Let’s be honest here, we are not budgeters. We have been spent our last 2 years together living as if we had a money tree out back. I’m not sure what we were thinking (wait, we weren’t thinking at all) but we finally realized the error of our ways this past week.
We were on “E” ($21.33 cents to be exact) in our bank account for the first time in our married life. Granted, It was because we had to pay two rents and a car payment all at the same time, but still – it was pretty painful.
Starting from Scratch
Since we were essentially starting over in our bank account this week, we decided it would be the perfect time to create a budget that worked for us.
I’m not an excel queen (spreadsheets confuse the hell out of me), so we had to figure out another way to create a working budget for us. We needed something that we could just fill in without all the headache of making sure all the formulas were right.
The Solution
I was thrilled when I saw what a nanny friend of mine had done to keep track of her bills. It was a simple word doc that listed the debtor, date due, amount owed, forwarding balance. When the bill was paid, she wrote it down in a spiral notebook and then checked it off.
I thought about her system all day. It seemed like it would work for both Scott and I but I was not sure.
I came home that day and created something similar to what my friend had shown me earlier in the day. But as I was filling it in, I realized that it was not quite the way I wanted or needed it to be.
Some of the things she had on her budget, we didn’t need. There where only a few things I needed to know -
1. Who I owed
2. What I owed them
3. When I owed it to them
4. On week would these obligations affect our pay check.
Our Very First Budget
Wednesday night, we sat down together and created a budget that seem to be exactly what we had been looking for. We called it our Monthly Obligation Calendar or Family Budget Planner.
You can download a copy of our Family Budget Planner
It’s simple, easy to read and understand, and it is keeping us on track — and what also great is that we now have a plan – a plan that works for us!!
PS. Don’t forget to download a copy of our Family Budget Planner. Once you do, I’d love to hear how it works out for you. Come back and comment below with your thoughts. 
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