Start Up in Household Budget Management

I just got my salary adjustment but despite the increase, I became more conscious of how I spend my earnings.

I am the official finance handler in our household. My husband gives me a certain amount for his monthly share and i try to stick to our monthly household budget. There were a few times that I failed in sticking to it but most of the time we are always on track.

I want to share with you how we did it and perhaps you can share with me as well your tips on how to save for the rainy days, spend less and invest wisely. Perhaps we might be in the same boat and we can compare notes. =)

Just to give you a background, our scenario is the following: we bought a condo unit and had a certain amount on loan, we have a car part of the company car loan benefits which we pay 50% share for 5 years at 0% interest. A few months to go and the car is ours to own already. We are planning to sell it since it still has a high resale value given minimal kilometer run. We have 2 babies - a 2 year old and a 1 year old respectively. Our firstborn was initially diagnosed with a pervasive developmental delay undergoing treatments through various therapies such as occupational therapy, enrolled in a small group class and waiting for his turn( as we already enlisted him) in speech therapy session. As part of our medical benefits, our great company subsidizes a huge % for medical costs such as but not limited to consultations, medicines, treatments with only some minor exceptions. I'm glad that my son's condition falls part of the reimbursement scheme but as to what are included and not - i still have to learn about it along the way.

HOW DID WE START?
We initially started on the wrong foot in terms of financial management but we were both glad that it was corrected after almost reaching financial lowdown and now we have recovered from our financial experience as a couple pretty well. A year ago, my husband and I fully disclosed our net income. Then we determined how much our budget would be for our personal expenses as well as which are part of our compensation. Personal expenses such as daily food budget while working, gas, parking fees/toll fees, cellphone bills and "miscellaneous" - where occasional shopping, DVD purchases, salon trips for haircuts, foot spas with pedicure, massage and other expenses to our delight would fall into.

Next we determined our monthly expenses and budget for it such as yayas' salaries, housing loan monthly amortization (fortunately our parking space is included in our amortization), association dues, bills for landline phone bill, internet, water, electricity and cable, drinking water expense, Dr Edwards water for babies, babies' health check up . We even alloted a monthly budget for recreation - for going out/eating out in the malls, occasional city trips and dates for hubby and me.

Since there are only minimal savings left given our expenses, we initially agreed that whatever is left is to our discretion - either we put it in our joint savings account our add it up to our mutual fund investment. At the start of our marriage, we opened 2 joint savings account wherein we placed our "wedding gifts" in this account. 1 local currency joint savings account and another in a foreign currency. Just to briefly share with you, we in a way had a break-even with our wedding expenses given the wedding gifts that we received. =) Later on in our relationship, we also opened mutual funds separately wherein our co-investor are our babies. We also separately have accounts for cooperative savings account which yields higher interest rate than banks, purchased insurance/plans such as educational, endowment and life insurance.