Financial Inspiration

I don’t pretend to be money savvy, or even someone who is good with budgeting. In fact, I downright suck at handling money. From the time I was little, my mom described my impulsiveness as having “money burning a hole in my pocket”. It was different when I was single: I didn’t have to answer to anyone, and a part of me kind of misses that. But in the grander scheme of things, I need that accountability. I need someone yelling, “Why the hell did you pay $40 for a dress?!” or “Why do you need 50 pairs of shoes?!” Okay, maybe the dress price is an exaggeration, but you get my husband’s point…

It also doesn’t help when a spender marries a spender. At some point, somebody has gotta cave in and become a saver. That person in my marriage is my husband. And he’s amazing at it. It has also caused some….um…. not so pleasant moments in our household. 

** A page in my planner **

So, why am I writing this all out? Because I know I am not alone in this. I know there are other wives out there who are the spenders in their relationships, and hopefully my sharing what I am doing will help them and their marriages. Fighting about money with your spouse is not on your bucket list, am I right?

The year my husband and I got married, we attended Dave Ramsey’s “Financial Peace University” at our church and we got, maybe, 5 sessions down before we quit. However, to this day, we still use the envelope system, and we write out our expenses at the beginning of every month and pay all of those first. We start out each month using this form, and I also have a checklist that I created in Excel.

We have two checking accounts and a savings. On each pay day, I will take the money to cover our expenses and move it from account A (where our paychecks are deposited) to account B (our “payment” account). Then we try to pretend that there isn’t any money left in account A until the next payday. If there is any money left in account A by the next payday, I then move it all to savings and start over. This system really works for us and since we started doing it this way (since Jan 1), I have put aside a nice little nest egg in our savings account.

How do you budget each month for your family? I would love to hear your ideas in the comment section.