Putting Money Plans Into Action

After examining our bank accounts and budget last week, I decided I wanted to do 3 things:

1. Close duplicate accounts
2. Redo budget
3. Change transfers

Since my husband and I have 3 categories of accounts (yours, mine and ours), since our accounts are at 2 different banks, and since we have 16 accounts total, making changes has been a bit complicated.

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

I went to my personal bank and closed 3 savings accounts. I transferred the money that was in each account to my checking. This was the easiest part I’ve done so far.

Next, I started to transfer money from those closed accounts to our shared checking account (at another bank). This is going to take a few days because I can only transfer $2K at a time and I have $13K to transfer total. I could ask the bank to write checks so I could transfer the money all at once. I hadn’t thought of this step when I was at the bank, though, and it’s so easy to do the work online, so I’m going to transfer the funds over the 7 days needed.

Third, my husband and I have talked about our budget. We’re going to increase the amount of money that goes towards the house, food, and well, since inflation has affected all of our budget categories, we’re putting a bit more money to the monthly expenses budget overall.

We’re also going to decrease the amount of money going into our emergency fund (from $600 to $300) and our car fund (from $400 to $300). This is where we’ll get the money to put into our monthly expenses budget (increasing by $300). This is also where we’ll get the money to put into our home improvement fund ($100 mo).

Since I am clear on where the money is coming from and where I want it to go, it seems like changing the transfer amounts would be simple. However, some of the transfers are mutli-layered. For example, I used to put the $400 my husband reimbursed me into the emergency fund. That’d be 2 transfers—one from my husband’s account to our checking and then from our checking to the emergency fund. Also, since I closed 3 of my personal savings accounts, that money will now be transferred out of the family checking, but that money comes from my personal checking, so now I’ll transfer the money from my personal checking to shared checking and from there into our shared emergency fund. I’m changing a lot of these electronic monthly transfers at once, so I started to get confused.

I was holding too much information in my head at once, so I decided I better take a break.

Though making the changes has been a bit discombobulating, ultimately, making the money transfers will be more direct and clearer. In the end, we’ll have more shared money and less “yours” and “mine,” which, to me, has reflected some emotional growth.

I am more confident I can talk with my husband about the funds I want. I am more settled in the fact that my husband wants me to have the money I want for projects. I am more sure that I would say something if my husband proposed we use the money in a way I don’t want. I’m more confident that we have money directed to where we want it to go, for now.

Peace Out (And In),

Julie

Photos are from Maui, Hawaii, May 2012