Finances 101: His Money, Her Money
I’m a strong believer in having all your money (as a married couple) together, in a joint account, working together on things, no matter how much you each earn. But I also believe that we each need to have some spending money all our own.
Steps To Success:
1) Set up your own accounts to transfer your spending money into for the month (this step also helps if you are trying to surprise your spouse with a gift…that way they can’t see that you speant the money!)
2) Decide how much you can afford to give yourselves each month. Like your date money, you want to be able to go out and have fun and buy yourself something nice every once and a while.
3) Be realistic. You might have to tighten things up for a while to reach your goals, but you can always change your amount when things are better
4) Have consequences. Like your date money if you over spend then you have less to spend the next month. This is your own money, your own responsibility. If you over spend it’s not your spouses responsibility to bail you out.
Happy Budgeting!
Amanda
Great post Amanda! Paul and I do something like this but it is more like we have our own accounts to do with what we see fit. Then we have a joint account for our goals, which are usually road trips or a big purchase like the car. But we think to short term and should start saving for a home, but road trips are much more fun so that is what we do :)