Creating a Budget

Brian and I are natural money hoarders, we can go to a store and find something amazing that we want but we guilt ourselves out of buying it. We are those annoying people that take something off the shelf only to leave it on a random shelf somewhere else. Sorry retail workers, I give you permission to hate me, I feel bad every time I do it but fear walking back to the shelf where it belongs will only convince me to buy it once again.

So back to the budget. We got married young (we were 20) and my parents had the wisdom to have us create a budget prior to getting married. I am sure we laughed about it at the time thinking they were being crazy (seems like a typical 20 year old thing to do) but we did it any ways. For the most part I think we thought of the majority of expenses we would have, but I am sure there were a few we forgot or had to adjust the cost for. I think the most beneficial part of creating a budget was the conversations we had because of it. We looked at apartments online to figure out what they would cost (we both lived at home at this point). While looking online we realized apartments in California were not cheap especially if we were going to be in a safe/nice part of town. We also had to talk through what each of us paid for car insurance and gas. We looked through the healthcare plans each of our employers provided and decided Brian's was better. We then had to decide what tier of plan we wanted and what deductibles we felt we could handle. I think these are normal conversations for a couple to have but probably are conversations that happen once you are married and when the individual situation arises. I am glad we had them early on, I think this helped us be even more prepared to support ourselves.

Now that we are going from 2 incomes to 1 in the next month the idea of a budget has been on my mind for the past few months.We have always been great at saving, but have both always worked.

So we have begun looking at what we spend on a monthly basis and coming up with averages. We are pretty consistent so creating a budget we can continue to stick to I think is possible. The area I get nervous about is the expenses you can't plan for like medical expenses, car repairs, etc. Putting money aside for something specific makes me not want to spend it on anything else. For example we have been stashing money away for graduate school, and I now see that money as "school money".

What has been the most useful tool for you when planning a budget and sticking to it? What are the things you splurge on? And how do you allocate savings? Is it for something specific or do you just have a nest egg that you use for whatever comes up?

Being careful with money has never been a problem for me but determining how to spend it and how much goes for what is something I need to work on. I am a much better saver than I am spender.