The first step in making any budget work is accountability. If you are married you are accountable to your spouse. The Bible says in Mark 10:8 “And the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh.”, not the two shall become one except for their money – that they will keep to themselves. 🙂 If you are single, you still need accountability, so find someone that you trust that you know will hold you to it, and (obviously) that you don’t mind sharing the intimate details of your finances with. {I will be addressing married couples through most of this series, because I know this is such a big source of tension in sooo many marriages. Just remember singles, your money is important too, and as I said find someone you trust to help you walk through a plan of action.}
The best way that we have found this budgeting thing to work is to set aside a good chunk of time (an hour or so, depending on the depths of your issues) for a budget meeting. Put it on your calendar like any other meeting you might have to attend so that you cannot make excuses for why you can’t talk about it.
Each person invested in this budget should spend some time BEFORE the meeting making a list of things that are important to them financially, things that cause them stress regarding finances, what you hope to get out of this whole budget adventure – especially if this is your first time to do this. These notes will help you stay focused and on task. When you feel your blood start to boil – refer back to your list. 🙂
I’m going to interrupt for a moment to say – in some marriages there is a “budget”, however it is only decided upon and managed by one person in the relationship. This is where the tension typically lies. Whoever is not in charge often times feels like the one who is in charge is constantly hawking them and telling them what they can and cannot do with money. The one who is in charge feels like they are the only responsible party (when in most cases they are struggling just as much to “keep” the budget).
So….for this budget thing to work you really need three things
1. accountability
2. flexibility
3. togetherness
We will talk more about flexibility and togetherness in the next couple of days. But, hopefully this is stirring you to action. Be brave!! Engage your spouse in a conversation about this dreaded topic. Talk about scheduling a meeting. (just schedule the meeting for later, don’t discuss it now. :)) Remember to take some time before the meeting to make some notes.
Obviously this process is going to take longer than a day to get ready for – especially when you should be tracking your spending for a month. Feel free to pin or bookmark this page if you think you might need to come back when you are ready for your meeting.
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