Lesson #5–Budget Together
Usually in every relationship there is one member who is a saver and one who is a spender. There is typically another combination: one who budgets willingly and one who doesn’t. You can be a saver who doesn’t budget or a spender who does or vice versa. What matters here is that you identify your individual characteristics, then agree to handle your money together regardless of your individual strengths and weaknesses. I’ve already admitted that I am a spender. It’s who I am. Thankfully, I am also a hard-core list-maker, so I was more prone to having a written budget. Together, we balance each other and together our finances are stronger.
No one person in a relationship should handle the heavy burden of the family’s finances alone. Work together to allocate your funds each time they come in. Set financial goals together and together track your expenses and your spending. Celebrate your progress.
I have found YNAB to be ideal for us. We have regular budget meetings each time my husband’s regular paychecks come in and impromptu meetings when I receive my not-so-predictable paychecks. After we receive income, we allocate every penny of those funds into pre-determined categories, discussing our priorities and our upcoming expenses together. We record our spending in YNAB when we make purchases and this helps us to maintain a reliable snapshot of our budget categories at all times throughout the month. It is always a challenge to begin new habits, but once you BOTH are doing this together, it becomes a well-oiled machine. Seriously.
For the first time in my life I am not stressing about money and I know where it is and what it is doing for us. It is such an empowering feeling! When we reached this point together, it strengthened our relationship profoundly. We don’t spend hours on end talking about and planning our finances. That is not something we are even interested in doing! We can knock out the allocation of a paycheck in about 15 minutes and now that every dollar has a job, we go along our merry way. Then as we spend money throughout the month, we record our spending in YNAB, so that we both are up-to-date with a simple glance at the app.
Fun Money
While we are talking about budgeting together, I want to share two categories we added to our budget that have made budgeting really successful for us:
1-“His fun money”
2-“Her fun money”
“Fun money” is money that can be spent on anything (our stipulation is anything moral & legal). You both decide on how much “fun money” you assign to those categories (for us, we keep them equal) when you allocate your money in a budget meeting and then you don’t worry about it again. If he wants to buy a lunch with his coworkers, or you want to buy a new book, you have nothing to worry about as long as you have enough in your “fun money” account. If you don’t, you know it isn’t an option–right now. This helps stop fights before they even begin!
I love that even though we are living on a budget, we have allowed a set amount for fun, so we don’t feel like we are trapped inside a too-strict budget, but at the same time we are being wise stewards with what we have been given and we aren’t just spending money anytime we feel like it. It keeps us intentional. We love it!
Lesson #5: Budget–and do it together.
