This Friday is Budget & Pizza night. Our first of what I hope to be a quarterly experience.
I think we have been doing ok so far, but we keep our finances separate and split bills. Other than our small joint savings account that we put out leftover “envelope cash’ in, our goals are not spelled out or combined. I have a budget, he does not. We need a combined budget.
Guess what Friday is for! I paired it with ordering pizza, to make it a “thing to look forward to”.
I spent yesterday going over the spreadsheets I use to track the split expenses and did some averaging so we had a better idea what we spend. Today I plan to come up with a budget template that will work for our joint and separate expenses. It will all be spelled out in one place.
Some of the expenses were a surprise, some were not. For example, did you know we spend almost $200 a month in dog food!!!! I knew it, but I am not sure he realized it. Not that there is anything we can really do about it, with our 83-lb dog needing a prescription food, but we need to budget better for it. Trust me when I say, the dog food is cheaper than the vet bills when he is not on it. Also, we are not getting rid of any dogs, they are still cheaper than kids and the closest we are coming to any.
I can’t decide which I am looking forward to more the budgeting or the pizza!
February 29th, 2012 at 3:32 pm
I’m laughing, because Friday is my “taxes/massage” day. As a reward for all of the work I put into doing our taxes, I take the day off so I can focus (we have small kids at home) & after I’m done, I get a massage. I have a gift certificate for a free massage, and it’s very needed after the tax prep.
Have fun with your budgeting/pizza day!
February 29th, 2012 at 8:07 pm
Good luck on budgeting. It’s great you two keep your stuff separated till you decide to get married or not. I think you should make a budget for what you expect to pay. I think he needs a budget for what he is responsible for, and you need one for what both is responsible for. It’s a lot of work but such is life. glad to see you back.
March 1st, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Oh dear! You have a mountain of debt, but you are on track for getting things worked out. Good Job! Just acknowledging that you have changes to be made is the first step to recovery. It took 3 years of prompting from my honey for me to finally look at our actual debt to income ratio. Now, we have a cash system that keeps us both accountable and on track for becoming debt free. I had a huge eye opener experience with the amount we were spending on household goods. More than $90 per month. That was just insane.
Anyways, if you like, you may find the Envelope Buddy helpful. https://www.eebacanhelp.com/login.php. It has really helped us out. Good luck and keep up the good work!
Patti