Of course we didn't always have a budget. When we first moved in together we kept our money separate; my income was mine and his was his. We used to divide the bills between us so that every month we would both pay about the same amount. For instance, he would pay the rent and I would pay the rest of the bills including groceries and going out expenses.
After moving to DC, I went to grad school and barely made any money and my boyfriend got a wonderful job that supported us both. For 2 years, his income paid for all of our bills so things were pretty simple. But because I did have part time jobs here and there, we agreed that I would pay for my own personal bills (cell phone, metro, going out food). This is when I started keeping track of my expenses with a budget. There wasn't much to keep up but after I graduated we decided that in order to achieve our financial goals faster we would combine our income (on paper only, we still have separate accounts) . So we began to do a combined budget where we estimated our expenses for the month and then attempted to fall at or below that mark. Of course this is not as easy as it sounds, especially when two people are involved. So over time our "budget" has turned into a document that simply tracks our expenses. The column that lists the amount we hope to spend has become meaningless and we actually ignore it now.
Should we even bother with this "budgeting exercise" every month? I don't know. At least it tracks what we spend and at the end of the year (which will be 6 months of us combining our income) we can look at our spending patterns and trends and decide if we need to make any adjustments. (My poor boyfriend will think I'm punishing him by doing this but I promise it'll be ok ,babe!) In the mean time we need to figure out if keeping a budget will benefit us or if we should turn to another method. I've heard many people say budgets don't work because they are like a diet: you stick to them for a while but then decide it's not practical and do what you want in the end. We are definitely not sticking to a budget although we're not frivolous with our spending.
The thing is I prefer to have structure in my financial life. I'm much more comfortable when I know exactly where we are in our "alcohol budget" so we know we can absolutely go out for drinks this weekend. My boyfriend, on the other hand doesn't see the point in tracking every penny because we're doing fine financially.
Bottom line is we're due for a budget change. Somehow we will need to come up with a system that works for both of us and keep trying until something sticks.
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