Things I Tell My Wife by Matt Knutson

“I think we need to eat out less,” I told my wife as we reviewed our budget. Knowing another baby is on its way gave us pause to reflect how we might afford another bundle of joy. I’m sure with a few lifestyle changes we’ll be able to make it all work, but it’s always a little worrisome when you know a rather large expense is headed your way. Of course, Sera and I like to think of our children as investments, as surely they will find financial success early in life and encourage us to retire early. Maybe we shouldn’t bank on that though.

In the meantime, we’re resetting our budget to ensure we’re still able to put money into savings each month with the addition of new hospital bills, diapers, clothes and more. I thought I’d share some resources and tips that have proved useful as Sera and I have planned out our financial stability. Some of these are more goals than actual tips we’ve implemented, but at least we’re attempting to use some new tools to bring budgeting into 2017.

First, I figured a good budgeting app would be useful to monitor expenses. There are several available, so I recommend you take a look at what might meet your needs. Try checking out Mint or You Need A Budget if you’re looking for a place to start. Being able to see where you’re at for the current month’s spending in real time is really helpful instead of always guessing how you’re doing. Some apps even come with a warning that alerts you when a particular budget item might be reaching its maximum amount. That’s the kind of thing that will be incredibly useful for funds designated to eating out and other discretionary spending. Anything that makes it harder to break the rules is good in my book.

Planning out what the next month looks like is a great next step once you have a monthly budget established. Sera and I will spend some time this weekend examining what our grocery needs will be for the entire month in hope that we’ll be able to save some money instead of simply going to the store for whatever we want, whenever we need it. Our old way allowed for too many compulsive purchases that don’t help when you know your expenses will be increasing in a few months. Now is a great time for us to try piloting some best practices like this.

In addition to better understanding what your monthly needs are, it’s a good idea to do some price matching while you budget. Thankfully, my community has several options for groceries and miscellaneous shopping, so we can identify what’s on our shopping list in advance and strategically buy from the stores offering the lowest price. It’s a bit challenging at first, but once you get into the rhythm, it becomes second nature to you. In addition to knowing where the regular deals are, it’s advantageous to track weekly sales and coupons. This is something I’m generally not great at, so I’m cataloging it into the “room for improvement” category. Years ago I remember seeing a show called “Extreme Couponing” that highlighted impressive deals where people would get cart-loads of groceries for little-to-no money. I don’t think I have the time to invest in that kind of strategic work, but spending a little time looking online and in print publications for our commonly purchased products sounds like a good place to start.

The other piece of advice that we’re going to be acting on is paying off debt faster when possible. We’ve always been judicious in paying off the credit card bill in full each month, but in hindsight, there is more we can be contributing to our loans. Increasing our payments on the loan with the highest interest rate seems like a good place to start, so as we’re able, we’ll add that into our budgeting mix. Debt is an incredibly useful tool society has allowed us to partake in, but the faster we can get out of it, the better. Interest payments are daunting, no matter how you look at it.

This may have all seemed like common sense to you. In fact, I hope it was. None of it was earth-shattering for us either, but it was a conversation we hadn’t had as a couple in a while. The fact that there were no surprises meant that we’re pretty good at meeting our budgeting goals each month, but with a new, tighter budget on the horizon, I’m glad we’ve started mapping things out now instead of having a burdensome problem build up in the future. It’s always good to remember you’re not alone in the quest for financial stability. There are tons of great resources online and a great nonprofit community that likely have financial classes available to you for free or a low cost.

Matt Knutson is a communications specialist in Rochester.