Happily Ever After....and the budget!

Hey guys, so I’m back on here to talk about finances! Karlos and I have been married for a little over two years, and we are in no way money experts, but we’ve discovered a system that works for us. I hope that by sharing it can help you too. Budgeting is one of the most important things you can do to help your marriage. Studies show, that finances and money problems remain the leading cause of divorce in today’s society. With that being said, let’s get started!

First, I want to give you a little background on our spending personalities. Karlos is definitely the saver in our relationship. His savings account was full of untouched money, and even his checking account didn’t go below a certain dollar amount. I, on the other hand, am definitely a spender by nature. I purchased on impulse, and if I wanted it I bought it, overdraft included. I didn’t have much savings because I would transfer money to pay for something I wanted to buy that was not a necessity. Needless to say I was frivolous while Karlos was frugal. We did discuss, in detail, our finances before we got married. This included us knowing about each other’s debt, each other’s income and each other’s spending habits.

When we first wed in 2013, we decided to join our primary bank accounts. So we added my name to his bank account, and I became just as authorized as him to spend as I pleased. Now, I do have two other accounts, one because of a car loan that I had before we got married, which is now paid off, and the other because of my business. Karlos knows about both of these accounts, his name is on them, and he knows the logins, passwords, etc. So I do think it’s ok to have separate accounts for these purposes, but never any secret accounts or stashes that your spouse has no knowledge of. The transition to one account was pretty smooth for the most part, but the spending and saving personalities began to butt heads. We also noticed that we never seemed to have enough money at the end of the month. This habit went on for about a year, until we decided we wanted to take control of our finances. We started calculating what our fixed expenses were and realized we were leaving some major dollars out there to spend themselves. From then on, we knew it was time to do something different.

At the beginning of 2015, we began to take budgeting and finances seriously. We decided to calculate our incomes and expenses to see what we had been spending each month. We did a little reading and learned some things from Dave Ramsey and his Financial Peace University. The debt snowball concept and the zero balanced budget was something we really grasped onto. I decided to just write it all down in Microsoft Word, for each pay period, what our fixed expenses were. Then I would take the net income and subtract the fixed expenses from it to get what was left over. We assigned every “extra” dollar with a name. It could be $60 for a date night, $100 towards a vacation, or if your spouse is like mine, $20 to get the cars washed. No matter how large or small the expense, it was given a name. This helped us tremendously in making sure we knew exactly where every single dollar went each month. We also started using that extra money each month to put towards our smallest loan, the snowball effect. So far we have paid off three of our loans.

These concepts have been brilliant for our financial situation. Karlos and I have even balanced each other out when it comes to the spending and the saving. I would say we both know have a healthy dose of both spending personalities. Our goal of course is to become debt free within the next two years. I believe with these methods, we are on the right track. I have added a sample two income budget structure that we use below. Please feel free to copy and paste it into your own word document and adjust it to your needs. If you have any questions or additional tips, let us know in the comments section. Also, if there are any subjects you would like us to address, leave those in the comments as well.

Xoxo, 

Brittany

Spouse 1 Monthly Income

Net – (Insert net amount)

Gross – (Insert gross amount)

Period One

-          $xx.xx tithes (date due) debited

-          $xx.xx offerings (date due) debited

-          $ xx.xx Student Loan (date due) debited

-          $ xx.xx Student Loan (date due) debited

-          $ xx.xx groceries/ household supplies cash

-          $ xx.xx gas cash

-          $ xx.xx water bill (date due) debited

-          $ xx.xx - Cell phone bill (date due) debited

-          $ xx.xx - Savings Account  auto draft

-          (This totals to be $xx.xx out of my check this pp, $xx.xx left over)

Period Two

-          $xx.xx tithes (date due) debited

-          $xx.xx offerings (date due) debited

-          $xx.xx Student Loan (date due) auto draft

-          $xx.xx Student Loan (date due) debited

-          $xx.xx groceries/household supplies cash

-          $xx.xx gas cash

-          $xx.xx – Renter’s Insurance auto draft

-          $xx.xx- Savings Account  auto draft

-          (This totals to be $xx.xx out of my check this pp, $xx.xx left over)

-          ($xx.xx out of my check ea. month, $xx.xx left over)

Spouse 2 Monthly Income

Net - (Insert net amount)

Gross - (Insert gross amount)

-          $ xx.xx - tithes (date due) debited

-          $ xx.xx - RENT (date due) debited

-          $ xx.xx - Loan (date due) auto draft

-          $ xx.xx - Car Insurance - both cars (date due) auto draft

-          $ xx.xx - Savings Account auto draft

-          $ xx.xx - Gas cash

-          $ xx.xx – internet debited

-          $ xx.xx - Energy Bill debited

-           ($xx.xx out of my check ea. month, $xx.xx left over)

$xx.xx left over each month (from both incomes)

Anything extra, or that isn’t a monthly expense, we highlight.