If you are married – or married with children than you have “Family Finances”. Therefore, they should be a family affair. Disclaimer- By family affair, I mean you and your spouse. Please do not put your financial stress on your children. If they have no way of fixing the problem – they should not have to carry the burden.
So many times I see that one spouse handles the finances – while the other spouse is in the dark. To be honest that is how we have been for a while. We started our debt free journey together – and have agreed to it together – but since I pay all the bills, and handle everything that has to do with the money Scott is left feeling lost on our journey, and at times I feel like there is a lot of pressure on me. I would get frequent questions from Scott that were:
Are we still snowballing our debts?
How much is actually in our emergency fund?
Do we have money? Are we doing good or bad?
etc.
I would get annoyed when he would complain about our debt free journey – and he was annoyed because he had no clue that last year we paid off an additional $30,000 beyond the minimum payments. OR I’d get annoyed when he would say something like “Why don’t we have money for *Insert something*” Well, because, I just paid off one of our student loans… I was unaware that this was going to be a “want” for you. Sorry. Too bad…
SO I made this awesome little booklet for us – so we can fix these debt-free hurdles and get our family finances back onto the same page.
How It Works:
- Sit down and fill out your goal sheet together. What are your saving / paying off goals? List them in priority order. Once you’ve reached a goal take a gel highlighter and mark it off!
- Once a week – sit down with your spouse and answer the questions. It is a great way to make sure you are both on the same page – and no one becomes blindsided by the bank account number!
- It is so easy to do when you are using in alongside my Budgeting Envelopes & Financial Planner
- It also keeps you both motivated and working toward the same goal.
- You know those surprise bills you receive mid week? Those go in the surprise box. This way when you have medical bills, donation requests, wedding gift, etc. BOTH of you know why your bank account is what it is. Instead of your spouse just assuming you were not budget conscience. Oh, wait, please tell me my spouse isn’t the only one who assumes this.
- The additional money box is for those surprise checks – side gigs – gift money – etc.
- The Most Important Part – Once you both know how much extra money you have (whether it is 20 bucks or 2,000) make sure you put it to work for you! How are you going to divide up the funds? Emergency Fun? Christmas gifts? Debt repayment? Whatever you two decide, make sure it is working for you and your goals! Write out how much money you are going to put towards your goal(s). Once that money is transferred, paid, “gone” mark the circle as complete.
How To Assemble:
- Grab and print your booklet. There are two pages per sheet.
- Use the vertical gray line as a guide and cut your sheets in half. I used my small x-acto cutter to do this step super quick.
- Bind your booklet! If you do not have the fellows binding machine (shown below) then you can 1) either take it to staples or office max and have them bind it into a book for just a few bucks. 2) Three-Hole punch the pages and toss them into a mini binder 3) Staple the pages!
- Sit down with your spouse and fill out your goals sheet.
- Determine what day of the week you want to meet every week. It is best to do it the same day every week.
- We like to sit down Wednesday nights… because… it is the day I go grocery shopping so it is the perfect time to do a budget check-in. Also, it is the middle of our week, so once again it is the perfect time to do a budget check-in.
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