Do you plan a weekly/monthly budget WITH your s/o?

[westernskies]

I have been the financial planner for lack of better words in our home for the last 6-7 years. DH works and I figure out what needs paid and where the money goes. I thought this was "working" until we had a bit of a heated discussion ahem... last night. I think what I am hearing from him is that he doesn't know what is "going on" with the finances, yet I do email him the monthly budget/weekly budget. He has been listening to Dave Ramsey- and "Dave says" to plan the budget together. Well how do people do this? I mean to me it is a no brainer, the water bill needs paid, PAY IT! What is there to really TALK about at these "meetings?" Our bills are pretty fixed as in the monthly budget only varies slightly when there is a birthday or some other special event during the month. We aren't juggling money or robbing Peter to pay Paul so there aren't any "big" decisions to be made. I guess I don't know how to "involve" him without it just seeming like a silly waste of time? I know he needs to feel comfortable with things- and he even in the heat of our discussion said he KNOWS I do a great job with things and everything is paid and he trusts me- so aurgh?!?!?! I don't get it!

He did also mention that if I were to fall of the face of the earth that he would have no idea what needed to be paid etc.. . To which I kindly pointed out the emailed weekly budget and that it wouldn't be hard at all for him to figure it out. Sigh... I guess it is hard to figure out what HE needs when HE can't even put it into words.

So... do you have a "monthly" budget meeting? What do you talk about?

[sanguine_speed]

It's great that he was able to express his concerns to you about this issue.

We don't discuss the budget monthly necessarily, but we're both involved in the budget's creation and modification. I'm not entirely sure how it would go if I just made up a budget and informed my dp about it? It seems sensical to discuss it first? Talk about how to cut back and where, what spending is important, what your goals are.

[westernskies]

Originally Posted by sanguine_speed

It's great that he was able to express his concerns to you about this issue.

We don't discuss the budget monthly necessarily, but we're both involved in the budget's creation and modification. I'm not entirely sure how it would go if I just made up a budget and informed my dp about it? It seems sensical to discuss it first? Talk about how to cut back and where, what spending is important, what your goals are.

Thanks for replying We have been doing the Dave Ramsey "plan" of snowballing debt for the last 5-6 years so we do both know and share in the end goal of being debt free. There isn't anything left to cut back and as far as what money is going where- he IS happy and in agreement with. This is where my frustration is- there isn't anything significant to BE discussed that I can think of? So when he talks about "involving him" because "Dave says" we should do this together, all I can picture is we take what precious little time he has at home on the weekends, sit down and what? This bill needs paid, ok, that bill needs paid, ok... ??? If there were decisions to be made we would talk about it- (and we have in the past) but like I said, the budget is pretty fixed each month. X amount goes to this and X amount goes to that...

Sigh....

[Thystle]

Write it on a piece of paper (or dry erase board) , including when bills are due and how much income comes in and out.


Maybe even put projected dates of when debts are going to be paid off.


Then tape it inside a closet or door somewhere he can walk up to it and see it whenever he wants.




Do this together.

[lisalulu]

I pretty much do the budget and pay bills too and dh is pretty clueless. Honestly, its a little frustrating and I can see where doing it together would be helpful. I think he could read my spreadsheet and figure things out if he needed to but over the month it would be nice if he new where things stood. We share an account and when he logs into it online he sees "x" amount in there but doesn't really know if the money is for something specific and he shouldn't touch it or if its up for grabs,etc. Maybe your dh just wants to feel a little more in touch even though it isn't really necessary to go over it to get the job done, kwim?

If we were to have a monthly budget meeting, I would probably go over with him how much we're spending on groceries, gas, what debt the extra (for snowballing) is going to, whats being saved-stuff that can change month to month. DH pretty regularly checks our retirement accounts himself but if he didn't I might do that. We redid our budget a couple months back-went to a coffee shop and did it together and left the kids with my parents. It actually worked out to be nice couple time in a weird way-got to talk about future plans. Maybe you only need to do it quarterly instead of monthly?

[westernskies]

Originally Posted by Thystle

Write it on a piece of paper (or dry erase board) , including when bills are due and how much income comes in and out.


Maybe even put projected dates of when debts are going to be paid off.


Then tape it inside a closet or door somewhere he can walk up to it and see it whenever he wants.




Do this together.

That is a good idea. Maybe if the "information" is more visual and easily accessible then it will help him... Thanks

[ShaggyDaddy]

I have a spreadsheet that I maintain 2x a month and I send a copy to DW. I tend to send off all the bills (online), but she generally always knows where we stand. She managed it for the first like 5 years of our marriage because our financial situation was just too stressful for me to handle without daily nervous breakdowns. Now that we have enough income to survive, I am managing the paying off of all the debt we acquired during the time when we just didn't make enough. I am quite a math nerd, so I tend to enjoy it.

[lightheart]

I'm the bill payer, hubby is the wage earner. I'm the one that worries that he wouldn't know what to do if something was to happen to me... he'd figure it out though, or at least i would hope so.

we don't have meetings persay, sometimes when I revamp the whole budget I will ask his opinion on should we pay extra toward this or this? or how much extra do you want to pay? I do go over our bills/where were at every couple of months, I start rambling off numbers and he listens then will ask "so are we okay?"

I also print out or write down on a piece of paper basically total debts we owe, what min payment is, what we are actually paying. I will aslo list our day to day bills like electric, phone, insurance and put a figure beside them of what we are actually paying. Once a year or there abouts will do a big figuring showing where we were last year and where we are now, kinda like our accomplishments. It will have how much we owed then and how much we owe now, with a line fro it showing how much we paid toward intrest and priciple. It will show how much savings we started wih, how much we have now, with the average saved per week per month beside it. It wll also show the regular bills, with a total spent on say electric, with an average figure out beside it. I also list all the big ticket items we have bought... the new fridge, and how much we spent, the new chainsaw, how much we spent. Kinda shows on paper this is what we have to alo show for you working. (I mean that in a good way)

okay so that's what we talk about...

In a way it sounds like your hubby is wanting to be involved some on the bill paying, it may be aphase, it may be something he wants to help with long term, if it's a short term fancy, it might be 'busy work' for you but get him involved, Look at it as it'll make him happy and it is time you spend together. Maybe get out all the bills and let him write down the budget, you can basically say okay, electric is X and gas is X and rent/morgage is X. let him add things up for himself, maybe ask about ways he thinks you guys could reduce the amount you spend, or ways that you can do things differently. If your paying extra on things, then talk about is that enough? is that too much? how long do you think it will take to pay it off? sure you might have all these numbers figured for yourself in a nice little spreadsheet, but he might want to do the figuring also, let him, so he comes up with the exact same number you have and you could say "well I could of told you that" instead just say "oh really? that's great or oh really, it will take that long

emailing him the budget is a little less personal than handing him a piece of paper, or a piece of paper and pencil where he gets to write down exactly what you read off the budget.

Maybe also get a list together of all the bills you pay, whether they come in the mail or online, the aprox due date, a contact number and address. If you have multiple bank accounts write down which banks they are at and their numbers. If you have credit cards, write down that too, even if you don't owe or use them. Put it all in a safe place and he'll have something to go by "just in case"

Once you sit down together ask him if he wants to take over any specifc tasks, like balanceing the checkbook, or making sure that X or Y has been paid.

[texmati]

okay... I'll admit it. I'm the slacker, and my hubby pays the bills, and keeps up with all the financial stuff, including investments ect. And I know it must be frustrating for you DH to suddenly want to look over your shoulder.

I've asked him a couple of times if we can do a weekly or monthly budget. I honestly feel kind of in the dark about stuff. Like sometimes I think... "I dont know if we're poor or not?" I don't know whether we are making money or loosing money each month/year. How do we measure up to other couples in our age group? Should I feel guilty about going out to lunch, or buying that gadget that i've been eyeing?

Maybe that's how your husband feels... you may know how much the light bill is, but he has no idea. Maybe it's not so much about whether it's getting done, but more about informing him about how things are going.

[annethcz]

Originally Posted by Thystle

Write it on a piece of paper (or dry erase board) , including when bills are due and how much income comes in and out.


Maybe even put projected dates of when debts are going to be paid off.


Then tape it inside a closet or door somewhere he can walk up to it and see it whenever he wants.




Do this together.

This exactly. I've always been in charge of the money at our house, and DH occasionally wonders what's going on. For the past few months, I've been writing out a budget on a piece of notebook paper. The budget doesn't change much from month to month, but by writing it down we can both see where the money is going. I usually have everything written up before I sit down with DH, but I do it in pencil so that we can change the amounts if necessary. I write all of this down BEFORE the bills are due, often before we even receive the bills, that way it doesn't seem like I'm jumping the gun without discussing it with DH.

[KariM]

We don't have a monthly budget meeting, but we did set up our budget jointly.

We determined what our needs were first - starting with fixed expenses (including savings). We then evaluated variable expenses and jointly determined budget amounts for those. With the remaining funds we determined what our "want" items would be and how much we'd budget for those.

We track our expenses using Quicken and either of us can look at the cash flow easily at any time.

We just had a conversation this past weekend about how to use overload (extra income from an extra course DH is teaching this semester) income and decided that it will go toward savings.

In setting up the budget we had a tough time finding time to talk. DD was going through a fussy phase, I was feeling sick with the early pregnancy, etc. so we finally ended up with me drafting a budget and then DH and communicated through notes on the budget sheet until we came to an agreement.

Our budget is a constant work in progress and we check back to make sure it's keeping us on the course we want and that we're both comfortable with the choices we've made.

Oh, and when unexpected expenses come up (like the huge auto repairs we had a few weeks ago) we ALWAYS talk about what budget adjustments we'll make, if any need to be made.

[Sarah8Jane]

Dh loves to sit down together and update HIS spreadsheet every payday. He calls it "the budget" but really its a mish mash of account totals: bank, credit cards, mutual fund, retirement; plus an interest estimator because he loves projecting how much interest we're going to make in the next month. He also created a (pretty complicated) pie chart to visually show our retirement asset allocation.

I keep my own budget spreadsheets to track our monthly expenses and anticipated future expenses, savings goals and such. We do discuss when to fund the Roth vs the vacation accounts, but usually he ends up saying, "sounds like you've thought this through; do what you think is best." He'll ask me if we're "okay" or "still on track", but he really doesn't look at the real budget. Don't get me wrong I show it to him and he lives within it, but he doesn't feel a need to read the nitty gritty.

[katheek77]

My husband has slightly less than no clue. He has no desire to deal with these things.

I let him know when I make any major changes and what not, but, honestly, I don't think he has a clue what I spend on groceries or baby stuff or whatever.

He tells me if there's something coming up that he needs money for, and I adjust accordingly. Example: He goes away for five weeks for training next Tuesday, and has to front all of the money until the army reimburses him. So, I put some extra into his personal account and have adjusted the budget to pay for the hotel room.

Were I to die tomorrow, I do have a list of all the accounts/due dates/etc. in the lock box. I'm not even kidding when I say I don't think he even knows the password to his own bank account.

[phathui5]

We do have a monthly budget meeting. At the end of each month, we do an Excel spreadsheet for our income (varies) and expenses. We talk about any purchases we want to make that we don't usually need to cover (clothes, books, dates) and anything we want to save up for (vacation, house repairs).

[zersha]

No, we don't have a regular meeting to discuss the budget.

Dh works, I sah. I handle all the finances.

I have a spreadsheet that is on the desktop of our computer. I usually have it open, and he can see it anytime he likes. Right now, we are basically paying all the bills that have to be paid (so no reason to discuss that), putting some towards our remodeling our mobile home, and saving for various things (house, emergency fund, retirement).

I do try to get him involved and discuss these things, but honestly, usually he just nods and says uh huh. I was so gung ho to discuss our budget and saving for a down payment for a house last week, and he basically blew me off.

I'm not sure which situation is better/worse. I would like him to be more interested, but I wouldn't like to be hounded about paying regular bills like electric, etc. I agree that there is no need to discuss those unless there has been some huge increase and money needs to be cut from elsewhere.

[mama kate]

Add DH to the slightly less than clueless! He has NO deisre to handle anything financial - he has access to all accounts - to him as long as when he goes to use his debit card it works everything is cool. LOL

[Piglet68]

Yes, we sat down and worked out a monthly budget together. We decided how much would go to various things, how much to savings/debt reduction, retirement, etc.

I'm the one who tracks our spending every month b/c I'm the spreadsheet geek, lol. But I update him at least once during the month and then at the end of the month I show him how well we've stuck to the budget.

I think your partner is right to want to know where things are going, etc. And I think it would be easy to include him in a brief discussion once a month or so. Having a spreadsheet would allow him to see for himself and make him feel more included.

[Sharlla]

Nope, I manage all the #. If DH wants to buy something he asks if we have $ for it and I tell him if we do or not. He can always go online and check the bank account if he wants to know where the $ is being spent.

[2M's Mom]

We are starting to budget more closely, and DH is getting more involved (it used to just be me). We keep an online spreadsheet (google docs), and talk about the budget weekly.

[westernskies]

We talked more about this last night when he got home from work. I had emailed him this weeks budget- but expanded it to include 1-2 sentences after everything that we were paying to say how much was left on the account, why we were paying this, etc... and he said it was exactly what he needed. He told me he feels bad about "dumping" the finances on me and I told him I don't mind at all. It makes me feel like I have something to do that contributes to the financial realm of our home. I think it was more of him worrying about ME being stressed about having to do it myself, than it was him really having a need to know more about what was going on. I love crunching numbers and doing the frugal thing, so once he understood that it was ok...

I am going to type up a list of ALL our accounts and insurance places and online passwords etc... and put it in our safe for him to have in case he would ever need it. I think that will give him some more peace.

All is well in our world again Thanks for the input!