Though my wife financially contributes to the household she is not active in paying the bills or tracking our finances. The result is that she spends with a free hand and I am always on police duty. She suggested that we her on budget - no more free access to the checking account, debit or credit cards. She gets X amount a month for household expenditures and spending money (hanging out with friends, iPhone apps, hair / nails, etc). The fool in me thinks this will work splendidly. Does anyone have experience with this? Is it possible to earmark a percentage of our income as grocery and pocket money?
Both of you should take the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University. Made a huge improvement in our house.
Absolutely. You are very fortunate your spouse is willing to meet a budget. In my household the problem was finding a method that my wife was happy with (that is, would be diligent about.) For her it turned out to be first a Palm, then an Apple iPhone along with an app she likes. She currently uses the *wonderful* app iXpenseit. She has always been pretty good about stuffing receipts into her wallet, so all she had to get used to was updating the app with the receipt info. Some days she pulls out receipts in the evening, but when the kids were home and she was waiting for them she would take care of the data entry. I think it takes her around 10 - 15 seconds per receipt now that most of her vendors are known to the program. I had to ... uhh ... bribe her a bit to really get her involved. We set a budget that I was confident she could go under with some effort, and we have an understanding that any money not spent becomes her personal cache she can spend however, no questions asked. This works out very well for us. She stays disciplined, and is happy with her shoebox of financial independence. I am not a fan of smartphones and their monthly subscription rates, but I pay the $50/month iPhone bill gladly. Keeping on top of a budget makes it so worthwhile. Once a year we look over our budget and negotiate changes: how much, and what is included. In order to encourage her to live more frugally, we recently agreed that if she cuts out a bill (essentially, finds a cheaper alternative or does without,) half of the savings goes to her private savings. THAT weaned her off the $120 a month gym membership -- finally I used to receive salary every other week, so it became custom in our house to set the budget up for two weeks at a time too, and to pay all outstanding bills. Most importantly this also included credit cards. It took a while, but my wife eventually adopted my outlook that money was gone when something was acquired, not when it was paid for. This is a very important distinction for people who use credit cards, and it keeps them out of trouble. Nowadays paying the credit card balance causes no stress at all, because the e-budget ALREADY has taken those purchases into account. In a sense we live a cash-only lifestyle while enjoying the benefits of credit cards. Dave Ramsey followers tend to be fundie christians in financial straits, unable to handle the potential pitfalls of credit. I am just frugal, saving for retirement. We all agree that a budget is a very useful tool. If you are a church goer, I gather it is common to find Ramsey's books in the church library if you are interested in personal finance education . Just do yourself a favor and avoid paying for any of his courses, and avoid like the plague his network of financial advisors. Good Luck! p.s. This iPhone app might be a worthy contender if you are satisfied with the feature set. We stick with iXpenseit to set custom budget intervals and because we use vendor information to reconcile the credit card. 'Saver' sure has a brilliant UI though.
Absolutely, in my house I'm the king, the president, tyrant, dictator etc etc. strict monthly budget. Lol Jk. Actually funny cause her mom was rich ( business did very good than crashed), my parents are rich through financial investments and wise money choices. Her spending habits where like her moms when they had lots of money. Which accumulated alot of debt, long story short I let my parents manage our money and now we are debt free with plenty of money to spend. Sometimes budgets are life savers.
This thread reminds me of a 'funny' greetings card which reminded me of my ex wife. The cartoon picture on the front was of a hen pecked husband with a sly grin stood next to a battle axe of a wife, and the comment went something like; "Gerald didn't bother reporting his credit card as stolen, as whoever had stolen it was spending far less than his wife"
WE created a budget for both of us. We discuss the incoming money, what's want to be able to do, and where our money is going. We set up a 'household' account, emergency account, and an account for each of us for spending on ourselves. For our personal accounts we each contribute a small amount to our own each year (which we discussed and agreed upon). I track it all in Quicken, which I have found to have some wonderful visual graphs and reports. We then update accordingly. The process works quite well for us.
I have listened to Dave Ramsey on and off for a while, (he is on KFWB here in Los Angeles) and while I can appreciate most of what he says, like Dr. Laura, his advice is black and white and appears difficult to execute. Sometimes extreme measures are necessary though... SageBrush, first, thank you for taking the time to craft that response. Secondly, I very much appreciate your insight and advice - I will get the app and implement your "whatever she doesn't spend is added to her piggy bank" methodology. These two things should help immensely. She is a good girl and I am impressed that she is policing herself. Yes, this is something that she and I would create together. I definitely want this to be her to own this. ROFL. This had to have happened to someone somewhere. Wow, that is so cool that you let your folks manage your money.
