YNAB You Need A Budget

[dpandslemmen]

Growing up my Dad made the Income and my Mom would try to keep track of the bills and pay them. I say try because she couldn't ever reconcile the checkbook to the bank statement.

My Dad gave me two bits of wisdom when it came to finance, 1) always have a $20 in your wallet, and 2) you will always have car payments live with it.

When I was engaged to my wife, and before we were married she told me in no uncertain terms that she was going to be the one to track the finances and write the checks to pay the bills. Well after we came back from the honeymoon bills came in and I would put them on the desk in due date order and wait for her to pay them. Time past, more time past, she never got around to paying the bills, so i would secretly write the checks and send them out just before the due dates. Now 10+ years, I am the Budget Nerd that tracks all the income and expense, make sure all the bills get paid on time (I can't say write the check because most everything is auto deduct), and prepares the budget. My Wife reveiws the budget and says $20 a month for Clothing is not enough so I adjust the Budget. But we are always in agreement on how we spend money and what finanical acounts we have.

Budgeting can be Fun!!! But now we have have no money fights to make up from later.

[WairereRose]

My parents were old-school. My dad earned and paid the bills, my mum was given grocery money. When she started work it was to pay for us to attend a private school.

When I first married, I paid all the bills and we had a joint account that we each put money into. Later we moved to mostly joint accounts, and there was one point where I let (then) dh handle the bills and accounts for around 6 months. At the end of it I picked up the strings again, managed to reconcile 6 months of very badly kept records and get it all back on track. I kept the responsibility for it from then on.

My second marriage my (then) dh paid all the bills and gave me grocery money like my mum had had all those years ago.

At present I have a different arrangement again. I earn and he earns. He pays the 'house expenses' the rent, the power, the gas. I get the groceries. He'll sometimes get a few groceries as well, and he seems to have taken on feeding the dog, but I suspect I will get the vets bills (just am more likely to be organised to do it). He pays the things he pays by direct debit from his pay so what he has left he spends, and when he runs out he asks for money till payday. He's not concerned with budgeting particularly, though he's looked at my computer while I've been entering receipts and commented on the different way we handle things.

[slbailey]

We have finally come up with a system that works for us. We haven't been able to ditch quicken because we use it to electronically pay some of our bills. So, what we do is I run YNAB and she runs Quicken. She pays the bills, technically, but then I record that in YNAB and then tell her what money is available to spend on things like eating out, groceries, etc.

She has a problem when she keeps track of all the bills and budget she would spend lots of money without telling me and then I'd get mad because we were in a hole. Now that I control part of it, I keep her spending under control and we're actually starting to get ahead of the game.

Just sucks that we still have to manage Quicken "AND" YNAB.

Steve

[TCB]

My husband earns the money; I pay the bills. However, after staying home for three weeks after the birth of our 5th child, my husband informed me that he had a greater appreciation for what I do and that I have a tougher job than him. After all, the hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world.

Joking aside, my dad also earned the money and my mom payed the bills.

[Mudie]

Just sucks that we still have to manage Quicken "AND" YNAB.

Not to hijack my own thread but have you explored other ways to pay the bills that Quicken handles now?

I have some of our bills on autodraft and some I decide when to pay them but it's all very easy to do and only takes a few minutes a month - all online.

Is it longer than using a single interface to say 'Pay the bills for me'? Sure, but it's not any longer then maintaining 2 separate software programs. Besides, if I were to ever tire of it I could always set it up through my credit Union's FREE bill pay and use that single online interface to do the same job that Quicken does for you now.