Budgeting

One of our goals for the beginning of the year was to complete our budgeting project, or at least get a good draft completed that we can tweak as we go along. My wonderful husband devoted several hours to this project over the weekend, combing statements to estimate bills and watching Dave Ramsey videos. He also figured out all those funky excel formulas to create a huge master spreadsheet of awesome accuracy.

I, on the other hand, had a minor meltdown. After three hours of staring at the computer as he input numbers and we discussed potential costs for this month and next, I was on the verge of an anxiety attack.

I realized that, even though I may be a banker, I am not a numbers person. I don't like sitting and poring over spreadsheets. I am a get-it-done person. Efficiency. Easy solutions. Check it off the list. Smile and have a nice day.

My husband, however, is an engineer. Details. Accuracy. Calculations. Exact plans. Figure it all out before moving forward.

What's funny about this is that in Dave Ramsey terms, I am the free-spirited saver and Jer is the nerdy spender. I can work off a very general budget (with nice round numbers) and be quite fiscally responsible. Jer will research and diagram and cost-analyze until he finds the very best deal, then go haggle for a better deal, and plunk down a lot of money for exactly what he wants. I'll look at it, decide it's too much money and/or hassle, and go without. But hey, if that great sale happens on those shoes I want, well that's justified, right?

We balance each other well, and this is good. But we learned that the details side of the budgeting needs to be done in small doses so I don't lose my mind. Of course, once we have the template in place, following it and revising it will be a lot easier than the initial creation. I think I will be able to handle that.

So it's still a work in progress, but thanks to my wonderful nerd, the budget is closer to being reality, as is being debt-free.