I’m curious how you budget as a couple or budget with family. Does one person take the lead and it’s their duty? Are you equal participants? Does each person leverage their strengths?
What works for you?
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I think it starts with shift in mindset from your money/my money to our money.
I’ve found it beneficial to have all money going it and out of joint account.
One person can take the lead both parties must understand and agree to the budget.
I do most of the tracking but ask my partner about unrecognized transactions. They ask me how much money is left in which categories periodically.
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This is pretty much how we do it too. The part about yours/mine was key for us to start because we had a shared goal of saving more than we spend.
As a matter of fact, thinking back to it now, we actually started budgeting together even before we were married and before having a joint account. We would pay for things in the ratio of our respective incomes and everything was fair based on the structure we agreed upon.
I think the underlying premise of a lot of these answers (all?) Is transparency and thoughtfulness. I can’t see budgeting together working without that.
I’m in charge but they’re informed. What works for us may not work for others. Rather than any specific approach couples should find a way that works for them.
I know happily married people that still do even splits of expenses and “owe” the other for covering certain expenses.
One person makes a proposal. The other either says it’s okay, or makes a counter-proposal. Revisit after a month or two, and adjust as necessary.
It’s like the other parts of a relationship: identify problems, seek agreement, make suggestions, back off when necessary, check to see if changes have improved anything.
I take the lead given my two finance degrees and interest. I go through our budget with my spouse and they sign off or propose changes every December. I pay bills. I compete our taxes.
Our money has been communal since before we married. We have each supported the other financially as we obtained further education. We discuss larger spends and otherwise buy little relative to most in this country. One of our shared values is that our money is for security and to invest to break free of working.
Since you’re more knowledgeable, does your partner try to cat h up. Or are they more hands off and just trust your decisions?
Or rooms are reversed where my wife is more knowledgeable, but it’s a regular discussion for us. And with the regularity, I’m catching up.
My spouse doesn’t really care and trusts me. We’ve been together for almost two decades, and they know I’m a meticulous cheapskate who has never missed a payment.
I track our net worth monthly and update them at that point, but have to force the issue. I’m their financial advisor/family office in their eyes.
When I was a couple, we just tried to split things evenly and kept our finances independent. This worked out really well, and we both had mutual respect.
Were y’all pretty transparent? This seems difficult to pull off without transparency, at least for shared expenses.
I have a friend who handles finances like this with her husband and they are NOT transparent which is both surprised to me because they somehow make it work and because it seems to put it on hard mode.
Yes, we were transparent and honest with each other. We didn’t have any reason not to be.
I suppose I should also mention that she made more than I did at some point, and didn’t mind paying a little more because of this. So, even though things may not have always been split 50/50 we still tried to balance things in a way that we both felt was even. We each paid our fair share and treated each other equally.
Our incomes are very different. I take care of budgeting and paying 90% of stuff. Wife has a rough idea of budget, plus she budgets/pays some on her side (and I have a rough idea of that). Whatever’s left afterwards (usually in my account) is ours, not mine. The stuff for my hobbies is in the budget, not what’s left. What’s left (if any) is additional savings basically.
This is basically what we do. I take a small “cut” for my hobbies or whatever. She takes the same or likely a little more. What’s leftover is family budget.
It’s hard honestly. Are current system is we set a weekly budget that they manage and we both have the same card.
We are both frugal. We discuss purchases above a certain amount, which changes with our finances. We generally communicate a lot.
It works best if both are involved. It can work fine if one takes the lead and informs the other.
A caution: Any times one feels the urge to hide something, immediately tell the other about the thing. It avoids a lot of problems.