Looking for some perspective please as not sure I’m BU.
DH and I work hard. We both work full time. We rented for years and saved a deposit for a house over a period of years, no help from family etc. We bought a property three years ago and it needed a lot of work. We have been slowly renovating over the last three years - slowly because we didn’t want to get into debt to do it all at the same time. We would do overtime and save and save, then once we had the money would then do the renovations one room at a time, then repeat the process. We have almost finished now. During this time we have sacrificed holidays, beauty treatments, hairdresser visits, new clothes etc for ourselves. DC have not missed anything except the holidays abroad, but we have tried to make up with days out etc. They are old enough to understand the situation and know next year we will have a holiday as renovations finished plus they have still attended all their clubs etc. Basically DH and I sacrificed our personal things but the children didn’t.
The house looks and feels lovely and we are so pleased. DH was keen to do it to a high standard that would last so we have used quality materials and high end appliances. We are very proud of what we have achieved.
My family are also really proud but some of DH family seem to make barbed comments about the property and what we have done, making fun of some of the “extravagant” appliances we have etc. I’ve ignored all of it but today DH went to visit family and two of them made a comment they needed to talk to him about finances. One said they couldn’t understand how we had a “never ending pot of money” and basically queried whether we had got into debt sorting our house. DH explained that we hadn’t and the member of his family who said about the never ending pot of money didn’t seem convinced. For context this person spends money like water on things like nights out, meals out, fast fashion etc and also works part time. They then questioned whether we have savings currently and DH explained we have a small amount but have used them recently on our home (the last part to be done) and that they will soon be back up to previous levels.
I feel annoyed that he explained himself to them. We are adults who have asked for no help with our property; buying or renovating. DH family do not offer any help in school holidays or seeing the children and rarely visit us despite living very close. If we had decided to get into debt for our property that would have been our decision and not theirs. I don’t understand why they feel so entitled to know about our finances and also why DH felt he had to explain.