[jrockway]

She's out of touch.

The problem that I've found is that most people live way beyond their means when they are selecting housing. This means that if you want to live with people like yourself, you have to too. If you spend what you should on housing, you end up "in a bad neighborhood".

So I feel like your wife has fallen victim to this problem. To live with the people she wants to associate with, she has to spend a lot more of your money.