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The wrong half of the month

My husband and I are following your plan, and we’re trying to reconcile our on-paper budget with what’s going on in our bank account. Most of our bills are due the first half of the month, but we receive most of our income during the second half of the month. Can you help us figure out what to do?

    by Dave Ramsey, Syndicated columnist | Columnist, External
    Published 

Dear Dave,

We have three daughters under the age of 5, so we may be spending quite a bit on things like weddings in the years to come. Is there a Baby Step for weddings? If not, during which Baby Step do you recommend setting aside money for this?
Carrie 
Dear Carrie,
I don’t have a Baby Step for weddings, but in my mind it would come after Baby Step 5, which is putting aside a college fund for your children. Once you have education savings, retirement and extra house payments underway, then you could start putting aside a little extra for weddings.
This may not make me popular with some young ladies or their moms, but an education is more important than a wedding. Maybe this is the dad in me coming out, but if I had to choose between paying for college educations and paying for big weddings, I’m going to pay for school. In my mind, anyone who disagrees with that is kind of a twit.
Weddings are wonderful, and you should mark these kinds of milestones with celebration. But a wedding is only a one-day event. Plus, there’s absolutely no statistical correlation between the size and expense of the wedding and the success of the marriage!

My husband and I are following your plan, and we're trying to reconcile our on-paper budget with what's going on in our bank account. Most of our bills are due the first half of the month, but we receive most of our income during the second half of the month. Can you help us figure out what to do?

Kathy

Dear Kathy,

If you're actually making a budget and sticking to it, what you're describing is a cash flow bind. You are in charge of your budget until it's on paper. Once it's on paper, it has to accurately represent reality. In your reality, that means a cash flow strain on the first checks and extra money on the second checks.

You won't be able to fix this in just one month, but there is a long-term solution. Move some of the money from your second checks into the first half of the next month. By doing this, you'll start running from the fifteenth to the fifteenth instead of from the first to the first. It will help you stay ahead and avoid getting pinched.

The second part of this equation is that you are in charge of your budget. The budget does not become the boss of you until you get it done. When everything is written and agreed on by you and your husband, that's when the budget becomes the boss. You can't come home with a new shirt or a new purse and hope it fits into the plan. The budget has to be the plumb line by which you build your finances straight and true!

Dave Ramsey is America's trusted voice on money and business. He's authored four New York Times best-selling books: Financial Peace, More Than Enough, The Total Money Makeover and EntreLeadership. His newest book, written with his daughter Rachel Cruze, is titled Smart Money Smart Kids and is out now. The Dave Ramsey Show is heard by more than 6 million listeners each week on more than 500 radio stations. Follow Dave on Twitter at @DaveRamsey and on the web at daveramsey.com.