Budgeting Two Households

Today, we had a huge argument.  It was about money.

 With one household, we were really on top of our game.  Early in our marriage, I had nothing better to do and since we were two people living on one first year teacher's income, I pinched pennies until they bled. We never felt like we had to do without but I was very, very careful.  It was 2001 and  we only went shopping once per month.  We shopped the sales circular. Whatever was on sale the week K got paid was what we ate for the entire month. Our budget for feeding two and household items was $150.  We purchased certain bulk items like rice and flour from a warehouse store and then everything else as described above. We purchased no milk, eggs, fruit, or anything to drink.  We drank water and the rest I deemed unnecessary since we were childless and slightly poor.  After I had a job at one point, we had gas in ONE car and none in the other.  Debt scares me.  I don't feel like we are going to be making a ton later in life to pay off the debt.  So, I drove K to school and picked him up for the rest of the month.   Luckily as time went on and our family grew we were able to stretch out a bit not worry so much while still remaining quite frugal.

Fast forward to 2014 when we have separated into two houses and have maintained joint finances.  Things aren't quite as easy now. We put down most of our pennies on the second house.  For one thing, it's hard for either of us to monitor where the money is being spent since we aren't noticing new things walk into the house, we see each other's eating habits, and we have different views of necessities.  A common argument here is that I bought a house we didn't need.  I claim that he didn't sell a house that we didn't need.  Either way things can get pretty stressful and I would think this is a normal "growing pain" of the situation.

So, I sat down with our budget that I made.  It had all necessary expenses listed in one column.  The next column contains the amount spent on every item.  Then there is a column with each of our names and the expense amounts we are responsible for taking care of every month. We do what we can to make sure that we have the right amounts in each account.  I took another look at our bank accounts.  We should be fine.  It will be close because the fall is always hard due to being paid at odd times but we should be fine.

As a side note, things that are not included in the budget are fun expenses for the family because we try to pay those up front rather than installments.  We try to keep as few payments as possible so we don't have to tell one of the kids they have to stop an activity in the middle. Or me either. My hope is that if it comes down to not being able to afford something we will have some warning and will be able to think about how to handle it. Most of the time I feel like you'd have to pry my gym membership and swim practices from my cold dead hands but I know if I had some warning I could come up with a creative way to replace it.