You May Be Married, But Are You Truly United?
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Brad Chaffee. Engaged Marriage is sponsoring his Manage Your Money Challenge, and I encourage you to check it out.
Every year we find ourselves celebrating our anniversary with the one we love. What is it that we are celebrating exactly? What does it mean to be married? Marriage symbolizes unity, or the coming together as one, but is that what we are really celebrating?
It’s what we should be celebrating, but is it? Maybe what you are really celebrating is a social achievement that acts as a mask, covering the real reason that getting through another year is so special. Let me explain.
Before I go on let me just say that I am guilty. I am guilty of taking that day for granted sometimes. Don’t get me wrong. I love my wife with every ounce of my soul and being married to her is so wonderful, BUT the truth is that I sometimes fail her. Sometimes I do not act as if we are a team, and she would probably admit she has her days as well.
It’s a part of being married. What do you do?
Budget Software Reviews: Choose Your Tool for Successful Money Management
Building a budget is a primary step toward achieving financial success for your family. Our family has used some homemade Excel spreadsheets as our “budgeting software” of choice for several years.
However, as I explained previously, our day-to-day money management has really grown stale recently, and it had a lot to do with the cumbersome way that we have tracked our personal finances…think piles of receipts accumulating until month’s end followed by hours of data entry among several spreadsheets. Our system lacked efficiency, and it frankly got so boring and time-consuming that we let it slide.
I decided it was time for a change. So, I’ve spent a great deal of time lately researching and reviewing popular budgeting software. And, lucky for you, I am going to share with you what I’ve found. You will find below five of the top budget software tools available along with an overview of their features and my opinion on who may find them most useful.
The Best Budgeting Software I’ve Found
Holy Crap! I Eat Out A Lot!
My wife and I have recently recommitted ourselves to the budgeting process. We’ve lived on a budget for the past several years since we discovered Dave Ramsey and followed his plan to become debt free in 2008.
However, in the past six months or so, we got a bit lazy and lackadaisical in our day-to-day finances. I decided to check out some new budgeting software that would make things both easier and more fun to track than my good ole, self-made Excel spreadsheets. I learned a lot about what’s available in the world of budgeting software, and you can read my review of five top budgeting software systems for the details.
For this post, I just had to get something off my chest…I seem to have a big problem with eating out at restaurants!
Every day? Yep.
As I took the time to reflect on our spending habits over the past several months, it quickly occurred to me that I had eaten at least one meal at a restaurant virtually every…single…day!
Should Married Couples Have Joint or Separate Bank Accounts?
Do you and your spouse use a single, joint checking account? Or do you choose to keep separate bank accounts? Have you considered the alternatives?
I was frankly surprised at the responses I’ve heard to these questions over the past week or so. And I was really shocked at the emotional reaction that many have in defending the structure of their family finances.
It started in the comments to my (first) monthly column at Simple Marriage where everyone seemingly ignored my main points in the “Six Steps to a Simple and Successful Financial Life” and focused in on my statement that a joint checking account was the way to go. Curious, I then posed the question on the Engaged Marriage Facebook page and received some incredible responses.
For instance, the pro joint account crowd provided comments like this:
Mary: We have a joint checking account. Always have and always will. We’re married and share everything – nothing is his and nothing is mine. We agree on finances and how we spend OUR money.
Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps: A Real Path to Family Financial Freedom
Have you heard of Dave Ramsey and his Seven Baby Steps for success in personal finance? If not, you are missing out on a fantastic resource for achieving financial freedom for your family.
In a basic sense, Dave Ramsey’s teachings on personal finance are conservative, Christian-based and old-fashioned. Dave himself often describes his advice as “God’s and Grandma’s ways of handling money” on his mega-popular daily radio show. And he jokes about how strange it is that common sense has become so marketable within financial circles in the United States today.
It’s the simplicity of his message that makes it so appealing. When you read anything written by Dave Ramsey or listen to his radio show or podcast, you can understand it. More importantly, you can follow his advice and implement it quickly, not because it is easy (it’s not) but because it is sensible and simple.
Unlike so many of today’s financial gurus, Dave does not advocate a get-rich-quick path to financial success. Instead, he offers common sense and provides the tools and motivation needed to achieve long-term family financial freedom.
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I'm Dustin, the guy behind Engaged Marriage. I'm living and loving the crazy life of a young husband and Dad.
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