That makes sense, and I'm building it with forward compatibility in mind, but to stay on budget I have to make some decisions on where to put the money. And it's much easier to buy an expensive thermostat six months from now and not have the wife mentally add that to the complete cost of the cage. She's good about not considering the jigsaw I bought because of this project to be part of the expense of the project, but then again I'm usually pretty quick to find another thing to use each tool for after the first project is complete to "help" her dissociate the tool from the project.

I'm currently about $80 bucks in on materials, another 60ish in electrical and I haven't gotten a light or even started the electrical box to keep things neatly organized. I also still need some hardware (hinges, vents, etc) and plexiglass. I'm under budget by a reasonable margin, but not enough to upgrade the thermostat and since we're dealing with a member of the fairer sex, I can keep her much happier with a small splurge on something like FastCap's edge tape for the melamine than I can with a temperature controller that, by design, should never require much interaction.

If it were up to me, I'd eat a hell of a lot more ramen and have a lot more pets (and other toys) people like to try to ban, but the wife is always making me spend money on things like "real food" and "furniture that isn't ugly". She's into shooting and seems to be getting more and more interested in snakes, but she's still not letting me throw all my money at our hobbies. Especially now that she's green-lit the larger "luxury" cage and a future "boyfriend", I don't want her to think this is yet another expensive hobby. At least not until we have some adorable baby snakes for her to fawn over. "You know honey, we could keep some of them. I'd just need to build a little rack for the corner..."