Quote Originally Posted by itlw8 View Post
terrible I know I have flown by the seat of my pants for too long.... I keep a $500 cusion in my checking account because I do not balance it..... internet banking has helped there I keep track daily but still debit cards could cause a problem so I keep a cusion and tell dh we have no money.

We live on a budget but I have never written anything down so really I have no idea how much I have each month so I pay bills first and then put the rest on the debt..

OK it is NOT working... I promise we will and yes I said we as dh has no idea of what we owe or anything we will be sitting down and writing a budget and listing all monthy bills.

I got to thinking what if I died he would have no idea about our money at all...so we are starting with a written budget.





One question do I write down the house payment as it is owed each month or do I write it down with the $100 extra I pay each month ?
DH and I were in the position where we flew by the seat of our pants for the last five+ years. We realized that there wasn't enough trust as far as money went and that was ruining our marriage. Once we sat down and actually got to where we were making a written budget, things got better for us. We now know what bills we pay each month and who has what in their accounts. I showed DH tonight how much he had in his checking account and he goes, "And I just got paid today?". I then showed him what I did to the account and that the mortgage had been taken out. He nodded his head and then I showed him how much I put into savings. He felt alot better after I did that. I told him that I didn't want him to go to check his account balance and realize there was only 677 dollars in there and have no idea where the rest went to.

Both he and I feel alot better now that we've done a budget. We know what we can spend as far as keeping ourselves out of overdraft, plus we can put money into our debts to pay them off and not be stuck with our heads in the clouds wondering what happened to us.

You'll feel 110% better knowing that DH is sure of where the money goes every month and you guys will feel the stress lift off your shoulders because you'll know where it's all going and what your limitations are.

Oh and as far as the mortgage goes, I would still budget that in there. Our mortgage comes out the same day that DH gets paid, so we never even see that money. We know it's taken out though, so we feel better about that.