Some days I pridefully don't tell my husband when I am struggling with our finances.
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Other days I remember that my husband can't care for me if I don't tell him when and how I'm struggling.
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Every day our marriage is to be a reflection of the unity between Christ and his bride.
Being United with Your Spouse
From the research I've done, the consensus seems to be that it works best for one person to manage the budget. For several of my friends, this is what their husbands do. If that's the case for you, my appeal to you is to make sure you could take over the finances, if need be. I'm convinced it's wise to be able to do so because we don't know what tomorrow holds."Two practical steps can greatly help us get a grip on our spending: recording expenditures and making a budget. These steps will help us detect problem areas by clarifying our spending habits. This will improve our mental and marital health because financial disorder is one of the leading causes of personal and familial stress."
~ Randy Alcorn, It Matters How We Handle God's Money
For Geoffrey and I, this means he knows what programs I use to track our budget because I'm the one that spends more time "in the weeds." We both have complete access to all our bank accounts. We also have a gmail account that forwards to both our personal emails. All our bills are set up with this email address. This allows Geoffrey to see what the bills are and when I pay them. Additionally, either of us can easily reset any passwords to access our accounts.
Okay, so now that I've tried to persuade you to at least be able to do your budget, if need be, let's get down to business.
Creating a Monthly Budget
If you have an easy means of tracking your spending over the past few months use that. Otherwise, track your spending for at least one month to get some ballpark figures.
Have your outline of the big financial picture and the numbers of what you generally spend on hand. Then, grab a lined piece of paper or open up a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheet on your computer. Now comes the fun part :) I've included an example of how each of these steps is done in the image below.
- Total your monthly take-home pay.
- Round this amount down to the nearest $5 increment.
- You want to underestimate any income you have.
- If you get paid biweekly, budget for two paychecks/month.
- List all fixed monthly spending.
- Round these amounts up to the nearest $5 increment.
- You want to overestimate any expenses you have.
- List all fluctuating monthly spending.
- Bills: Find the average cost over the last twelve months for each bill.
- Either select the highest bill and use that amount.
- This pretty much guarantees you will always have enough money. Occasionally, you will have extra money from over budgeting, so this option requires discipline to put the extra money in savings.
- Or take the average amount.
- Most the time you will be in budget, but sometimes you will be short.
- All Other Spending: Use the spending you have tracked as a guideline.
- Be flexible because fine tuning this often takes 3-4 months.
- This can be as detailed as you need it to be.
- Adjust it to make it work for your family.
- For our family we keep it simple:
- Fuel, Groceries, and Extra Spending
- I have other friends who include:
- Eating Out, Clothing, Home Projects, etc.
- Consider how you want address annual expenses like birthdays, holidays, your Costco membership, etc.
- Subtract all your spending from your take-home pay.
- This difference will tell you if you are living within or beyond your means.
- Adjust your budget as needed.
Some Useful Tools
If you want to do more research on budgeting and paying off debt, the following are some of my favorite free resources:- Dave's Budgeting Forms
- The Monthly Cash Flow Plan is the most helpful one.
- The Seven Baby Steps
- We don't follow all of these steps but we have found them helpful.
- Debt Snowball Calculator
- Mortgage Payoff Goal Calculator
- Articles about Debt
A Closing Prayer
"Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, 'Who is the LORD?' or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God." Proverbs 30:7-9I remember reading this passage in high school and being struck at the financial temptations listed to either forget God or be dishonest. This is a favorite passage to go to when I'm evaluating my heart posture towards God and money. My prayer is that it encourages you to do the same.
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