Money for me is something that is super important and something that more people need to talk openly about. I grew up in a single-parent household where money was tight. Because of this I have grown up to have a deep appreciation for managing our money. Where it comes from and how it is managed. I am not saying that you have to come from a broken home in order to get that understanding, but I certainly do think that it has helped me in my adult years. For our home, I am the holder of the cash and the one that pays the bills. This is because I am a meticulous planner and I organise everything impeccably. I know that everything is going to get done on time if it is in my hands.
The very first thing that I did when we go the keys to our house is, I set up a spreadsheet. It shows all incomings and outgoings. On this spreadsheet, I list every single bill. The payment date when it comes out of our account. The reference number for the payment and the exact amount. I then added a row which we budget per month for our food shopping. A row for household savings each month. Then a row for other small bills such a pet insurance, phone bills, etc. From there, I calculated how much we both need to be putting into our joint account. By doing this, we are then able to set up a direct debit to the joint account. Then we can forget about it because everything is done automatically.
I guess the main thing to know when it comes to our household is that my husband and I still have our separate money. Which I know some people find pretty bizarre. The reason why we do this is that we both spend high quantities of cash on ridiculous things. For example, I will drop £5,000 on a new handbag. He will spend £700 on a football away day with his friends. If each of us saw this coming out of the joint account, it would drive the other one mad. This is why we have just found it easier to keep the money that we spend on things like this separate and it works for us. It also helps us keep track on the money in our household account because nothing unexpected will come out and leave us short for our bills.
By doing this and keeping track of our incomings and outgoings with the spreadsheet, I can make adjustments as I see fit. Such as if one of our bills goes up or the payment changes and it is there for the both of us to see. It also makes it really obvious for both of us if we need to increase the amount which we are paying into the joint account or if we can knock some money off.
This is just the thing that works for me. I am not saying that this will apply to everybody and every household. I know that many couples think that we are mad for not having one account with all of our money in collectively. This is what suits us and our lifestyle and it has worked well for the past 5 years!
Make sure to leave me a comment down below. Let me know how you manage your household finances and I may have to steal some of your ideas.
