It is good to have a household budget. And it is good to track your spending, just as a business tracks spending and compiles monthly financial statements.
Negotiating this if you have a spouse can be difficult. He or she may have his or her own ideas of how to spend money.
And it is good to have line items in the budget for savings. Ideally there will be a line item for retirement savings, and another for general savings.
I use Quicken and have it connected to all of our checking, savings, line of credit, and credit card accounts. All the at a flows into one hub. I’ve created a lot of categories to fit our spending. It is really good to see all the income and outgo in one place. The reporting is really good, too.
I’ve been using it in retirement to make sure we are keeping our spending under control. I wish I had started using it years ago when I was working.
A thrifty spouse will solve almost every financial issue.
A spendthrift spouse will destroy even the most perfect financial plan.
We don’t see eye-to-eye on several things, but how, when, where to spend money is where we’re 100% in alignment.
It helps that we both hate to shop.