Last Updated on January 6, 2018 9:24 pm by Steven
When you are married you combine all aspects of your lives together. One of the most important aspects of being married is doing a budget (also knows as a family financial plan)
#1 – Communicate
Couples need to communicate – courtesy of www.saidaonline.com
Money is one of those things that we don’t like to talk about because it makes us uncomfortable. Maybe it is because you don’t want your husband to know how much it really costs to get a haircut. Or you don’t want your wife to know how much you spent on that last power tool you purchased.
Open, honest, and frequent communication about money is what I’m talking about. Talking with your spouse about money is sometimes difficult. As you start to talk and communicate about your personal and family financial needs and wants it becomes much easier to discuss.
Setup rules on when you need to discuss financial things with your spouse and stick to those rules. Lorell and I have a hundred dollar rule. We don’t purchase anything (even if there is money in the budget) that costs more than one hundred dollars without explicitly discussing it with each other.
#2 – Create Goals Together
Budgeting is hard sometimes
When you were married, you promised each other to live together forever (or at least until death). A bad assumption is when you think that your spouse is on the same page as you without talking and planning together. Lorell and I have created goals together to ensure we are going in the same direction. Some of our Goals include:
Retirement Goals
We have discussed and written down what we want our finances to look like when we retire and about when we want to retire. We don’t have an exact dollar amount or an exact date, but we have a general idea of where we want to be financially. Some of our goals include:
- House paid off – no debt!
- Enough money to keep our standard of living
- We want to do some traveling
Setting long-term goals first helped us to define the next level of goals.
Pay off House Goals
We want our house paid off long before we retire. We have a goal to have our house paid off in 2020. You can read about that goal here.
We are paying off our house very quickly. It is currently on a 10-year mortgage. Goals should be a stretch, and this one is for us.
Yearly Goals
Every year Lorell and I look at our budget and decide what year long things we want to spend our money on. Some of the goals we have made are:
- Increase our Emergency Fund
- Pay off a Specific Debt
- Have a certain amount of cash in a budget (like vehicle purchase)
- Go on a big vacation paying with cash!
These yearly goals help drive the next level of goals:
Monthly Goals (Also called Budgets)
Budgets (or family financial plans) are the heart and soul of creating goals. Budgets should be done at least monthly. Both of you are part of this meeting and have equal say in where the money goes, and you must speak up. Don’t let one person stay quiet while the other one does all of the work. Your marriage is a partnership – this is where you act like partners.
#3 – Life does not fit into nice neat boxes
It is going to be messy and imperfect – but that is OK. A bad budget is better than no budget. If you are not currently budgeters – it will take many months in order to become a budgeter. You will make many mistakes and that is OK. Just keep at it.
You will need to roll with the punches. Cars and Home (and Kids) break and require funds to fix that you were not expecting (which is why an emergency fund in important).
Sometimes you go to the grocery store and purchase an extension cord – what budget that does go into? It really does not matter, as long as it goes into a budget.
We Americans have a culture of Black and White. Good and Bad. We want things to be understood and clear. We want things to fit into our nice labeled boxes. But that is not how life works.
As you are budgeting with your spouse, remember that life is sometimes messy and that is OK. Do your best and move forward. Work together and it will happen.
#4 – Forgive again, again, and again
Both of you are going to make money mistakes; and a lot of them! We need to be prepared to forgive our spouse… again! Sometimes things don’t go as planned – or – we forget the money rules we set up – or – we lose sight of the goals that we made together.
You will make as many mistakes as your spouse does. Decide that you will forgive each other so that you can move forward with your financial plan.
#5 – Play the Long Game
Don’t lose sight of long-term financial stability (and the blessing that financial stability brings to a marriage) for short-term purchases.
Lorell and I set a goal a few years ago to pay our house off as quickly as possible. In order to achieve this goal, we refinanced our mortgage to a 10-year mortgage. Every month, during our budget meeting, it is painful as we have a lot of cash coming in, but we also have a huge mortgage payment. It is OK to have some short-term pain because in just a couple of years we will no longer have a house payment.
Do this same for all of your expenses. Save up and pay cash for a car instead of borrowing money for it. If you have any debts – pay them off as soon as possible.
Financial stability in a marriage is priceless. Commit now to follow these five things to create a stronger marriage for you, your spouse, and your family!
Miriah & Hunter Married
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