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NJinAustin
member
how do you divi up chores? do a budget?
NJinAustin
member
I know it's been asked before but, how do you divi up chores... daily, weekly, monthly. I'm off of work for 2 months so could use the SAHM advice and working moms for when school starts again.
Also, tell me about how you initially sat together and committed to creating and sticking to a budget. It's always a source of tension for us... even though we want to do and and have been doing "ok" without one for years.
thanks ladies!
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Re: how do you divi up chores? do a budget?
We don't really divi up chores. DH does the lawn mowing, and I never do. I don't know how to work the mower, and when I ask, he says he will do it, so bonus for me.
As for other chores, during the school year, we both just do what needs to be done--sweeping/vacuuming, bathrooms, dishes, laundry (we only just started to put our together--for years we each did our own). I do grocery shopping, but he was coming with me so we had some "family" time on the weekends.
Now that it is summer, I will *probably* do more chores since I am home more than him...at least I will try to.
For a while I felt some chores were mine, and some were his, but then we just both felt that was nonsense. We both work hard...why should one person have to do more chores than the other--kwim?
As for a budget--we don't have that much either. I pay certain bills. He pays certain bills. I know how much money I need per month and it basically is my whole paycheck. He knows what he needs, and since he makes more, he also puts away for our retirement. It's not the best system, but it works for us.
Hope I was some help.
I'm a sahm and I do almost everything. My dh does clean the kitchen every night and helps me do laundry when I fall behind. I can ask him to do whatever and he does it. But, generally I do it all. Minus the 'man stuff' like yard work and mowing.
We don't really have a budget. I know what we can spend and I keep it all on an excel spreadsheet. I am the CFO of the family and I handle all of the money matters.
I do the cooking and the dishes.
DH does the trash, yard work, laundry.
I do the sheets (washing/drying/re putting on the bed) because I like them done much more often than DH would.
DH scrubs the tubs. I scrub the toilets.
I do most of the everyday pickup around the house because I work less hours than he does. On weekends we go through the house together and do the dusting/vacuuming/heavy cleaning together.
We've talked about doing a set chore schedule because the weekends stress me out and it ends up with me getting very frustrated about the crap that has been built up over the week. I wish we cleaned more often, instead out of necessity.
For budget we sat down together at the computer with excel and wells fargo dot com. It broke down for us monthly how much we were spending on each major category. I almost choked when I saw it in front of me. No WONDER we weren't hitting our (lose) savings targets most months. We revised the budget with new numbers in our excel spreadsheet and came to a number that we would transfer into savings every month once we got paid and what was leftover was the money that was reflected in the budget. The goal was to try to leave some left over at the end of the month (or at least not need to pull from what we transferred over earlier that month). For us, we haven't needed to get super strict with ourselves on what we spend on certain things each month - as long as we're not pulling from savings. It's sometimes more difficult to judge certain months than others, but we've worked it out pretty well and have a good 'feel' for our spending habits and when we've done more than average. If we get to the end of the month and we're "out" of money (in our checking) (meaning we just transfer some from savings). We go over the month on the WF website and discuss where we went wrong. It helps keep us both in check.
It has also beefed up our savings dramatically.
"The House We Built."
A journey of building the dream.
My DH works away from home, a lot! he's usually gone about 20 days a month. So I do all the house work, if he's home he'll do dishes because I HATE dishes. We have yard people.
Our budget we set up in excel, because me and excel are BFFs. I handle all of the bills. DH only handles his work expenses and his work CC. It just works for us. DH is very bad about "eh we have the money" and just does it. Until I showed him just how much his $100 purchases add up. What worked best for me is going through the past 3 months of bank and cc statements and going from there.
We haven't redone our budget since we just had 1 kid. What we do, though, is divide our direct deposit so that some $ goes directly into savings (separate bank), some goes to a checking acct just for daycare and another chunk goes to our regular checking accout. We've adjusted when we need to (when adding the second kid to daycare-OUCH). I know that with our first paychecks of the month, we need to pay the mortgage. The second paychecks go for almost everything else. 401K is done through work so that is also already accounted for.
I'm one of those people who will spend $ if I have it. So I have to cut way back once our main checking is low and basically act poor. We do transfer from savings to cover big dental bills, car insurance every 6 months, etc. But overall as long as we are not depleting, we are okay with it.
I set up mint.com but don't really use it.
As for chores, DH is the cook and the grocery shopper. I am the CFO, secretary and folder of laundry. Both of us run the wash cycles, I just don't mind folding and putting away as much as DH. I hate dishes but I do them--DH does them more often. I probably straighten/pick up the house more. Occassionally I scrub toilets and tub. It's REALLY hard to keep up.