Why It's Important to Involve the Whole Family in the Finances

As you have probably noticed by now, this blog has two authors. We are a husband and wife team. I thought it would be a good idea to share what works for us. I just wanted to share our advice for getting the whole family on board with finances.

My husband works in the finance industry and is the expert on all of this stuff, but that doesn't matter too much. We are really a team around here. All of our goals, budget and financial decisions are discussed in depth and agreed upon together. Our idea of a fun night is watching Dave Ramsey after our baby goes to bed and talking about how our budget is going lately. Yes, we are finance nerds!

My point is, it seems that in many a household one person pays the bills or manages the money. I think this can lead to problems & I'd encourage you to get everyone in the house on the same page. These decisions should be joint decisions. Our child is just a baby, but we really want to include her as she grows older.

Our financial decisions are a mesh of two different people's ideas & because we both are in agreement, it works. When we agree on our goals, into the Excel sheet they go.

We keep printed copies of our yearly goals & budget hanging in our office. When you see things written down, it helps you to keep them in your mind. Often we say we are going to strive for certain goals, but we don't write them down and we forget them. With all that is going on in our lives, it is easy to forget. Just jot them down on paper like we do.

We track our expenses, so each one of us knows what the other spends. We know a friend who buys new clothes and brings them home in dry cleaning bags so her husband doesn't know she spent money. We try not to get into situations like that. It just leads to problems, so it's better to be honest.

We also don't fight about what we spend. We each have our entertainment budget to spend and that avoids fights. Haha, instead we fight about other things - like who's turn it is to change the dirty diaper or empty the dishwasher!

I hope reading about our experiences have helped you!