alright in this video we are going to talk about five of our best tips to
fight less about money we have had our fair share of money fights - no no no
so we've learned a few things over the years you know so many couples fight
about money a lot and we decided we didn't want to do that so we've been
working on it and you know these are just a handful of things that have
worked for us hopefully these tips will help you as well and so that's why we
want to make this little video and so I think we are ready to dive right in - yeah
the first one is to just keep it simple and this isn't like a half to thing
but in our case we found that this helped a little bit because I'm the one
who tends to lean towards making the financial stuff a little more
complicated and maybe too involved and maybe getting too many pieces in the
puzzle whereas Linda really likes things to be
a little bit simpler and if it's too complicated you're not gonna do it right
right and so that just kind of cuts me out of the equation I think and also to
me from getting involved one example of that was just a budgeting tool that we
use like we tried a whole bunch of different ones but we ultimately decided
that we needed to stick with something really simple and that is what helped us
the most and in fact like honestly so we're using YNAB right now which i think
is the best option in terms of actual software but I think that the actual
simplest thing we ever did was using how our ING - yeah - accounts that was my
favorite for sure you know and we still could be doing that at this point I
think given what we have going on it might actually be more complicated but
that was our favorite most simple budgeting method by far right I have an
article about on the site about how we budget with ING Direct it's now Capital
One 360 but but the method still works and I think that was a simplest thing
right yeah I mean the idea was that it was we were working with actual money so
I think that helped a lot too I do think YNAB has been pretty helpful and useful
yeah I mean YNAB it's great they've done a great job that created a great
piece of software well and you do a lot of the categorizing of the transactions
especially for the things you spend because I don't know what half
things are you know yeah and I think a lot of the things that you spend money
on I can kind of have a grasp of it if it's Lows it probably goes in the
home-improvement category you know all right yeah whereas you buy from so many
shops that I don't even know what they are and there's always a new one popping
up on there all right well and I buy a lot of the gifts that we give and so
yeah got it
all right so number two is to have your
own spending money categories this has been huge I think for our marriage so
basically the idea is instead of all of our money going into one big pot I mean
we do obviously have our budget categories for like as you said home
improvement or vacation vacations car maintenance groceries you know that kind
of stuff but this is hey I want to spend money on this and I can just spend it
without having to ask him yeah yeah so it eliminates the need for a discussion
about whether she wants to buy a necklace flip flops or whatever it is yeah we
don't have to talk about it which is a great great benefit to it but I think
the biggest one is that when she buys something it doesn't feel like it's
money coming out of my pocket so if she wants to go spend $100 on a shirt like I
don't care anymore because it's not money coming out of my pocket right and
if I want to spend whatever a hundred dollars on a thing to hang up my Jeep
doors when I take them off in the summer I think that's important and she doesn't
it doesn't bother her because it's not money coming out of her pocket so
essentially what this looks like practically is we have two extra budget
categories one for my spending money one for hers we each spend out of that yeah
and it has really well in our case we have a good number of friends or we have
family members or other people who you know find themselves in a situation where their
spouse is spending money in a way that they wouldn't and that they might not
agree with and then that turns into a discussion at best or heated discussion
yeah and sometimes resentment even I think yeah yeah because both spouses are
spending different and because it's coming out of the same
pot you know now what you spend is money that I can't spend or you know and and
we just eliminate that whole tension by just having our own pots well and I think your
own categories also like even getting more basic like it takes away this
tension of now I can't buy groceries because you had to hang your jeep
doors up you know or this is why the bills because yeah this is why budgeting
is so important and so beneficial because if you do happen to have just a
really high income and you don't ever run into a situation where you don't
have enough money to buy what you want like this might not be as big of a deal
for you but even still like you could dramatically save tons of money but the
bigger issue is for anybody who's limited on their income at all in any
way you instantly find yourself this freedom to spend on certain things that
you wouldn't otherwise and so we actually found that it was better like
it felt more comfortable being on a budget they're not instead of everything
feeling like well we can't buy that because we had to buy groceries or we
can't buy that could buy that that was just kind of eliminated once we set up a
budget and it's just been a really really great thing so that was a tangent
but it was but I think that's still a great point I mean I think for me since
I am the one that is a little bit not as involved I'm not quite as involved it's
kind of giving me this thing that I can first of all just manage on my own
so it feels like this is this is all mine yeah but also it has kind of pulled
me into like seeing a little bit of what's going on in our finances so it's
it's kind of pulled me in and gotten me more involved because if I feel like I
don't maybe have enough money this month I can kind of go to him and say hey so
um we've got a little bit of extra money in this other category can we move
things around discussion you know yeah it's about like deciding together
it's our budget we decide together about how we want to do things and it's also
kind of gotten me wrapped around the idea of once this money is gone it's
gone and that's been a really important lesson
for me because I didn't really have that before you know our former lives we both
just kind of spent money on whatever we wanted whenever we wanted it and having
to tell yourself no is a really good thing is a good thing
mmm-hmm it's hard we don't want to do it but it is a good thing
so point number three is to keep no secrets in your marriage and to have joint accounts
and this is a little bit controversial with some people because I know some people
don't want to have joint accounts in their marriage in our case we've found
this to be very beneficial because it's just kind of kept a level of
transparency there so we both always have the opportunity to know what's
going on there's no real opportunity for either of us to hide money from each
other and I you know I feel like if you're in a situation where you're
trying to hide money from your spouse like there's just some underlying kind
of issues there that might need to be worked out now if you have separate
accounts and you're using them kind of like we are in point number two where
they're just for spending money you know I think that's a different thing because
essentially we're doing the exact same thing with what we're doing our budget
categories it's just not a separate count per se but the point is still the
same you know and that's not said there aren't some valid reasons for having
separate accounts but in general it just seems like it's probably a little bit
healthier if you can get to the place where you can have both of your names on
the account yeah and I think it kind of just comes down to the open
communication we're on the same team yeah type of mentality so that it
doesn't feel like I can't have your money because you made your money and I
have to get my own money yeah I think it just keeps us more on
the same page in our marriage like they're not even talking financially but
in our marriage it feels like we're a team and we're doing this together
yeah and I think that's such an important part of the whole equation of
getting together with your finances and and really making financial progress as
a couple yeah you know just being on the same page communicating with each other
about it and being honest and not hiding stuff and no secrets you know we're not
married to counselors or anything but that is one of those things that if you
find yourself in that situation I think it'd probably be something would be
healthy to talk to a counselor about and try to
work out with your spouse if you can I mean you know and it might just be a
conversation where it's like listen we've been doing this but I think there
might be a better way I think I might be better for us to kind of be on the same
page and same team with this
alright for point number four one of the things has
helped us is setting financial goals together and this kind of ties into the
previous one a little bit Matthew 12:25 any Kingdom divided against itself is
laid waste and any city or house divided against itself shall not stand and I
think there's power in unity and working towards a specific goal together I mean
don't you agree for sure and I think part of this is just having open
communication about what your goals are so there's really big goals like paying
off your debt - like paying off your debt saving for retirement doing those types of
things and then there's also you know semi big or whatever like okay we want
to replace all the windows on our in our home go on a vacation or buy a new car
or whatever and I know there's been times where I have kind of just
flippantly said to Bob okay we need to replace all the windows on our house and
we need to be doing this so we need and and he starts feeling so like burdened
by this idea of how okay I got a we got to pay for this how are we gonna pay
for this and I think all that needed to happen
was just this tiny little adjustment of saying okay we can write these down and
then come up with a plan or you know once the finances come in for this then
we can do it then yeah instead of me trying to be like I want all this now
which I actually didn't even say that yeah you're just wasn't even trying to
communicate that but I think that was kind of how you're just listing ideas of
things that you wanted to do and yeah I like brainstorming ideas is what it
really was but one of the interesting things about like working together on a
goal is that you know in my case being the guy who's kind of driving the
finances in our house like I think that I have good financial goals and I would
like to go after them but it's far more important that Linda is on the same page
as me towards our goal and that we're working
in unity towards this thing that you know might be 70 to 80% of the way where
I want to go vs. me trying to go a 100% towards where I want to
go and she's pulling the opposite direction so it's we're gonna move so
much faster in whatever direction we choose to go together than if
individually we're pointing in opposite directions and you know just trying to
do our own thing yeah and also - this is kind of a little bit of a tangent but I
think it will be helpful whenever we were hardcore into paying off our debt
yeah I think Bob would have just been fine like barreling forward the whole
time but he made sure that every time we paid off a credit card or just paid
something down that once we hit kind of even just a little bit of -small goals- goals we
would celebrate in some way so most of the time that meant we would go to like
a really nice dinner because that's what we enjoyed and but it was to keep you
motivated because even though I was like hyper focus on this and I was gonna make
it happen no matter what I needed to keep you on board I know and I it really
helped me like just celebrating those small victories knowing that we're
actually getting somewhere and seeing the progress instead of just saying oh
yeah we paid this credit card off you know we actually made it kind of like
this event which definitely kept my interest and made me more excited to
keep going and you know we would even plan like okay the next time I want to
go to this restaurant or when we pay off this we want to do this you know we
would kind of come up with some ideas like that but yeah that really made it
fun I mean for me to like cuz I was super motivated fundamentally but that
made the whole process a lot more enjoyable yeah for sure
and that yeah it definitely kept us on the same page I think so we set our
goals I also think that setting the goals and then following through like
both of you have to follow through you know and I mean I know there's gonna be
slip-ups and stuff like that but I think for the most part if you both are
setting the goal together I think that that's what makes it a big deal is that
you both are agreeing to it and you'll both follow through with it because
in the end what makes the biggest change yeah
and for number five one of the
things that helped us a lot was just being givers together and giving
together and this is something that we have been just kind of passionate about
since we really were dating we used to dream about being able to give on a
higher level and give beyond 10% and really just see how far we can stretch
this giving thing but over the years of our marriage we've been able to do some
really fun things via giving and it's been a bonding experience for both of us
let me don't you think oh yeah absolutely and there have been
times when the two of us have given something together and sown seed whether
it's in the offering at church or to another ministry or whatever it is and
we have been able to stand together in faith yeah when we're giving and when we
are waiting for some sort of breakthrough that's been a really good
thing yeah so I think it's bonded us together spiritually as well as just
yeah I mean chasing this goal together but it's a cool thing when you get to
step out in faith in God like by yourself and just trust God for this
thing but when you get to do is another person locking arms there's it's just
like you're in a battle together you know and you get to get bonded with that
and just been a really great benefit and it's just helped us yeah immensely
so those are our five tips that have kind of helped us reduce our
money fights and just helped us overall have a better marriage and but I'd love
to hear from you so leave us a comment down below if you have any that you
would add things you've helped you or which one of these five you're gonna try
to implement in your marriage or you already are and it's already working
definitely let us know in the comments below and if you found this helpful at
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adios - bye