So, my wife and I decided to get serious about our finances. Well, she decided. I was more of a reluctant participant, like a cat being put in a carrier. Our inspiration? The guru of all things money-related, J. Money of the blog Budgets Are Sexy.
His philosophy is that budgeting can be, dare I say it, fun. I scoffed. Fun? The only thing fun about money is spending it. But my wife, armed with spreadsheets and a determined glint in her eye, was ready to prove me wrong. She’d read all of J. Money’s advice, and she was going to apply it. All of it.
Our first big hurdle was the “weekly money date.” This is where you and your partner sit down and review your spending. Sounds romantic, right? We tried to make it a thing. We’d light a candle, put on some smooth jazz, and then stare at a bank statement until one of us got hangry. It quickly devolved into a heated debate over whether my $12.50 spent on a “gourmet” hot dog was a justifiable expense. I argued it was for my “soul,” she argued it was for my “stomach, which is already well-fed.” J. Money never mentioned the existential dread of a hot dog audit.
We also started tracking every single penny. This was my personal hell. My wife would ask me, “Where did that $3.18 go?” as if I was a fugitive from justice. I’d stammer something about a vending machine and a rogue bag of chips, and she’d meticulously log it in her spreadsheet. I felt like I was being watched by a financial panopticon.
But here’s the crazy part. It actually started to work. We began to see our money not as a mysterious resource that evaporated every two weeks, but as a team effort. We’d high-five when we hit a savings goal, and we even started to talk about our financial future without one of us storming out of the room. It wasn’t always smooth sailing—there was a minor incident involving a latte and a dramatic declaration of “financial freedom!”—but we were on the same team.
