend a week fishing in Baja this summer, all will be right with the world. We skipped that trip last year as she asked to go hunting in Argentina, which seemed like a good trade at the time. Somehow I will suffer through the Baja fishing trip (:o), and we will spend the spring turkey and black bear hunting, with maybe a trip top Namibia or Australia (her next request) and come fall I will elk hunt in 2 or 3 states depending on the draws, with a few lower priority antelope and deer trips thrown in the mix. If I can find the right deal, maybe a sheep or Grizzly hunt on my own. My wife will come with me on 90% of these hunts, and she never complains about the money when she is with me on the hunt.
llp

And yes, our entire recreation budget is based around hunting and fishing trips. When I was a bit younger, we spent a lot more weekends just camping and fishing from our tent trailer, scouting and seeing new country. These days we have a camper and travel a bit more widely for some hunts, but still greatly enjoy our time on DIY hunts throughout the west.
llp

We have only been married a couple years, she wasn't around when I paid $10K to hunt Namibia, or almost three thousand to go to Germany.

I talked to her about it a lot before we got married, and told her that I would never stop hunting, never stop spending money to hunt, and never not want to hunt.

I have hunted quite a bit here in Australia for foxes and sambar, not too effectivly though.

But we just don't have the money for me to hunt like I once did, and more importantly to pay for big out of state hunts.

Growing family, so she is kind of winning the battles these days.

Then again, she also knows it is the calm before the storm. We are just about a year from living in America again. I can see a lot more hunting in my future.

I come close to paralleling llp's situation. Only I have only been married 20 years to my wife. ( I had a catch and release wife early on!)

One advantage I have; I have numerous friends that hunt world-wide. I point to their $30,000+ Marco Polo hunts and that makes my hunts look like a bargain by comparison!

My wife is and excellent hunter and my son is getting that way; it's a family event for us.

My wife and I split bills and put the same amount each away for savings and the rest, which isn't much, we keep for our own spending money. I don't even want to add up the cost of all my gear and hunting for each year. My freezer is full of venison and elk and I'm sure it cost me a lot more than the price of organic beef but oh well I'm going to do it again next year!

did anyone mention the Credit Card?? haha.


pretty simply I don't spend more than I have, if I ever draw that sheep tag etc.. and have to hire an outfitter etc... I would find the money, even if that meant credit card and paying that off. If that meant no out of state hunts the following year, or going out less etc... priorities!