I have been married to my husband for 10 wonderful years. He helps me around the house, and picks up chores if I work late to help make my life easier. I realized I had relinquished many duties to him due to late work nights, and some had to do with shopping and budgeting.
I didn’t realize in a light bulb moment what was going on, and it wasn’t just shopping budgets that got our finances out of whack. As with any couple, incomes change, bills go up [and up and up], and finances often hit critical mass before you need to hit the breaks on the the debit card.
This blog chronicles how I spent 6 months cutting hundreds to thousands of dollars off our annual budget by making simple adjustments that we could both live with, having very little impact on our day to day lives. I think it improved our relationship as well because we are both on the same path to being comfortable with our monthly budget.
The spotlight on our situation came in the form of daily emails from the bank which I opted to receive to monitor our accounts. When I first started this, I was religious in reading them each day. Then as emails started to pile up, I lost my way…I stopped watching them so closely. Huge mistake. When I started paying close attention again, I realized the outflow was moving way faster than it used to. So I looked at the statement and scrutinized each entry. Spending was surprisingly 50/50 as far as who was using the money, but I noticed a few categories had gotten out of control.
I am blessed with a husband who listens when I need him to do so. Like every man, he can have what I call “husband ears” if I am yammering about cosmetics or some other thing, but when I went to him with budget concerns, he was 100% on board with whatever I wanted to do. So it was time to hatch a plan.
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