Adventures in Budgeting: Update

Well my husband and I have been on this adventure for nine months now. It has been such an amazing journey. I always knew that money is one of the most argued about topics with married couples. I think I understand that better now then ever before.

Until we created a budget we had no control over our financial situation. The bills kept coming and we kept paying. It seemed like we were on the hamster wheel. We kept running but went no where.

My husband would get upset at least a few times a month because I spent X amount of dollars at a store or he thought there should be more money in our bank account.

I understand now it wasn't that he was mad at me but at our situation. He works long hours to bring home a paycheck that is gone before we even get to see it. Since he is the bread winner of the family, it is disheartening for him to see all his hard work not paying off.

For the first time ever I can buy clothes or shoes and my husband knows that we already have money set aside for that purpose. He doesn't get upset thinking that his money is disappearing too fast. Although he rarely looks at our budget, he is welcome to any time and I don't feel I have to hid anything from him. We discuss almost all purchases making sure it is worth spending the money and we have the money to spend.

I never thought I'd say this but I actually enjoy paying my student loans. Of course I hate that we have less money to spend or save but when we started 9 months ago we had 6 debt payments totaling over $37,00. We are now down to 2 debt payments totaling $21,000. We still have a ways to go but we are paying things off faster then I thought possible. I enjoy being able to pay extra to my student loans that is at least 9x the normal payment.

God has really been blessing us on our journey. Money seems to just start appearing out of thin air. Never before have we ever paid this much extra towards debts or had this much in our savings. Going into the winter we feel confident knowing that we will have money in savings to cover the difference of unemployment and our expenses.

We are finally in control of our money and it feels good. We don't have a strict budget but a flexible one but we are still more cautious and consider our purchases more diligently. We never spend more then we take in. We are on our way to becoming debt free!