BUDGETING FOR A COUPLE – 5 EASY STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS
Overview
Longtime readers will know, if there is anything I believe is key to financial success, it’s the budget. But, how does budgeting for a couple change the process? That’s what I’m hoping to address here.
My wife and I have been successfully living on a pretty firm budget for years now. We owe our success in this area in large part to the accountability that working together creates. However, the line between accountability and resentment can get pretty thin if you and your partner fail to follow a few key strategies when creating and implementing your budget.
The five strategies we believe are key to budgeting for a couple are:
- Dream Together
- Create The Budget Together
- Adjust The Budget Together
- Track The Budget Together
- Maintain Total Transparency
With these in place, and done in the right order, you can expect a successful couple’s budget.
Let’s look at each strategy a little closer.
Budgeting For A Couple, Strategy #1: Dream Together
Don’t skip this step!
Some of the most enjoyable times my wife and I have spent together have been going out early on a Saturday morning to get breakfast to intentionally dream about our future. We talk about where we want to be in 10 years, 20 years, at retirement, and everywhere in between. These sessions are fun not only because it gives us a chance to voice our wildest dreams, but also because it gives us a chance to hear each other.
By getting ourselves on the same page regarding our long-term financial goals, we’re able to better understand the smaller steps we need to take on a regular basis to get there. It’s so much easier to pass on the soda at the restaurant when I know that doing so regularly is going to help trim our food budget. And that trimmed food budget means more money going towards a more important goal.
Without dreams and goals, the budget can feel like a constraint that you and your partner are imposing on each other. However, by understanding and agreeing on your long-term goals, you can work together to succeed in the small things on a regular basis.
Budgeting For A Couple, Strategy #2: Create The Budget Together
Once you know your long-term goals and understand your future dreams, it’s time to set the steps in place to get there. These take the form of your actual monthly budget.
Do this together! And do it every month!
Even if one of you doesn’t particularly love to sit down and play with numbers, both partners need some input. Otherwise, your budget becomes a set of rules created by one person for the other. Instead, sit down together and create your budget. Even if one partner is primarily just watching, the occasional interjection is going to go a long way towards making this a set of shared objectives.
This should be a monthly occurrence too. There is nothing wrong with using a standard skeleton for your budget. But, every month will have it’s own needs, and your budget should reflect those differences no matter how minor.
Make your budget creation a goal-oriented, team effort that’s repeated on a monthly basis.
Budgeting For A Couple, Strategy #3: Adjust The Budget Together
Once you’ve created your budget, expect to make adjustments.
Things might happen that make shifting money from one line item to another necessary. That’s fine! But, make those changes as a team.
Remember, you sat down and agreed on this strategy for the month with your long-term goals in mind. If, in the act of tracking your spending, you realize you need to reallocate some money to stay within your means, make sure you make your partner aware of the change.
This is a two-person budget, and changes require both parties to reach an agreement on those changes.
Budgeting For A Couple, Strategy #4: Track The Budget Together
In the course of using your budget, you’ll also want to be sure that both partners are engaged in tracking spending.
This is a great opportunity to use some sort of budgeting app or budgeting software. Most of these will allow logins on multiple devices, meaning you can both see exactly what is going on with your money at any given time. This is great for the feeling of team effort that you want in your budgeting!
If you are a more traditional pen and paper couple, there’s nothing wrong with that either. But, that’s going to mean sitting down regularly and tracking expenses together so there are no secrets.
Tracking your spending as a team is just as important as creating your spending plan as a team. You’ll be much more likely to be successful with the loving accountability of your partner.
Budgeting For A Couple, Strategy #5: Maintain Total Transparency
Lastly, be transparent. To put that another way, no secrets.
A budgeting app goes a long way here, but no piece of software can completely prevent deception. And deception isn’t always “big.” Just going over a few dollars on your food budget and “forgetting” to track that expense could cause discrepancies between your bank account and your budget numbers. That’s a problem. Not just mathematically, but relationally.
You dreamed together and planned together. Any dollar spent that violates that plan is essentially an act of disrespect towards your partner. Stay honest, and be transparent.
Conclusion
And there you have it! These are strategies that my wife and I believe in wholeheartedly, and come from years of practice. If you will both commit to the ideas presented here, achieving your goals will become that much easier!
So again:
- Dream Together
- Create The Budget Together
- Adjust The Budget Together
- Track The Budget Together
- Maintain Total Transparency
And remember, regardless of your money goals, you can “Bank on a Budget” to get you from where you are to where you want to be!
The line between accountability and resentment can get pretty thin if you and your partner fail to work together when creating and implementing your budget.
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What strategies do you and your partner use to help you budget together?