Life can become hectic. The incessant activities of making a living, raising children, and feeding passions can strain the connections associated with married life. One piece of advice that's often given to married couples experiencing these kinds of strains is to schedule dates — as in put it on the calendar, make reservations, get a babysitter.
What works for “getting the spark back” can also work for dealing with the strain caused by financial problems in marriage: reconnect financially with your spouse by making a “financial date” with them.
My wife and I had such a financial date this afternoon. I was distant with my wife this week, and much of it wasn't her at all, but me internalizing our upcoming financial pressures and feeling the weight of them.
Following a brief blow-up (completely my fault) and reconciliation, my wife and I took some time to review how we were doing on our personal finance plan. We've been working together on executing this plan for a couple of months now; it was a good time to see how we were doing.
By the time we were finishing up with our discussion, we had spent a couple of hours discussing our finances! It went so well, in fact, that my wife suggested that we make a monthly date out of it. Why not do this every first Saturday of the month?
What are some good things to do on such a financial date? Well, here's what we did:
- We looked at where the money went. For the first time in — ever? — I had categorized pretty much all of our transactions for the past two months. In the process we figured out a few more things about Quicken and learned how to read the reports it generated from our entered transactions.
- We found the hot spots. Our main hot spot was groceries. (Our previous hot spot was eating out, but we've gotten that under much better control.) As a result of seeing our grocery total, I'll go back to categorize last month's grocery expenses in a more granular manner. This way we can hone in on what needs work on that part.
- We discussed other ways to save money. A big part of what was weighing on me this week was the frustration of finding other ways to earn more. This was out of really not knowing how to manage with less. Fortunately, my wife has had to get by with less, so this kind of thing doesn't scare her as badly.
- We saw what we were doing well. We ate out much less than we have in the past, and our checking account balance was far less scary than it had been. There was no end-of-the-month panic this time. Also, the fact that we were discussing money in a calm manner was also a good thing by itself!
- We revisited our plan. I went back to our plan and verified that it was still reflecting what we wanted to do. Even a bad plan is better than no plan, because you can fix a bad plan.
- We made plans to do it all again in a month. Making the discussion a regular touch point brings some continuity and solidifies the plan.
Do you have regular financial dates with your spouse to reduce financial problems in marriage? If you do, what do you do on them?
I have been using Quicken to manage my finances for 12 years now! I’m not sure what I would do if I no longer had it. The key thing I like about is the “Class List”. I use that to create envelopes for my version of “envelope budgeting”. I’ll be doing a post on envelope budgeting in the near future and I’ll probably cover quicken and how I use it as well.
I’ll check out Class List, Jose. Don’t think I’ve tried that yet
Financial dates are known so you can do something about it. A little planning goes a long way to resolving these kinds of problems.
We meant to have one last month, but it kept getting pushed off. I finally sent my wife the underlying document. I know she read it because she’s made mention a few times of the money allocated in a couple of savings categories. It’s not the most ideal method but it’s better than not sharing at all!
John this is a great idea. Yesterday was the first time I even really brought up finances to my wife. Time is an issue since I spend a lot of evenings for school but I figure talking on the weekends would allow me to do this. I feel like it is a great way to get her on board with changes that need to take place. It will definitely help us realign our goals.