When I originally wrote this draft blog post about 4 years ago, I mentioned that our way of doing things with our finances has been very successful for us, and that we didn’t have issues between us due to finances… WELL, then we bought a house, and cars, and started investing in retirement, got fun medical bills, doing our own side businesses, etc. So our finances got a little more complex, and therefore the responsibilities of managing them got a little bit more intense.

The joy I found in my marriage this week was my husband getting a new job that he was so happy about! I’ve kind of shared it mysteriously on here because we didn’t want to say anything until we had good news, but my husband actually got laid off his job a month ago. The decision was based on saving money, not on his performance whatsoever. It was very unexpected and very inconvenient in the timing.

To the couples who haven’t gone on a date in awhile: GO ON A DATE! I know I say this a lot, and I don’t want to come off as annoying, judge-y or insensitive when I write this post. Life can be tough and in those tough times, we tend to put this incredibly important relationship of ours on the back-burner. It also happens when life is busy. For whatever the reason, these situations start to take precedence over something that is so essential to a relationship.

A year ago I talked about some new things I learned about grocery budgeting, especially how my budget was comparing to the national averages. As I remembered that post, I realized my grocery budgeting has changed a bit in the past year, haha. Why? Because LIFE has changed in the past year! Life changes MAKE YOUR BUDGETS FLUCTUATE I was making more meals back in the spring of 2015. Come summer time things got CRAZY again.

In our short three years (almost) being married, Trevor and I have done really well about trying to be financially independent from our families. It’s something that had to be done in stages because tackling health insurance, car insurance, and a phone bill all at once is not wise! Health insurance is a headache on its own, am I right?! But slowly we made goals of what responsibilities we needed to take on and when to do it.

Have you ever had a hard time buying a gift for your spouse while keeping it a surprise? I personally have a problem with it just solely on the fact that I just can’t wait for them to enjoy what I got them! Well for this post I’m talking about keeping it a secret financially. If you are like us and have openly shared finances, you probably struggle with getting gifts without your spouse knowing.

Wanna know something funny? We’ve established a grocery budget for every month since we’ve been married and I don’t think I’ve ever truly been able to stay under it, EVER! haha. I even feel like I’m fairly frugal in my money-saving strategies. I look through the coupons we get in the mail to see if there’s a deal on something we actually use or eat, I’ll take advantage of good sales going on and stock up in bulk (one of the big suggestions to saving money on groceries), and I’ll avoid getting items sometimes that I think are too expensive that week.

Buying a house can be expensive… Haha, that’s an obvious thing. The price gets higher and higher with every new appliance or furniture purchase, too. After buying the necessary refrigerator, washer and dryer, and a couch, you could say our savings is getting depleted! Even though we have the money for it, and are being responsible, it’s put us on a tight budget this month and next month, as we make sure we have enough money for all the living essentials and closing costs coming up.

The idea of sharing finances in marriage has been on my mind a lot recently. It’s possibly because I have had a few conversations with different couples the past month on how they run their finances. I found out that not every couple puts all of their earnings in one pot to pull from, and I found out how different this idea of combining money in marriage, can mean to everyone.

A study by University of Utah professor Jeffrey Dew showed that if you argue about money with your spouse more than once a week your risk for divorce is 30 percent higher than if you argue about money with your spouse a few times a month. So, how can we avoid this? How can we find financial peace in our marriages? There are five easy tips that we have chosen to follow from our faith, on churchofjesuschrist.

You don’t hear about many newlywed couples who have food storage, but we are now one of those couples. We’ve been planning since before we got married, to have a three-month supply of food storage, and we just reached that goal this week. No, this isn’t because we worry that a zombie apocalypse will occur. It’s because we fear the unknown. I know many of you think that the topic of food storage is one that older people are involved in.

The sealing The best and most important part was done first thing in the morning: Get married to my best friend! After that, the mishaps don’t matter, because you are happy as can be! Photography Pictures were taken with family and friends on the temple grounds, and afterwards, Trevor and I spent about an hour taking pictures just us and the photographer. I know many people do groomals before-hand, so that the wedding day isn’t rushed.

I would like to start out, by saying how much I loved my wedding day. From the Groom to the ceremony; to the decorations to the guests; and from the food to the fun, I loved it all! Of course, the day had a few blips, but that is inevitable! What it all came down to, was that I had just married the most perfect man for me, and we were celebrating that fact with people who loved and supported us.