His Hers Money

Everyone in the personal finance blogosphere has a budget or has written about budgeting many times so I’m sure this isn’t a new concept to anyone reading this. For us here at HisHersMoney this is the first time we are working on a joint budget.

This is really just our first cut at things and I’m sure there are many places we could really trim the fat. A few things I would like to point out:

1. We have given ourselves $100 a week as our own money. Each can do whatever they would like with their money no questions asked. But when it’s gone, it’s gone. If there’s something we want and it costs over $100 then it will require a little saving.
   • For instance, in July I (Hers) plan on going to the beach for a long weekend with some girlfriends. The costs will include the shared hotel room, gas, food and entertainment. I will need to continue to save up over the next month to cover my trip expenses.
2. There’s no credit card usage. (Nothing else to really say here)
3. Not counting the cars we have roughly $15k in debt. I’ll do an exact calculation and payment plan in a few days. We currently have $1100 a month budgeted to go towards this. I expect that we should be able to pay more each month by cutting back in some other areas but I know that at least this minimum amount is budgeted.
4. Both cars are scheduled to be paid off within a year and a half so we are most likely going to let that debt and payments ride it’s course. The interest rates are decent on them and we have absolutely no intentions of buying any new vehicles at this point.
5. Her monthly income shown is after a $1200/month 401k contribution
6. This should easily increase our net worth by about $55,000 over the next year. Good yes, but not great, not exceptional, not on track to being where I would like to be……

So, the basics are shown below. We welcome and feedback, questions or comments you might have as we work to refine out budget. I will be doing a follow up post on the savings part which we did some updates on as a result of a recent financial advisor visit (yes I found a new advisor)as well as a post regarding an updated debt summary which we really need to look at ourselves.

I (HERS) unfortunately have to find a new financial advisor. I have been with the same guy since 2002 and I have really enjoyed working with him. Unfortunately he has received a promotion up to a leadership position within his company and won’t be directly working with clients any more. Great for him, not so great for me.

The whole thing really came as a shock to me and I really wasn’t prepared to make such a change. I am not looking to change firms at this point but I do need to find a new advisor within the company. I got an email and voicemail from the assigned replacement saying hello and introducing himself but I really wasn’t getting a great feeling from him. FIrst of all it sounded like it was just a given that I wanted him to manage my retirement without any questions asked. The last thing I want in a financial advisor is to feel like I’m talking to a used car salesman!

So, I emailed him back and said I would be more than happy to interview him and consider him as a candidate but I would also be interviewing others as well. I said he could come to my office to speak with me if he was interested. It’s amazing how his attitude changed! So, he will be coming to my office to speak with me on Thursday morning.

I’ll let everyone know how it goes!