The budget that I need the wife to agree to...

**disneysteve** · 10-15-2012, 05:11 PM

My first thought is to question how you chose to title this thread. Is this a budget that you and your wife sat down together and created? Or is it a budget that you created on your own and plan to hand to her and say, "follow it"?

If she wasn't involved in creating it, forget about it. Throw it out and start from scratch working WITH HER TOGETHER. Budgeting has to be something that you do jointly, not something one of you does and imposes on the other.

All of that said, I don't understand your numbers. You list expenses of $4,944 against an income of $4,300. What am I missing here? And what falls under "variable expenses"?

**gostumpy** · 10-15-2012, 07:59 PM

OOPS, "Variable Expenses" is the blanket term for the transportation, food, entertainment, ect... not in addition to....

I'm researching before we sit down (hopefully we can, she gets angry when we talk about money it seems) so I make sure we aren't forgetting about some expenses, mainly...

So I take in all advice I can, since she doesn't research on her own at all

**skydivingchic** · 10-16-2012, 06:59 AM

Your numbers don't add up.
$1519 housing
$985 variable expenses
$1355 debt
$100 savings
=$3959 total
That leaves $341 unaccounted for. Where is it going?

Your budget appears to be missing stuff. Where is insurance (car, life, etc)? Where is vehicle maintenance - oil changes, tire rotations, new tires, etc? What about phone service and vehicle registration? Where are any medical expenses (copays, coinsurance, prescriptions, etc)? Is eating out included in entertainment? What is included in "anything else"?

I agree with DS. Your post title screams controlling and confrontational. I understand wanting to get a handle on things and trying to put together a basic budget to build off of and tweak, but ultimately no budget will work unless you both agree to it. Sit down with your wife and get a realistic, complete, and doable budget. You can present it in terms of future plans and dreams. What does she want out of life? Retire sometime soon? Go on a vacation? Get a new car? Those things require savings and savings will be maximized when you minimize and/or eliminate debt. Work to get a budget in place that allows for some fun now but also puts money away for your priorities and dreams.

**gostumpy** · 10-16-2012, 01:01 PM

I completely agree. And thank you for pointing that out... I can see why my wife would be automatically resistant to anything I come to her with, because I approach it with a controlling & confrontational way... Completely the wrong approach if I want to work at this together.

Moving forward, I am going to ask her to sit down with me and we can fill in the blanks on a blank budget worksheet, so I can see what she thinks is important & where our money can & should go.

As far as my budget, vehicle repairs etc. are not included due to me having a work vehicle, and we only have spare vehicle in case she needs to go somewhere while I am out... we carpool to work & almost everywhere.. .her car gets used once or twice a week at the most, so fuel bills are small & repairs are rare if ever... If it breaks down we'll have time to save up & fix it...

I have full medical coverage, we only pay 20% of prescriptions which works out to less than $20/month

Thank you for pointing out the telephone & missing money from my budget.. .Didn't realize that cable, phone, internet, etc. was not included in any category I copied from the budget... it was in there, but that's the 'missing money' in here.

Thank you everyone for your honesty & help, it is appreciated!

**DiscounThem** · 10-16-2012, 03:30 PM

Not sure if you can still qualify for new credit cards or you get any promotional offers from your existing credit card companies which they could offer you 0% interest for 6 months or something, so you can probably use that for your advantage to pay off the debt early without the high interests from current credit cards. At least that's how I did before to pay off my credit card debt.

**skydivingchic** · 10-17-2012, 06:04 AM

Originally posted by gostumpy View Post

Moving forward, I am going to ask her to sit down with me and we can fill in the blanks on a blank budget worksheet, so I can see what she thinks is important & where our money can & should go.[/B]

Good. Budgets only work when everyone involved agrees to it, so this should be a much more productive approach than simply saying "here is the budget I expect us to follow from now on".

Originally posted by gostumpy View Post

I have full medical coverage, we only pay 20% of prescriptions which works out to less than $20/month

[B]

That's great, but it is often the small things that add up to make big problems. Just because it is only a few dollars a month doesn't mean you just ignore it. You need to have a line item in your budget for this <$20/month. Be sure to include things like maintenance for the spare car - it may not be much you have to put aside each month, but when you have to spend a few hundred dollars for new tires or a repair, you will be thankful that you've been putting that $10 (or whatever) away each month so you don't have to scramble to figure out where it is coming from.

I've got multiple line items in my budget that are less than $20/month, some less than $10. Eventually, once you've got a really good handle on your finances, your debt is paid off, you have an emergency fund in place, and things of the sort, you might not need to be as detailed and you will be able to do more of a cash flow type of budget. But spending some time now really getting a detailed plan in place will help tremendously going forward.

**dawnwes** · 10-17-2012, 07:57 AM

Are you paying extra on your mortgage to pay it off? Or is that the cost of the mortgage?

The misc. category has me stumped. You have most of your basics covered (transportation, food, entertainment) so where is that 900+ going?

If you really want to save, get your wife on board and come up with a "we each get $XX that we can use as we want and when it is gone, it is gone. We have to wait until next month if we want to spend more."

I would also suggest that when you approach your wife it is a "Where do we want to be financially in 5 years, 10 years, etc... and let's see how we can work together to make that happen."

**gostumpy** · 10-17-2012, 12:58 PM

Well, had a lot of time to think on a 6 hour roadtrip today, and I've come to some conclusions.

Bear with me while I confess:

I am the spendy one. I blame the wife because she agrees with me to spend money, and she asks if we can go out to eat too often.

That does not mean she is spending all our money. I spend it, and she agrees to spending it. I don't spend money behind her back (well not paycheque money, anyway) and she doesn't spend money behind mine. We are both aware of what the other is doing, and find ways to justify it.

I am gung-ho about this budgeting thing for the main reason of I am the problem, so I need strict budgets. She doesn't need strict budgets nearly as much, as she doesn't spend very much.

I've entered PANIC mode due to the fact that we're trying for a child now, we decided many years ago, and are sticking with, our life-plan to have a child at 27-28 years old. I haven't known life without debt since I first moved out at 17. I had a loan then, then took consumer credit cards for furniture, etc... and racked it up bigtime... I think I've had 4-5 consolidation loans in my lifetime, and my parents have paid off my debt at least twice. I'm still repaying that.

I need a budget. I need a set amount of cash that I can spend on a select list of things every month. Without that, I just keep #%&$ing spending.

I apologize for the title of this thread, it is untrue & misleading.

Moving forward, I'll sit down with the wife tonight and we will discuss a form of action. I'm afraid she may not even know how much we owe on credit cards. She might think we only owe $3000 max. And even then, I'm not sure she knows the rammifications forthat. When really, we owe $4500 @ 19.9%, and $4200 @ 12.5%.

ACK!

Can you sense the panic mode?

**gostumpy** · 10-17-2012, 01:05 PM

Originally posted by dawnwes View Post

Are you paying extra on your mortgage to pay it off? Or is that the cost of the mortgage?
Cost of the mortgage is $882/mo, with $400/mo pad rent. The mortgage will be paid off in 2017 at the current rate... We owe ~50k on it at the moment.

The misc. category has me stumped. You have most of your basics covered (transportation, food, entertainment) so where is that 900+ going?

Not sure I follow? $900+ is for variable expenses, which includes food, transportation, entertainment, clothing, gifts, etc....

If you really want to save, get your wife on board and come up with a "we each get $XX that we can use as we want and when it is gone, it is gone. We have to wait until next month if we want to spend more."

Agreed. I really like this idea of actual cash in hand, and that's it for the month. May take a month or two for us to get enough cash to do next month's expenses ahead of time though!

I would also suggest that when you approach your wife it is a "Where do we want to be financially in 5 years, 10 years, etc... and let's see how we can work together to make that happen."

Agree as well. We want to start a family now, and we want to buy a real house in 5-10 years... Those are goals that are easy to define & outline a plan for.

Replied to questions as best I can right now at work!

**dawnwes** · 10-17-2012, 01:33 PM

OH, I think I get it now....it was 985 for the items you listed below that total.....I thought it was the food, transportation, etc.... PLUS a variable amount of $985.

Once a child comes will your wife stay at home or will you also need to add childcare into that budget? Those are HUGE changes to which most of us with kids can attest.

Dawn

Originally Posted by dawnwes
Are you paying extra on your mortgage to pay it off? Or is that the cost of the mortgage?
Cost of the mortgage is $882/mo, with $400/mo pad rent. The mortgage will be paid off in 2017 at the current rate... We owe ~50k on it at the moment.

The misc. category has me stumped. You have most of your basics covered (transportation, food, entertainment) so where is that 900+ going?

Not sure I follow? $900+ is for variable expenses, which includes food, transportation, entertainment, clothing, gifts, etc....

If you really want to save, get your wife on board and come up with a "we each get $XX that we can use as we want and when it is gone, it is gone. We have to wait until next month if we want to spend more."

Agreed. I really like this idea of actual cash in hand, and that's it for the month. May take a month or two for us to get enough cash to do next month's expenses ahead of time though!

I would also suggest that when you approach your wife it is a "Where do we want to be financially in 5 years, 10 years, etc... and let's see how we can work together to make that happen."

Agree as well. We want to start a family now, and we want to buy a real house in 5-10 years... Those are goals that are easy to define & outline a plan for.
Replied to questions as best I can right now at work!

**gostumpy** · 10-17-2012, 02:05 PM

She will go back to work eventually, taking some or all of maternity leave... Childcare isn't cheap, but thankfully for us my best friend's wife runs a daycare out of her house, so A) we get a great deal, and B) we know the daycare is excellent

**Ramose** · 10-17-2012, 05:09 PM

Make sure you share the new budget you set with your wife tonight so we can give our advice on it.

**snafu** · 10-17-2012, 08:36 PM

I agree with the others, you and your wife will need to work together to create a workable budget with your income and reduced income when wife goes on maternity leave.

1st. if you feel you eat out too much, you can change it in a flash b doing the grocery shopping and cooking two big meals on Sunday or days off with a plan to use the leftovers in another way.

2nd. Babies and their supplies are surprisingly costly. Work together to figure out what babies need their first year. What it costs to buy all the equipment & supplies and what you can borrow. It's perfectly fine to buy/use gently used equipment and outfits as babies grow so fast they don't wear out anything! *don't buy anything yet*

3rd. The interest rate on those CCs are very high when savings pay out next to nothing. As has been suggested, see if you can get anything changed to a 0% interest rate but understand that you must pay off the balance by the time the promotional rate ends. $3,600 divided by the number of months of the promotion for example.

Can you identify most of what was charged on Credit Cards?

Finally, if a baby is in your future I hope you're ready to share household chores. It's a terrific way to get wives to co operate without feeling resentful.

**Wino** · 10-17-2012, 09:59 PM

One thing that seems to get left out when we talk about budgets and budgeting:

A budget is not something you do in October and then walk away from. A budget is a daily plan that you have to check continually to see if you are staying on track. It is more like a map than a plane flight; you have to check where you are as you pass each exit (payment) and not just get off and grab your luggage when you land (how much money is left next paycheck).

So, whenever you pull out your wallet, you should be thinking "Is this part of my budget?" Did you account for that Starbucks coffee? If not, you need to do the free office pot, not the chai veinte no fat no cream. (Personal note: I don't drink coffee or tea, so I have no idea what I just typed means, but it seems to be what I was once sent to get for someone else).

We all use Starbucks as the example for non-budget expenditures that are frivolous, but in actuality, it is indeed the $5.00 purchases that kill budgets and not the $350 car payments. The big ones are easy to see and budget, as you do the plane-flight on those once a month. It's the small payments that kill your savings and that can be avoided.

My wife and I often say, "I need it!" before we put the wallet away, money un-spent. Do you really NEED it? If you answer yes, truthfully, then buy it. If you know the answer is no, then don't buy it unless you budgeted for it.

The budget that I need the wife to agree to...