When my husband Dave and I started dating, it was pretty clear, pretty quickly that we were coming to the table with different philosophophies and working knowledge about money. For starters, his family talked extensively about saving, investing and budgeting. Mine? Not so much. Even our work pattern through college was evidence of our differences. My husband spent every summer roasting in the sun running a bonafide – and lucrative – landscaping business, saving every penny and then using it to fund his beer on M Street from September through May. I, on the other hand, slogged away as a retail maven during the summer and pizza shop girl during the school year, spending every penny as I went along. Often, Dave would stop by Acropolis Pizza around 2 a.m. before heading to an after-party, knowing I still had an hour and a half to go before shutting down for the night.
Who was smarter about their money? I think it’s clear.
All this to say that my husband has a long history with me and my ways when it comes to cash management. In our 17 years of togetherhood, he’s heard some pretty grand statements about how we should spend or save money, not one based on data or reality.
“Let’s just use cash for a month, I bet we’ll spend less!” (not so practical or safe)
“Let’s just buy gas and groceries, nothing else!” (really? we’re a dual-income, 2 child-care family that has a ton of expenses)
“Let’s buy AMEX gift cards as a way to track our discretionary spending!” (huh?)
Finally, last year, we put a great system in place for spending. Without going into the gory details, let’s just say that the system allows each of us to be in control of spending money without feeling guilty or going vastly over budget each month.
But there was still a problem.
All my big talk followed me.
So now we had this beautiful system that gave us each control of some spending money, but I created budgets for myself that were, again, not based in reality (see above). So last weekend, when I had a lot of alone time on my hands (Dave was away with our oldest skiing), I had a little talk with myself…a little cometojesus one might say. I basically said, “Self, if you’re going to get serious about this whole Make More, Buy Less business, you need to craft yourself a serious, honest, trackable budget, pronto.”
And so I did.
I spent four freakin’ hours stumbling my way through Excel and developing a realistic budget for spending that takes realities into account like haircuts (for me and the boys, so none of us looks like a shaggy dog), the occassional mani (because well-kept hands make me feel pretty great and I just found an awesome local place), and quarterly clothing allowances.
And after three days, I’m doing really well. Here’s hoping for the next 362.
“Come to Jesus moment” ??Where is the real Paige
Yup, putting it out there is good for keeping you accountable. Weird, given it’s online, but true! 🙂
[…] my spending and fulfilling some pretty lofty goals of personal growth seemed sort of pointless. Putting the brakes on my old habits was no longer optional, and trying to “make more” — crafting and sewing and […]