| Budget. Yes, I said it. Budget, budget, budget. It’s really not a bad word. I know most of you out there got the shakes when I said it……budget. Did you know a budget can actually make your life easier? You tell your money where to go instead of wondering where it went. You’re not wondering if you’re going to have enough money through the end of the month – you’ll KNOW you have enough because you wrote it down and planned it out. I’m just here to make your life easier. Trust me…..just do one. Try it. If you hate it, you can quit. Okay, you probably will want to quit at first, but don’t. Give it a few tries and it WILL WORK. Then you’ll love it. You’ll love me. By the way, if you love me, I really enjoy Skittles, M&Ms, and other various candies. |
| If you’re married, you need to do your budget together. Trying to do it alone just won’t work. You can try to make it work, but eventually something will backfire. Backfire is scary. It makes you jump. Heavens to Betsy. If you can’t get along about money, then you have serious issues. Dave Ramsey suggests seeking marital counseling if you can’t agree about money. He says the problem isn’t money, but the money is a symptom of the problem. Do your budget together. Guess what? You’re going to fight the first time. You might fight the second, third, and fourth too. But maybe, just maybe, around the 50th time you do it there will be no fights. Work together. Try to avoid decking each other. The kids are watching. Wait until they go to bed for that. My husband says to most couples he counsels that they should go home and have big fight about money…and then make up. 😉 |
| Here is an example of a budget that my wonderful husband provided. Click on it to see a bigger example. This example budget takes a monthly household income (TAKE HOME PAY) of $1,800 and spends it all on paper. Of course your budget won’t look like this, but it’s a good place to start. It gives you an idea of what to list and write down. Every person will have a different budget. Joe Blow will have a monster truck payment while Jane Doe will owe her life savings to Macy’s. Every month you’ll do this budget together. Every month. You can’t just do a budget one time and then let it live forever. If you love it, set it free. Oh wait, that doesn’t apply here. Anyway, each month will be different. You might get a raise, you might get docked; you might get an inheritance from your rich uncle. Also, not the same payments are due each month. Perhaps your insurance is only paid three times a year. Oh, and every month will be different for gifts – Christmas always comes in December by the way. Gas is another one that will be different. You need more money for more driving. I like to state the obvious. |
| You’re going to write down how much you make, spending only the NET (TAKE HOME) amount. Don’t spend the GROSS amount……then you’d be in the hole. If you do this, take a shovel. Shovel = more money. While doing your budget, you need to spend every cent on paper. Every cent. EVERY CENT. Don’t leave $23.84 just roaming around. If you do, you’ll think “Oh, I have some extra money in my account.” Then you’ll spend $50.29 because you thought you had extra. If you write it all down, you know that it’s accounted for. If that means you have to make a space for “Unallocated Monies” then do that (notice this category is in the example budget above). Get that amount out in cash……then you can see it in your hand. I have this much. I don’t have any more. |
| Stick to your budget. It doesn’t do any good if you make it and then file it away. Don’t frame it. It’s not a work of art….unless you’re a nerd (I love you honey!) then you might want to frame it. USE IT. You spent time on it, don’t you want to put it to work? Most of the time couples feel like they have more money when they do a budget because they can actually see on paper where their money is going. They don’t wonder why it’s July 27th and they’re out of cash while there are four days left in the month…..where did it go? They’ll know where it went! Isn’t that a relief? Shew! It’s a relief to me. Living on a budget is a type of security to me. I know how much we have. I know we have enough. There is no guessing. Nice. |
| Warning!!! It’s not easy the first time. It’s not easy the second time. It’s going to take several attempts until you feel like you know what you’re doing. Barry and I have been doing a budget since Day 1. Now that we’ve been married for seven years, it takes us less than 10 minutes each month to do our budget. We don’t fight any more over the money either. We’ve worked it out. We negotiate. I listen to his wants/needs and he listens to mine. It’s like a dance. A dance that I can actually do without breaking a body part. So, you should expect to have a few little (or big, that’s okay too) spats when you start doing a budget. You’re two different people with two different personalities. Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Girls rule, boys drool. |
| Barry and I use a lot of the budget advice from Dave Ramsey. We’ve followed his plan from the beginning and it works great for us. We just love Dave. He’s great. Dave! Dave! Dave! But if you don’t like Dave (weirdo) then you could use the advice of Crown (NOT Crown Royal, Crown Financial Ministries). Here are the two links for further information since I’ve only scratched the surface. I hope I didn’t leave a scab. Please don’t quit reading because I talked about money. This isn’t church you know. Check back tomorrow for more!http://www.daveramsey.com/http://www.crown.org/ |
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Haha! Justin and I fought tons over the budget for a loooong while. lol After a couple of years, things have finally calmed down. That’s because there’s no extra money to fight over. 🙂
I could not live without my budget. It is my guide on what we can do each week. I made my own Allocated Spending Plan in Excel so that I do not have to pay for a service. So, my budgeting is free now! Can’t beat that! Of course, I needed the initial guidance and it was all worth the money we invested.
Oh, and although Dave Ramsey’s FPU class really helped Jusin and I, I really don’t like him. I don’t like the fact that he calls people idiots and we definitely disagree on everything politically. But, I’m really glad he has helped so many people despite that. I’m glad you’re sharing what you’ve learned with others!
I know several people don’t like Dave, but he is obviously answering God’s call on his life. And as for the “idiots” part…..he just states it like it is. LOL There ARE idiots out there.
We use Excel too. It’s a great program for budgets if you know how to use it!
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