As in all business matters, love and money come together and, to keep the balance, budgeting as a couple is more like a dance that spins in a fragile equilibrium, seductive in its passion but subject to tumbling and failure. It’s undisputed that issues of money are a delicate topic and, for many couples, discussing anything financial brings a mix of feelings, from euphoria and expectations to stress and nerves. The good news is that tackling the relationship of work, balance and reward together can be a fulfilling process that not only leads to financial sense, but also to a closer relationship between two people.
The budget is the starting point for a broader, three-step process: collectively crafting a vision for your future with your spouse; arriving at the ‘rules’ of your partnership, which model trust, communication and shared effort; and employing legal tools to merge those aims as you prepare your family for almost anything the future may hold. Budgeting a marriage as a couple – when approached with candour and curiosity – can be a means of building future prosperity from a collaborative vision of what truly counts to each of you.
Open Communication is Key
Making couple’s budgeting work boils down to oversharing. Try to make time for a regular (say, monthly) talk about your finances, your goals and your worries. It’s important that you share information about incomes, debts and spending patterns. After all, that’s the only way to grasp your partner’s view of money, and thereby discuss what’s best for both of you.
Define Your Shared Goals
Start by looking at what financial goals you can agree on together – are there short-term and long-term goals that aren’t necessarily one and the same? Got a honeymoon to pay for? A car? Is retirement in the forefront of your mind, or saving up for a house? Jot down your answers to these questions. Having goals and being clear about why you need to keep to them will give your budgeting efforts direction, and make it easier to stick to them.
Assess Your Combined Income and Expenses
List your combined sources of income, and itemise your regular expenses. See where your money is going each month, and categorise your spending to prioritise future financial goals. If you spent $6,000 a month last year on the holidays, it might be difficult to expect that to cover rent this year. Being real with each other will ensure that you budget accordingly for your individual needs, while giving you the support to accomplish your goals as a team.
Establish an Emergency Fund
Life is full of surprises and unpredictable things can happen at any moment. It is therefore important as a couple to have an emergency fund to keep you safe when one of those unexpected things happens. Ideally, you should be saving at least three or six months of your living expenses. This will take out the stress if something happens to either of you and build a foundation in your relationship that you can come back from with no financial strain.
Allocate Individual Spending Allowances
While pooling resources as a financial team, it’s just as important to respect one another’s autonomy. For example, build some personal spending allocations into your budget. Each person gets to pick something he or she wants without having to get approval from the other. (As long as the price stays within the budgeted amount!) This type of autonomy within boundaries gives us an outlet to express ourselves, helps us avoid feeling controlled, and frees our spouse from playing the undesired role of parser.
Use Technology to Your Advantage
There are multiple apps and tools that could help you to budget as a couple and track all your finances. You could have a dedicated tool to check where and what you spend and to set financial goals and track you progress along as a couple. You can make technology work for you.
Review and Adjust Regularly
Budgeting isn’t something you’ll do just once and then forget about. It’s the kind of task you need to return to again and again. Set up recurring budget review meetings with a date and time for you to check in with your progress, make revisions or refinements, and set yourself up for meeting – or exceeding – your goals. As your financial life changes, so, too, will your budget: new goals could prompt you to allocate some of your income differently, while unexpected changes in your income or expenses could make you rethink how you plan to use your hard-earned money.
Conclusion
Budgeting is one of the beautiful threads of the tapestry of a loving relationship: it pulls together your dreams and aspirations, and brings practicality to your day-to-day life. As you’ve walked through the steps to budgeting together as a couple and building a strong financial marriage team, you’ve been given many tips to help you budget together.
Open communication becomes the dance that sets the rhythm of your love and money dance: you share your experience of money, your dreams, your fears, and step into relationship from the ground up. Your money journey is also shared, with open communication paving the road for your success.
