When you share your life with someone, you commit to tackling all of the challenges that come your way as a team. This means agreeing to work in unison on everything – including your budget. Whether you’ve recently gotten married, or just moved in with someone, it’s difficult to move from the mindset of just looking after yourself, to sharing your finances.
However, learning how to budget as a couple isn’t just a good thing for your financial health. If you can figure out how to budget effectively together, then you can also improve your chances of a long and happy relationship too!
To help you get started, here’s how you can take the stress out of budgeting as a couple.
1. Determine Your Mutual Needs Together
The first step is figuring out what you both need to dedicate money to each week or month. This means looking at the essential expenses like car payments, groceries, utility payments, and mortgage expenses. Crucially, even if only one of you drives, if you sometimes get places in that person’s car, you should be playing a part in maintaining it.
When you’re first dealing with your finances as a couple, you might need to adjust some of your expectations so you can ensure you’re on the same page. For instance, just because you want to save more doesn’t mean your spouse or partner will want to. You’ll need to find a way to meet in the middle. The initial aim is to prioritize your needs, then come back to your “wants” later.
2. Create Goals You Can Both Get Behind
When you know how much you have to spend each month, the next step is to figure out some long-term goals. These are the targets that will drive your saving decisions. Creating the right plan can help you to figure out when you can next buy a house, or when you can start a family if that’s what you want. It will also help you to plan for retirement or discuss your dream vacation.
It’s up to you what kind of goals you want to set for your family. The key to success is ensuring that you’re both passionate about your long-term target. Some good beginners goals include:
- Paying off your debts as quickly as possible
- Buying a new home or putting a deposit on a property
- Building an emergency savings stash
3. Think About your Individual Needs
When you’re living as a couple, the needs that apply to both of you need to come before individual expectations. However, once you’ve set a goal for the two of you, you can begin to talk about individual wants. For instance, your partner might want to maintain their gym relationship, while you’d like to spend more on clothing and haircuts.
Ultimately, you’ll need to be willing to compromise here. Both of you won’t be able to afford everything that you want each month in most cases. However, you should be able to find the cash for something important to each of you. Don’t give your spouse a hard time when they share what’s important to them. As long as your partner sticks to the amount that they’re allocated for their “wants,” there’s no need to argue about how their cash is spent.
4. Track Your Spending Via Budget Meetings
Budgets are rarely something a couple can set up and then simply forget about. You’ll both need to play a part in tracking the way that you spend cash. This could mean downloading a financial app that watches your cash for you. Alternatively, it could just mean coming together for weekly discussions about how you’re getting along when it comes to achieving your financial goals.
Remember, there’s a chance that you or your spouse may make a spending mistake on the road to success from time to time. Although you need to show your disappointment during these moments, don’t go over the top. We all make mistakes when changing our habits. Look for a way to recover from the issue as quickly as possible and get back on track.
5. Always Make Decisions as a Team
Finally, when you’re living together as a couple, make sure that every decision you make about your finances, is considered as a team. If someone needs to take out a loan, compare your interest rate options together. If your partner needs extra cash to pay for something important, discuss the impact that him or her taking that money is going to make.
Simply discussing your financial habits can go a long way towards improving them.
