Are you completely sick and tired of being sick and tired, totally done with being broke and tying to do something about it but are facing resistance from your spouse or someone else?
If so you’ve come to the right place. In this short article, we’ll address the resistance issue and give you full permission to be a colossal budgeting nerd.
You’re likely reading this because you have an emerging (or fully developed) sense of urgency and are looking for some real encouragement..
I’ll tell you at the outset, permission granted! Go ahead and BE a colossal budgeting nerd. We're actually rooting for you to be!
I’m going to explain where this process starts for most people by using a typical example my wife and I see in our financial coaching practice. Maybe this scenario is familiar to you.
Do whatever it takes to get your spouse involved, but don't let it stop you from getting help if you need it and they're not cooperating.
So, as a matter of principle, my wife and I specifically make it a point to not meet with just one spouse for coaching sessions.
Because we're constantly advocating for marital unity in the debt elimination process, we really want both spouses present for the coaching session. It's really important.
But as you can imagine, some “better halves” are not ready to meet with a coach.
In those cases we agree to meet with the husband or the wife individually so that we can help them get started strong in their debt elimination process.
As such, when my wife and I meet with only one of the two spouses, we’re meeting with the one that’s in the process of recognizing that their household finances are in serious trouble.
They're typically both motivated and a little frustrated. Motivated, because they see the oncoming Mack truck headed their way.
Frustrated, because, for any number of reasons, their spouse is not yet clearly seeing the Mack truck.
In about 95% of cases, after we talk about the goals of the session, we do an exhaustive analysis of their current financial situation that includes a highly granular rewriting of the household budget.
If you're brand new to budgeting, I want to help you make sure you get started the right way. Use The Forgotten Budgeting Step (aka "Budget Insurance") Downloadable PDF to make sure you get started right.