Rachel hated chores. In theory, she knew keeping the loft tidy was a good thing and that everybody doing their part to make it happen was a reasonable way to avoid roommate conflict over it. She just didn't like the part of actually seeing it through most of the time. She didn't plan it exactly, but there was rarely a time when she couldn't think of something better to be doing when it came time to do chores—homework even, or rehearsing certainly, or re-reading Barbra Streisand's biography again. Kurt was ridiculously inflexible about them though and didn't put up with excuses when they were late or "forgotten." It had been a reason she'd been in trouble pretty often back when it was just her and Kurt alone in the loft, but now with Blaine around it somehow seemed worse. He was the type to get his chores done early half the time, especially if people were around to talk to while he was doing them. He almost seemed to enjoy them as long as he had company. Whenever she noticed him doing his chores unprompted, it made her feel low-key guilty for not starting hers yet. She knew Blaine wasn't purposely trying to make her look bad, but it still annoyed her to see him overachieving on vacuuming or dusting when he had an hours long window to get around to it.
"You know you don't actually have to do that now, right? Kurt's at the diner and won't even see you did it until later," she told him one afternoon they were both home after classes and she saw him dutifully wiping down the bathroom.
Blaine shrugged. "Yeah but when he comes home I want to spend time with him, not waste it finishing chores I could have gotten out of the way."
Rachel waited until he turned hi back before rolling her eyes. It always came back to maximizing time to gaze into his fiancé's eyes with Blaine. She'd thought he'd tone that down with more together-time but he'd been in New York several months now and was still getting up crazy early to make him breakfast in bed every day. If she didn't love them both so much she'd think it was even more irritating than the chores thing.
Unfortunately for Rachel, there was a recent wrinkle that made one of the chores on the chore chart significantly more tedious. She and Kurt had bought a used dishwasher last year but after 6 months of no problems, it suddenly wasn't working. Rachel didn't understand why they couldn't at least have someone look at it to repair it or try to sweet-talk Blaine's parents or something to get a brand new one that didn't breakdown like this. But Kurt was on a budget push lately and that argument hadn't ended up with anything more than a firm swat on her backside. In fairness, both she and Blaine had conceded they could use a little accountability around spending sometimes. Blaine was inclined to want to stop off for lunch at an overpriced restaurant when he was perfectly capable of packing a budget-friendly lunch before heading off to classes in the mornings. Rachel had gotten in a habit of waiting to the last minute to leave for things and "needing" to take an expensive taxi across town rather than walking or taking a far cheaper bus or subway ride to get where she needed to go. While Kurt had expensive taste in clothes, he also had an eye for bargains and was better able to limit impulse purchases in the name of having money for necessities (and of course, the occasional well-considered fashion splurge, within reason).
"My dad was a single parent running a tire shop for years when I was a kid. If there's one thing he taught me, it's that money doesn't grow on trees. If you two can't start thinking before you spend on needless things you're both going to end up struggling a lot more later on. Your folks were really generous about helping you get launched here in New York but we can't rely on them to bail us out. We're artists with student loans in New York City. We're probably going to go through time where we don't know when our next paycheck is coming and we're not going to be able to deal with that unless we get in the habit of smart spending and saving now. You may not like getting disciplined for this now but hopefully you'll thank me when you're not just another starving artist one day, and have any money for retirement at all!" he had scolded, exasperated, on one difficult night they'd both sheepishly admitted side-stepping the expectations. That scolding—well that and a warning future infractions would most definitely be considered cause for some corporal punishment- made an impression. By the end of the night both meekly submitted revised budgets for Kurt's approval, complete with agreements as to weekly spending allowances and contribution expectations to a joint fund for emergencies.
And so it was that the dishwasher had broken down and while their handy friend Russ from downstairs had taken a quick look at it for free, his diagnosis had been that it would likely cost as much to repair the thing as it would to buy another one, Kurt wouldn't even think of doing it right now. "If you decide it's important enough, you can start putting money aside towards a new one, but I'm not throwing funds at something expensive we can get by without right now. We have bills to pay and budgets to keep."
"Isn't this an emergency? What's an emergency fund even for if we can't even use it?" Rachel had asked, only to get a stern talking to regarding the meager amount they'd even saved so far in said emergency fund and the difference between wants and needs. Rachel even tried to argue that all that dishwater would create dry skin problems on her hand but Kurt countered with his vast knowledge of moisturizer options and she gave up. The chore chart already had a designation for who was to take care of dishes on any given day, Kurt reasoned, and they would all have to get used to washing them by hand for a while. "I imagine you won't feel like it sometimes," he lectured, "but if you ever need motivation, I'm guessing it'd be even less fun to do while nursing a warm bottom," he said pointedly. "You think that's going to be necessary?" he asked.
"No, sir," they'd replied—Blaine dutifully and Rachel more grudgingly.
"We'll see," Kurt responded, hoping he'd made enough of an impression it wouldn't be necessary but having a long enough history with Rachel to know that it was a long shot.