Budgeting is a fun challenge, especially if you are not single. When I was single it was easy to do, but when you become a couple, it is more challenging, or it was in my experience cause we each had our own plan and ideas. As long as you are predicting, saving and sticking to your plan there is not a wrong way to budget.
Not A Wrong Way to Budget or Is there?
I think there are two ways to budget wrong, one I mentioned already, and the other is if it causes problems in your relationship. When we first married, we agreed on spending limits and we tried to do it where we both tracked things. However, my spouse forecasted and I “live tracked” what we had as income and expense, so we rarely arrived at the same numbers. We worked on different compromises until it was realized we could not do our finances in unison. My spouse did it for a while. Then things got complicated, so I took it over. If you’ve learned about me, you know I am a tech nerd, so I made a complex spreadsheet for it. I finally saw the benefit of forecasting our expenses, so I do that now too.
Being a Money Meteorologist
By forecasting our checking account, I know what is live in the account and I also know what to expect for expenses and income and can forecast months ahead. Sometimes I do take it to the extreme, but right now is the season to be looking ahead. Christmas is the time that people overspend, and it may not catch up to them immediately. Usually, we see it hit us about two months later, so right now I have forecasted through February and know to be keeping a closer eye on our expenses to make sure we don’t do something super crazy that will leave us pulling from our savings or emergency fund. I am really pleased with having a spreadsheet, one set of columns is “live” and only shows what has hit the account at that moment. The other set of columns on the same tab shows the forecast and I can jump down and see potential problems or if we are doing great, we may have a surplus. I am proof people can learn and change. I learned that my spouse’s idea of two ways was better, and we still work together and share ideas, cost saving measures and so much more to make sure we are taken care of and take care of our family.
This is similar to what I use for myself and my family.