No but he will have the whole house or other living arrangements to put kits where he wants. They won’t care if he fondles other kits. Won’t ask if the box makes them look fat. 
I’m quite lucky. My LHS is a 5 min walk from my house and on the bus route home from work. I also get home a good hour before.
Quite easy to get things in, but to be honest she doesn’t mind too much. She just hates me putting them on display in the living room.
Disclaimer: the location of a well stocked model shop had no bearing on our decision to buy the house.
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Here’s what I do.
At the beginning of every month, I sit down with my wife and we make a family budget.
Then, when I buy stuff, I use money from the budget earmarked for leisure activities.
So sneaky!
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My need for secrecy is to avoid the inevitable “Buffalo Eye” look that accompanies the accusation that I shouldn’t get more until I build all the ones I already have. Sometimes I find myself thinking much the same, but that’s when I sit and breathe calmly until the feeling passes…
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Wanna bet Jon? 
My wife says I will not live long enough to build what I have, so why buy more? I tell her some are collectibles! When she complains about the space the stash takes up then I just point to her four bicycle collection.
My wife spends way more on her cycling than I do on modelling with all the services, tyres, tubes and cycling gear. Shoes and helmet alone cost an arm and a leg. A bib is $300 AUD, equivalent to 3 or 4 Meng/Gecko model kits these days, and she wears them out frequently as her average distance is about 500 km’s per week ,so a lot of use on bicycles and gear.
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My stash has grown so large I don’t buy many kits anymore. In fact, I try to sell some on Ebay and that makes her happy. Now when I buy the occasional kit she doesn’t seem to mind. I have about 800 kits and last year I finished two. At that rate I should have more than enough to last the next 200 years, even if I pick up the pace after I retire.
Take care and stay safe friends,
Don “Lakota”
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I always say that if anything happens to, stick them all on eBay and treat yourself to the takings. The unbuilt WnW would probably go for a fair bit.
My other hobby, retro gaming, can also get a bit expensive and that’s the one that raises eyebrows. Although I haven’t spent much on that this year. At least not since finally getting my hands on the Amiga 1200 I coveted since I was a kid. The only machines I’m on the hunt for now are a Sega MegaCD and Saturn. There are worse things I could spend my money on, foods always on the table, bills are paid and we’re not in debt. Nothing wrong with treating myself.
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Due to OPSEC regarding infiltration and cache techniques & doctrine, as well as signed non disclosure agreements, I cannot divulge knowledge of any such activities or operations.
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Tank_1812… My ex was a good housekeeper… she kept both houses, so NO closets!
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1987 -1990 My Year’s As A Model Ninja
After graduation from college in 1987, I went to work and moved back to my parents to save money and pay down student loans. My parents had always hated the model hobby. They were extremely disappointed in me for returning to modeling after quiting eight years earlier. As members of the Depression Era generation they were extremely frugal. Word was they invented copper wire by fighting over a penny.
In their view the hobby is a childish thing for elementary school children. It was a waste of time and waste of money, that resulted in dust collecting junk. It was a sore point with them to have an adult son living at home engaged in such a reprehensible activity
Dealing crack cocaine would have been more acceptable to them. My dad’s father had been a dope dealing bootlegger during and after Prohibition. At least dealing crack you made lots of fast money.
Getting caught working on a model - instant nasty argument. When a mail order model catalog arrived my mother threw an epic absolute hissy fit. There wasn’t a kit stash at this point. It was buy it, then build it and hide it.
The lure of late 1980’s mail order was irresistible. We lived in a small backward southern town without a stoplight. It was where everyone knew everything and it was impossible to keep any secret.
I went to the largest city in the county and rented post office box. Strictly for ordering model catalogs, aftermarket parts and model kits. When the items arrived, a friend with a basement allowed me to keep my stash of stuff at his house. Keeping it secret and just as serious as CIA/KGB spycraft.
Gradually I would sneak model kits into my parents house and hide them. Although forced to attend church every Sunday as a prerequisite for living with them, I was able to avoid the monthly prayer meeting occasionally on a Sunday night. I’d hide the model items in my car on Saturday and wait until they left for Sunday night pray meeting.
Saving money was worth the hassle as it allowed me to have a nice nest egg when I moved out. This was invaluable when my fiance & I started our life as newlyweds in our own place. I didn’t have to hide the model hobby from my wife and she was very tolerant and understanding. Honestly, it took a while for me to adjust to the new environment.
When I moved out in 1990, I thought my mother would have stroke. She became completely enraged seeing a stack of about twenty kits when I packed.
Ever so often over the next thirty years, she would randomly tell me what a stupid, wasteful, pointless hobby I have. "You need to grow up and leave the childish things behind, you’re not a child anymore. Its not normal. It’s something a deviant would do."
On the bright side the look on her face when I told her I’d thrown 200+ model contest trophies in the trash one year was priceless. Then she GOOD and wanted to know if that was ALL of them.
I told her no, I kept several boxes of them…you know the best of’s and of course the ones AMPS & the IPMS Nationals.
In hindsight, I realized I probably would have got bored and left the hobby forever in the late 1980’s if my parent’s had not hated the hobby so passionately. It developed into a game to prove I was good at it and win respect from them of the hobby.
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Dang, Wade, that is a tough story…
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In all fairness, my parents had reason for concern. My grandfather was a violent sociopath with substance abuse issues, a degenerative gambler and probable murder. My grandmother remarked, I was an EXACT copy in temperament and mannerism of my grandfather. Other folks said the same thing. He had died before I was born. So I’m sure that was very eerie. My dad had escaped the cycle & poverty and I think was afraid of the similarity between my personality type and his father’s.
I’d majored in Mathematics with an education minor to be a math teacher. After one year of teaching I switched to industry. That was a major disappointment. I spent a lot of time reading history focused on WW2, specifically the Eastern front. Probably ninety percent of my modeling was focused on German AFV’s and the rest of Russian AFV’s. The house was littered with copies of books like Panzer Battles, Panzer Leader, Lost Victories…you know that white wash the Wehrmacht revisionist memoir stuff that we ate up in the west in the 1950s -1970’s during The Cold War.
I was also very active in wargaming with a small very tight knit group…and a notoriously successful Axis player. Oh and my Camaro was a dark metallic grey…that looked like metallic Panzer Grey lol. As kid I’d focused on Star Trek with the same rabid intensity. They also hated Star Trek…lol
My interests were very narrow and extremely intense. I was a peculiar duck for sure. Those narrow areas of focus and behaviors get called Aspburger’s these days aka being on the spectrum. I suspect that was my grandfather’s issue as well and he locked on to vice as his area of interest.
Returning to the model hobby was just the icing on the cake and reignited a lot of old concerns.
I’m grateful for what mom & dad did for me. It may not read that way but I’m a mathematical person not much of a writer 
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Wade,
At a loss for words but thanks for sharing and it appears that on this side of things it is not an issue for you.
I was picking up my grand daughter from her school. While waiting in the lobby with other parents the hall monitor brought up this subject and said “My husband is always playing with his trains”. I piped up and said" It’s better that he’s home playing with his trains then at the “gentleman’s” getting drunk and playing with Miss Behave. The way she stopped she looked as if she walked into a wall, and the women waiting in the lobby looked at me and almost in unison said “you’re right about that”.I’ll bet he got a good dinner that night
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Armor buff, when my father helped me move once, about 25 years ago he was disappointed that I had so many kits. He said I should buy a boat and spend my money on the boat. I thought it was funny because he supported my hobby when I was a kid. I took him out to a IPMS National meeting and he met my friends from the model club. He pointed out all the models of Navy planes he worked with in the 50’s. I think we made peace with the hobby that day.
Since then he wants me to build a P5M Marlin.
Take care and stay safe friends,
Don “Lakota”
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While my wife doesn’t count my kits she doesn’t understand the concept of a stash. I could explain it in terms of her handbags but 26 years of wedded bliss one picks and chooses their battles. Now my job runs “spiffs” and contests over and above my payable commission on a sale and I use that money at the LHS so when I buy a stack of kits I’m also trying not to advertise I got some extra love at work. She turns in earlier then I do so I bring them in after the fact, unwrap and dispose of the price tags. She wouldn’t appreciates 60-70 buck a kit sometimes for a ‘hobby’ and that’s ok, its not her thing. While my system isn’t foolproof she doesn’t go poking around the man cave so I reshuffle the kits from time to time and it all blends into one big “whatever” pile in her eyes. Everyone is happy and none the wiser.
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My wife loves me and the stash. On my Birthday and Christmas, she goes into that stash and picks out whatever she wants, sometimes two or three things. Then wraps them up as gifts and gives them back to me.
Super easy gift shopping/giving for her!
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Hmmm, I came back to the hobby about three years ago after being away for 38 years.
I have built about forty models in the last three years and have sold about thirty of them. On every one making two to three times cost easily.
Yes I kinda miss some. But I take LOTS of pics of them. I have had so much stolen from me in my life that I dont sweat things when I lose them being from accidents or vandalism. So I dont get attached.
But I treat it all as learning and ever build does get better.
My wife knows of every build and purchase.
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I love it! I think I’m gonna suggest this to my wife!
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