My husband came home tonight with a giant Elmo for our toddler. $50. It's sitting in our closet right now, waiting for Christmas.

How sweet, how loving, how daddyish, right? Yeah, except for one thing. When the baby was a week old, my husband's boss called him in and told him that his job is going away after Christmas. They just don't need him anymore, so have a nice life, Mark, and see you around sometime.

And with this facing us he goes and gets a toy like that? I was planning on getting a small $15 version of the doll. I'm having a hard time biting my tongue over this one.

We just have different attitudes toward money. I'm a saver, who grew up poor; he's a spender who grew up, not wealthy, but with more money than my parents ever dreamed of having. As soon as he told me about the layoff I wanted to discuss ways to cut our spending. He wanted to wait until the end of the month before discussing it, which means he's trying to put it off indefinately.

The fact that I'm a sahm, without a job for the first time in my life, isn't helping me feel any better. We both agree on my being home. I truly believe there simply isn't anything more important that I could be doing right now, and he's super committed to making it work. He's put up with some miserable working conditions to make it happen, in fact. But I worry, and he doesn't, and right now I just want to wring his neck.

Don't get me wrong. He's great, and I'd marry him again in a heartbeat if not faster. This situation, however, is exactly the type of thing to highlight the differences in our spending philosophies. Translated into real life, things are tense in our house right now.

Can a saver and spender find happiness together in a tight economy? Stay tuned to find out.