I really know nothing about budgeting. I grew up very poor and my parents have no financial literacy. I'm lucky to have met my husband when I was young and he has provided for me. Now that I have my first full time salaried job, I want to start saving and using my money wisely.
I'm 27 and recently started working full time for the first time in August. I had my first child only a couple weeks after getting my bachelor's degree, so I had just been going to part time route until August.
I don't make a lot of money. I teach at a small private school and make $25K. It was barely more than I made working part time, but it cut my commute down by an hour and is in the industry (education) that I'm getting my master's in, so it made sense. My husband makes a pretty good living (six figures). He also is very good with his money (which I've never been) and has a perfect credit score (mine is in the low 600s). He has law school debt, but has nearly 0% interest on the loan, so it doesn't weigh him down too much. I have about $28K in student loan debt, and even though I graduated almost five years ago I've barely paid off anything. I have just over $1K in credit card debt. He's also nearly ten years older than I am, so I feel lost as to where to start my budget. In the wiki, he's definitely a mid career adult. He owns our two houses and pays the mortgages entirely.
So basically, I'm excited to finally have a salary and know the amount I get paid every two weeks, rather than have it fluctuate like it used to. I want to finally make a solid budget. I'm just confused on how to go about this. I feel like it doesn't make sense to include my husband's salary when making a budget, because even though I can ask him for money if I ever get into a bind, it's not like I have access to the money. But on the same hand, seeing as our debts are now combined, does it make sense for him to pay off my loans since he makes more and can pay them down faster, or is this an outrageously offensive thing for me to even suggest? I have no clue what to do about taxes. If I get any sort of a refund it will go directly to my husband so that's not even something I should consider. And stuff like food/gas...he mainly pays for the food, but I stop at the store once or twice every couple weeks and make big orders, too. Do I stop doing this and have him entirely pay for food, or is a random unplanned but kind of planned-ish thing like that, something I can work into a budget?
My husband has provided for the family in incredible ways. I really don't have to worry about if the mortgage will be paid, if the bills will be paid, or if there will be food on the table. I'm very lucky in that regard. However, things do get very contentious between us a few times a year. We will be having a typical marital spat and it will snowball into a giant fight about how I need to contribute more, how I should pay the bills, how I should be saving x amount into the children's college fund and all this stuff. And I get that. But when he makes a minimum of $125K more than me...four or five times my salary depending on the year....I sometimes feel like it's unreasonable. So if I had a budget down, I'd be able to say "this is what I can contribute to the household expenses while still being to pay my student loans, credit card, and other daily expenses" type of thing. Does this make sense?
Thank you for any help or guidance you can give me!
Submitted December 20, 2018 at 08:09PM by swandressiguess http://bit.ly/2AbPA9t
