10 Budget Tips for Couples

As promised (or threatened)… 10 tips gleaned from 10 years of marriage. Tips appear in the order I thought of them with no implication of relative importance unless otherwise noted…

1. Know when to say when

I thought of this one first, because Marriage-101 made the comment that inspired this tip. This one is all about finding the right level of detail in your budget. If you put in too much detail, you’ll get bogged down in the bookkeeping and never see it through. If you put in too little, you’ll lose money every month into a black hole titled “Miscellaneous” or similar. Rule of Thumb: The less discretionary income you have, the more detail you need. You simply can’t afford to lose track of money if you want to make ends meet.

2. Don’t forget the small stuff

Speaking of detail… don’t forget to include those incidentals. Your afternoon Coke and Snicker’s from the vending machine is only $1.20, so there’s no need to worry about it right? Not until you’ve done it 270 times in the year and “lost” than $300 over the course of a year. I’m not saying don’t spend your money this way; I’m just saying be honest about how you want to spend your money and include it in the plan.

3. Leave room for forgetfulness

Tip #3 is the flip side of Tip #2… accept that there will be things you didn’t think of. Do your best to get everything, including those irregular items like semi-annual property tax payments and annual car registration fees, but leave some wiggle room. The easiest way to do that is to round categories up. If your electric bill is on level-billing at $81/month, include it as $85 or $90 in your budget. Give your self some breathing room for things that you forgot and for expenses that come in higher than planned. If you push your budget to the line, sooner or later it will come back to bite you in the butt.

4. Be realistic

This one can be tough, (Who am I kidding; all of these can be tough.) but it’s important to be realistic about what you will and won’t spend your money on. Economic realities may force your hand in some cases, but if you have the financial freedom for choice, be honest about the choices you actually make. For example, if you know you’re going to get that Coke and Snickers every afternoon, own up to the choice and put it in the budget.

5. Do it with your partner

Seriously… this is probably the most important tip, hidden right here in the middle. I’ll repeat myself several times, using a font variant and everything, because it is so important: Make your budget with your spouse. Odds are one of you will be a planner and will get into it; the other of you will hide in the sand whenever it’s mentioned. Planners, don’t sidestep your spouse and make the budget on your own. It won’t work. Make your budget with your spouse. Ostriches, make yourself participate in this process. A budget is about coming together and creating an agreed upon plan for spending your money. If you don’t make the budget together, you will find yourselves in the roles of permission-giver and permission-seeker. That is fitting for a parent-child relationship, but not a husband-wife relationship. Marriage is a joint venture, so make your budget with your spouse.

6. Don’t be afraid of mistakes…

At some point in your budget you’ll have this conversation: “Honey, we have a problem. When we made the budget we didn’t plan for [INSERT UNPLANNED FOR EXPENSE], and now they want to get paid.” Resist the temptation to pass blame. Notice that the conversation above contains the first person plural… not singular. If you have remembered only one thing so far, it was to make your budget with your spouse. In that case you have a collective problem, and you can work toward a collective solution. Mistakes will happen, and more important than passing our blame and guilt is staying on the same team.

7. Don’t be afraid to fix mistakes either

Now that you’ve identified the mistake and resisted the temptation to turn on one another, fix the problem! Remember Tip #3? You knew there would be things you’d forget. I’ll let you in on another secret: You’ll take turns blowing the budget from time to time, too. It’s not the end of the world. Be honest and make the necessary changes. No budget is written in stone. In the ordinary course you’ll probably want to review and revise your budget annually to account for pay changes and new seasonal activities anyway. If you discover something that warrants a mid-cycle revision, do it. After all, the budget is your tool. It sits in your toolbox and is designed to help you have a better marriage. Use it whenever necessary.

8. Don’t mix business and pleasure

The point here is to set aside a specific time to talk about the budget. A book I’ll be blogging about in the next few weeks advocates a weekly “Business Meeting” at which you can discuss things like the budget. Remembering Tip #5, Planners will have the tendency to bring up the budget whenever possible, because the Ostriches will try to run from it whenever possible. (Or vice versa… it’s a chicken-and-egg thing.) Setting a Business Meeting means the Planners can let non-emergencies go knowing that there will be a time and place to address those issues, and the Ostriches can stop fearing an ambush, instead knowing exactly when the next budget conversation will occur. Note: emergencies are emergencies, and real emergencies warrant an immediate conversation. Don’t cry wolf, but don’t fiddle while Rome burns, either.

9. Think big

This is one of the best parts of creating a budget in my mind. When you plan your budget, start by talking about your financial dreams. Do you want to buy a house? Do you have debt you want to pay off? What are the five and ten year goals? Now, when you put pencil to paper to make that budget, keep these goals in mind. Let these goals inform your choices as you balance current living with future dreams. (Caveat: Remember Tip #4!) Further, let these goals remind you why you made the choices you made when you’re in the middle of an impulse and want to chuck the budget. Among other things, the budget is a plan to help you get where you want to go.

10. Stick to it

I won’t mince words: Staying with a budget is hard. We – those of us one the Internet – live in a world of limited personal resources and unlimited goods and services crying out for those resources. A budget contains hard choices, and there will absolutely be times when you won’t want to keep up with it. In the near-term it will absolutely be easier to forget the plan and follow the feeling. Resist the temptation. Your marriage, your spouse’s trust, your collective future dreams, all of these and more are worth the near-term discomfort. A budget is a very useful tool for a marriage. Wield it wisely, and your marriage will be that much stronger.

Next: Building a family on $6.10 an hour. I’ll share a few personal stories about our early budget successes… and failures.

images: coffee | hungerectomy | shirt