About a month ago, my wife told me that I talked about money too much. She was correct. I talked about money every day, multiple times throughout the day. Part of the problem was that I tracked every dollar we spent. It was making me neurotic, and I was making my wife neurotic. I spent a lot of time entering receipt data into Excel–I was like a bookkeeper for the corporation known as my family. Every day I’d pester my wife about turning in receipts so I could enter the data. It wasn’t healthy, and it took a lot of time.
Over the last few years, I maintained a monthly budget and entered spending data into the budget. In all but a couple of months, we went over budget. Nevertheless, it was helpful to see where money went and the budgeting goals helped keep us in check. The exercise was, indeed, useful. However, this year I needed to develop a budgeting method that was less time-consuming and less likely to cause personal and family stress.
For 2021, rather than tracking every dollar spent and organizing expenditures in a plethora of categories, I have set a few required allocations. Provided the required allocations are met, I’m training myself to care less about where the rest of the money goes. Here are my required allocations:
- Defined amount paid monthly toward extra mortgage principal
- Defined amount paid monthly toward savings for my son’s education
- Defined amount paid twice monthly into my 401k
- Defined amount paid twice monthly into my HSA
- Emergency funds maintained above a defined minimum
To further my efforts of saving time and “letting go” a little bit, I have converted our bills to e-billing and automatic payments.
So that’s budgeting made easy. I maintain my five allocations and try to disregard the rest. Old habits and constitutions die hard, so it’s been a slightly uncomfortable transition. Overall, though, I’m enjoying the process of detaching somewhat from money. That’s an ultimate goal, isn’t it–detachment from money? Certainly, decreasing stress for my wife is a good thing for her and our relationship. Also, I don’t miss being a bookkeeper.
We’ll see how it goes!
With Love,
P. Gustav Mueller, author of The Present