How to Have Budget Meetings with Your Spouse
Never underestimate the power of being on the same page with your spouse financially. But what does it mean to be on the same page about money? It doesn’t necessarily mean that you and your spouse think exactly the same way in every way when it comes to money. But it does mean…
You are open and honest about money
You create a shared vision for financial success together
You establish an approach for money management together
Budgeting together is key in achieving this sort of financial oneness. There are so many benefits to creating a money plan together each month, but to name a few, it:
Promotes communication and bonding
Increases trust
Creates opportunities to celebrate money wins that you planned and worked towards together
Budgeting together was particularly important for my husband and me because we had such different money personalities coming into our marriage. He was a spender, and I was a saver. Budgeting really helped us to make sense of our numbers together and balance each other out.
So, I thought I’d share with you a breakdown of what our monthly budget meetings look like. Hopefully, it gives you some encouragement to start budgeting with your spouse or some new inspiration if you’re already budgeting together!
Scheduling Budget Meetings
I strongly suggest you choose a consistent day (or date) each month. We have our budget meetings on the last Monday of every month. It helps you to get into a rhythm, and it makes it easier to ensure you don’t schedule anything else on that day and time. Just make sure you choose a day that’s as close to the last day of the month as possible. That way, you’ll have done 99% (if not all) of your spending for the month when it’s time to review the month during the meeting.
When my husband and I have our budget meetings, we make sure we’re at our dining room table, not comfy in our bed, where we might get tired and fall asleep. 😴 We also make sure we have no distractions.
But, depending on yours and your spouse’s personalities, you may want to treat your budget meeting like a “money date.” 💞 For some people, money talk can cause anxiety or make them feel tense. Creating a date night environment can help relax the mood. Throw on some music. Grab some snacks. If you grab a glass of wine, just make sure you don’t get carried away! One thing you do NOT want to do is make financial decisions and money plans with too much alcohol in your system.🥴
Budget Meeting Agenda
First, I’ll give you the overview of what our agenda entails. Then, I’ll break down each portion of the meeting a little further. Again, this is meant for inspiration. Everyone’s agenda doesn’t have to look exactly like this. Make your budget meeting agenda your own! 😉
Agenda:
Open in prayer
Review the current month’s budget
Review current month’s financial goals
Highlight celebrations, then concerns
Discuss new ideas/considerations for upcoming month’s budget
Budget for upcoming month
Set financial goals for upcoming month
Review progress towards annual goals
Close in prayer
1) Open in prayer.
My husband and I used to just jump right into the budget. But it didn’t take long for us to realize that we weren’t setting ourselves up for success by doing that. We found it difficult to compromise on things or even consider each other’s opinions. When we made suggestions to each other, we were doing so almost like we were trying to convince an enemy to surrender. It wasn’t the greatest.😬
So, we committed to starting each meeting with prayer. We’ve found that doing this helps us to humble ourselves as we invite God to show us how to manage our money and work together in the process. We always pray that God will help us remember that where we disagree, it’s not one person against the other, it’s us against the issue…just trying to figure out a compromise or solution together.
It’s done wonders for our ability to budget and manage our money together! And that’s saying a LOT coming from two people who have completely opposite money personalities. We’re honestly in awe of how smoothly our meetings go!
2) Review the current month’s budget.
We go into our budgeting app and review each line item. Did we stay within budget? Did we overspend in any areas? The point is to get a sense of how we did with our overall spending, saving, investing, and giving for the month.
3) Review the current month’s financial goals.
Each month we set 1 or 2 individual financial goals and 1 or 2 joint financial goals. These are small, short-term goals that we want to accomplish within the month. Sometimes our individual goals are things like earning X amount of dollars from a side hustle for personal use. Our joint goals might be things like shopping around for insurance savings. Whatever our goals were for the current month, we take this time in the meeting to review if we met them or not.
4) Highlight celebrations, then concerns.
It’s important to keep our money morale up, so we have a designated time to celebrate the things we did well in the current month. We celebrate things like spending less than we thought in certain areas and achieving our financial goals. If it was a month full of costly surprises but we maneuvered our way through it without going over-budget, we definitely celebrate that!🎉
After celebrations (we always start with the positive), then we point out any concerns. This usually has to do with line items where we overspent and had to borrow money from other areas to keep the overall budget intact.
5) Discuss new ideas and considerations for the upcoming month’s budget.
If there are any out-of-the-ordinary things happening in the upcoming month that require us to budget a little differently, we bring them up here. This could be something like having to do a lot of traveling, which means we’d need to up the gas budget. Or, if we just have an idea for how to switch things up, we discuss that. For example, I might say, “I think we should beef up our house savings next month. I suggest we cut back on the going out money, so we can make that happen.”
6) Budget for the upcoming month.
Fortunately, the budgeting app that we use allows us to transfer all the data from the current month into the upcoming month’s budget. That way, all we have to do is make small changes here and there for certain line items. What a time-saver!⏰ All our consistent, recurring expenses (phone bill, subscriptions, insurance, etc.) stay the same. We make sure to make whatever changes are necessary based on the ideas and considerations we just finished discussing.
For each new month, we think ahead and try to plan according to what we know that particularly month will entail. You can’t know everything that will ever come up. But being prepared for the things you do know is super helpful.
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7) Set financial goals for the upcoming month.
Here, we decide on 1 or 2 individual goals as well as 1 or 2 joint goals for the new month. We don’t force this, though. If we really can’t think of any goals to accomplish within the upcoming month (besides the goals that are already kind of embedded in our budget), we move on.
8) Review progress towards annual goals.
At the end of every December, we set 3 to 5 financial goals to accomplish by the end of the new year. Each month, during our budget meeting, we quickly look back at those goals to see how far along we are in accomplishing them. In the beginning of our budgeting journey, we didn’t think to review annual goals every month. But then we realized how beneficial it was to start doing it. It helps us not to forget about them. And we’re more motivated to keep moving towards them when we see ourselves making a little bit more progress each month.
9) Close in prayer.
After all is said and done, my husband and I close out in prayer. It gives us an opportunity to reflect one last time and thank God for all our money wins and the lessons learned from setbacks. We give thanks for all the ways we’ve grown individually and together in the process of budgeting and managing our money. This is also when we ask for guidance on any major financial decisions we need to make or issues we’re still trying to figure out. Closing in prayer helps bring peace and closure to everything until our next meeting.
A little reassurance about the time commitment…
I have to be honest. In the beginning, our budget meetings did take quite some time…an hour and a half, sometimes two. But that was just because we had to grow into a rhythm. Those long meetings early on were an investment we were willing to make because we knew how important it was to the well-being and prosperity of our finances and our marriage. But rest assured, as you get the hang of it, it takes much less time. Now, our budget meetings are usually 30 to 45 minutes long.😉
Conclusion
Budgeting together does wonders in marriage! When you’re intentional about being on the same page financially, it can really improve the quality of your finances and your relationship with your spouse.
I hope this peek into my husband’s and my monthly budget meeting either convinces you and your spouse to get started, encourages you to keep going, or inspires you to try something new in your own meetings. 😊
May you and your spouse continue to grow ever closer to each other and ever stronger in your marriage as you win with money together.❤️
Do you have any other tips for budgeting with your spouse? Or, is there something you’d like to try? Share in the comments below!
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