Managing your household as a working parent: finances

One of the things that made entering into motherhood a bit easier for me is that my husband and I already had a foundation for managing our household and a habit of regular communication. Without going any further, I want to acknowledge that we are not perfect. However we have learned a few things along the way that have helped us manage our finances, housework, and relationship challenges, things that all couples face. Today, I want to share with you something that we started while planning our wedding and continued as a habit that we maintain today.

My husband and I have a spreadsheet that houses our entire life. We affectionately call it “The Spreadsheet.” Each tab houses a different part of our life: our mortgage schedule, savings plans, project lists, holiday card list, historical expenses (dating back to 2018), baby names…and so much more. This spreadsheet is saved in the cloud, and we can access it anywhere, anytime.

The reason this spreadsheet is a great household management tool is that it gives us a concrete document to go to when we need to forecast any financial decisions and understand how different scenarios might impact our plans. We also stay organized on projects and can quickly arrange our notes as we make future plans together. We reference The Spreadsheet on a daily basis and it has been a foundational part of our marriage. Having this tool increased my knowledge around personal finance and helped me understand how to co-manage our financial future with my husband.

There are a lot of tools out there that can help a couple manage their finances – we find that The Spreadsheet gives us a one stop location for everything that we want to track. It’s flexible and allows us to customize our views.

My husband graciously helped me build out a template that you can use as a starting point to build out your own tool. You can download it here. I’m interested to hear how you mange your households. Leave me a comment so I can share it on Instagram!