Why Budgeting is so Important as a Couple

It’s so important for couples to budget together. It allows them to plan for the future and ensure they are both working towards their goals. Below we have listed other reasons why budgeting as a couple is so imporatant:

• A couple's finances are more complex than those of an individual, and so it becomes more difficult to manage each person's finances separately.

• Budgeting together helps couples better understand their financial situation, which in turn can help them make better decisions about their money.

• Budgeting together helps couples feel in control of their lives and the impact that spending decisions have on their financial future. 

The Top 5 Tips for Couples on How to Budget

1. Communicate and Discuss Your Needs & Goals

Budgeting is a very important aspect of a relationship. It has to do with the couple’s goals, their vision for the future, and their current situation. It is important to have open communication with your partner about what you want from your budget. You may have different views on how much you need to spend on certain things or what you can afford in general. For example, if one person earns significantly more than the other partner, then they may be willing to spend more money on experiences than material things.

Communication before you actually create a budget will help you both set realistic goals and reach them together.

2. Identify all your Income Streams; Including Potential Future Ones

When budgeting, it is important to identify the different income streams and how they can be used to reach your goals. A lot of people focus on their monthly salary and forget about the other sources of income they might have. For example, if you are a freelancer you might receive money from clients for your services or if you have a savings or investment account you might be receiving interest or dividend income that should be included.

3. Identify the Biggest Expenses

The next step is to identify all of the necessary expenses that you have each month and determine how much money you need to allocate. There are many expenses that a couple can incur. There are the big expenses like rent, food, and transportation and there are the smaller expenses like going out to eat or buying a new outfit. The point of this section is to make sure that you have included everything to ensure your budget is as accurate as possible.

4. Prioritize Your Spending; Cut Them if Possible

Now that you’ve defined all your income and expenses, the next step would be to rank those expenses in order of importance so that you know what to cut and what to maintain. For example, the most important expeses that can’t be cut might be housing, transportation and medical expenses. The least important that could be reduced or completely cut could be going out, eating at restaurants or vacations.

5. Monitor your budget each Month and work towards your Goals

Monitoring your budget can be a daunting task, especially as a couple. It can be hard to keep track of how much money each of you are spending and what on. Luckily, there are many tools out there that allow you do this with minimal hassle. We’ve actually created an easy-to-use tool which does all the calculations for you in an simple way, allowing you as a couple to plan your finances. 

How to Create your own Couples Budget Tracker

Using our tracker to plan your finances as a couple couldn’t be easier! Simply input your income, expenses and savings goals and then enter your transactions and the split between each couple. It's that simple!

Use this automated dashboard to track your income, expenses & savings, as well as see your progress towards your financial goals.

You can view multiple time periods on the dashboard at a click of a button, and the charts and breakdowns update automatically.

⭐️Stay on top of both of your finances with the following FEATURES:⭐️

✔ Budget Dashboard: Track your income, expense and savings breakdown as a couple with ease. The dashboard can be customized for a particular date range! You can also easily display your breakdowns over a month, quarter, year or your whole history at the click of a button!

✔ 12 Month View Dashboard: Easily view your monthly income and spending trends as a couple with this automated dashboard. Monitor how your spending habits as a couple change each month!

✔ Financial Goals: Set your targets and use this spreadsheet to measure how you are doing against them. You can create these for your income, expenses and savings.

✔ Transactions: All you need to do it enter your transactions and these will automatically feed directly into the budget dashboard!

✔ Customize categories for your own preferences

✔ Breakdown your expenses, income, and savings for each individual person within the couple

✔ Charts which automatically update!

✔ Works with Google Sheets

✔ A guide with full instructions on how to use the tool, as well as full customer support from our shop at any time

We have personally been using the spreadsheet to track our income, expenses and savings for many years, and have been using it over the past year more than ever! They say the first step to growing your wealth is to start by tracking it, and that’s what this tool intends to do! Elevate your planning process and make budgeting as a couple easier with this spreadsheet!