I thought I would get a little off topic on this post and talk about budgeting. Budgeting is for everyone, and it is important that married couples get on the same page with the budgeting. You hear all too often “I work my butt off and have no money to show for it”. This is true but only to a point. You have to remember those things you signed up for, like car payments, credit cards, mortgages and rent. You signed a dotted line at one point for these responsibilities. I am in the category of a “stay at home mom”. I do work from home, but my main responsibility is my child and house tasks so my husband can work and enjoy his days off of work. This is a hard position for me because I have always worked as well as my husband and we both shared the money responsibility. Now the tables have turned and our main argument is WHY IS THERE NO MONEY? For those of you who know this argument all to well it builds in to more unnecessary arguing and ruins the day.

I was tired of the same fight week after week, and day after day so I started a basic excel spreadsheet that lists all of our bills and shows when they are due. I then put in the dates he was paid and the amounts of those checks (estimated if not a set pay).I built under those pay dates the list of bills. This was great it showed we had money left over on every check. The problem…. We are still broke, how is this possible? So I continued to do more research on what I was doing wrong. In order to have a successful budget you need to be in-depth with your spending and include, gas allowance, tobacco allowance, bank fee’s, etc. Doesn’t seem like much does it? It all adds up and there was my problem. Here is my example; I was spending $60 every other week in gas. Now take that and multiply it by two weeks that’s $120 dollars I wasn’t accounting for. How about my husband who spends $10.99 for energy drinks and chew every morning, doesn’t seem like much does it? Take that over 30 days and its $329.70 dollars a month I wasn’t accounting for. No wounder we are broke. Right there I just showed a $450 dollar a month miss, just think of everything else I am missing.

Once I got our budget under control and was able to grasp our spending habits, I was able to share this with my husband. It’s important for you and your spouse to know and actually see the numbers and were you stand. By creating a budget and getting my husband on the same page here is what started to happen with our relationship.

1. We discussed our budget on a weekly basis. We were communicating about something that we used to fight over. Whats a “WOW” feeling. Especially if you have children in the house, it’s a way to communicate like adults. Something stay at home moms appreciate.

2. It built trust. He trusts what I am doing and that I am spending the money wisely and vise versa.

3. We are able to reconcile the previous errors and learn from our reckless spending habits. When we talk about the future and things we want like new vehicles or new house. We both know without question where we have to be to get to those goals.

4. We have reason to celebrate. We can now afford our child’s birthday, or a vacation, or a simple anniversary dinner now. We don’t fret over what we missed in the budget because it’s already accounted for.

5. We have our independence now and we have our dependence on each other. We have those things in our budget that allow us to go get hair done or go buy a season pass for the golf course. These are great ways to keep your independence while depending on each other to carry their roles.

6. Most importantly it makes us great parents together. We can now teach our child the same determination and the right levels of spending together. This helps especially if you have a child that thinks they get something every time they go to a store.

Once you have started your budget together you will start collaborating about things you want to cut back on and things you want to add. It does take several months to get a handle on the budget and get it tweaked to fit you. You’ll be surprised by the results, and how you will finally be able to have an allowance individually and together. You will finally have money again, what a great feeling it will be. If you would like examples on how to set up your first spreadsheet you can visit http://www.excel-easy.com/examples/budget.html. Or you can email me at JDsolutions.va@gmail.com and I can send you the template that I use.