Relationship Budgeting

How to complete Relationship Budgeting

This is zooming out from this month's bills to map the next decade together: the big purchases, milestones, and savings that get you there. The real value is surfacing where your timelines and priorities differ before they collide as surprises.

1. Each write down your own 10-year goals separately first, then compare, gaps are the whole point.
2. Lay out the big-ticket items with rough dates: home, kids, travel, education, career breaks, retirement.
3. Add up current income, savings, and debt so the plan starts from real numbers, not hopes.
4. Reverse-engineer monthly savings for each goal: target amount divided by months until you need it.
5. Set a couple of automated savings buckets now for the nearest goals so the plan starts working today.
6. Put a yearly date on the calendar to revisit it, since incomes and priorities will shift.

Tips

• Talk through assumptions out loud (whether you'll have kids, who might pause work); unspoken ones wreck plans.
• Build in a separate emergency fund and rough retirement number; ignoring them makes the plan fragile.
• A shared spreadsheet beats a one-time talk, you can both see it and update it as life changes.

What counts as done

You've co-created a written 10-year plan with goals, timelines, and savings targets you both signed off on.