Person Centred Budgeting

Recently I have adopted a new budgeting system. My husband and I were at odds weekly about where the money goes so I decided that we need to have a common understanding of how we would use our money, therefore we would be on the same page and there could be no misunderstandings. 

I have watched Gail Vaz-Oxlade on the television show "Till Debt Do Us Part" a few times. Actually I usually catch the end of it as I wait for my one hour favourite program to start each night. Anyway, I really like her jar budgeting system. It seems to work for the people she works with so why not do some more research on it. I looked it up online where she has many tools and budget worksheets that are downloadable and can be personalized. I went ahead and personalized a budget for us. I created a budget binder, the 5 jars that she suggests having for spending money each week and tracking sheets to keep track of what we spend and where. NO PLASTIC! We can only use the cash in the jars.

I knew this would be a transition as I am a plastic girl. My husband has always been a cash man. With him away all week he usually takes his weekly allowance out of the bank and doesn't touch the account all week. I am typically the one who does all the household shopping and spends the money during the week. We thought it would be easy peasy for him and really tough for me. We are learning as we go.

So with 5 jars set aside for Transportation, Food, Clothing and Gifts, Entertainment and Everything Else each with its own weekly amount determined by the budget spreadsheet we are limited and have to pay very close attention and track every penny not he tracking sheets.

My husband is not working this week so he accompanied me to town yesterday. The first place he wanted to go was to price a new lawn tractor, the second place was to price a new farm tractor, then to pick up new u-joints for our broken farm tractor, then to Canadian Tire to get a new air pressure gauge for the air compressor. Do you see where I am going here? 

I had taken $45 from the Transportation jar to put diesel in my car, $25 from the Everything Else jar for a pair of shoes I had bought on a buy and sell site and $5 from the food jar to pick up eggs. NO PLASTIC.

Luckily my husband had his weekly allowance in his pocket and used it for the parts he needed but then asked "What about my allowance money?" to which I responded "You just spent it for this week." He was a bit frustrated that this meant he couldn't go and use his debit or credit card to buy us lunch at Tim Horton's like we like to do on our trips to town. It wasn't planned, I didn't bring the cash, it can't happen. He agreed but quickly said he thinks this budget isn't correct and her (Gail's) approach doesn't make any sense. When we got home I put her show on so that he could learn more about her approaches and see the success of others who persist with it.

In trying to teach him I taught myself something. I really paid a lot of attention to how she spoke to people and her approach to their budget. She spends a lot of time learning about who people are, whats important to them and how to support them in order to be successful during her month supporting them on their budgeting journey.

AHA - Person Centred Approaches to Budgeting

Sounds like common sense but a bit more complicated than one would think. It takes a lot of self reflection and introspective searching to budget this way. It also takes a lot of determination, persistence, compromise and will power to follow through with goals you have set for yourself.

Its like anything else in life really. We use person centred approaches to everything we do, we just don't name them and write them down necessarily although I suggest writing them down, it certainly makes it more concrete.

We know that we are much less likely to do something that is good for us unless it is directly related to something that is important to us.

So after all these years of saying that we need to develop a budget and the many creative discussions we have had about money, what made me decide to tackle it now? Something that is IMPORTANT TO ME....my husband retiring and being home all week. It has always been important to me but now it is also IMPORTANT TO HIM. I had to wait for it to be important enough to him. He really wants it now but is concerned about finances so I need to show him that it is manageable to alleviate his anxiety. I am happy to say it is working. The kids are less happy about it but thats another whole blog.

A number of years ago I created this Person Centred Budget to help people I was supporting in my job at Community Living Parry Sound to budget. (It is actually normally in a nice table format but I can't insert a pdf here so you get the idea.)

Personal Financial Plan

What is Important to Me to buy each month?

What Is Important For Me to pay for each month?

Is there anything above that can be eliminated or negotiated to make room for balance? If

yes, what?

Total Monthly Income:

Total I must pay out:

Total recreational (divide by 4 to get weekly amount):

Where and When I will spend my recreational budget

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

Include activity and cost

I thought this would be a great way to help people and other staff members to think more person centred when budgeting so that people we were supporting weren't losing things that were important to them in a month because of the need to pay bills. There is always room for negotiation, self reflection and balance.

So I did a bit of reflection of my own. In our budget I have included weekly lunch money for the kids. I have included wine and beer or us. I have included lottery tickets, buy and sell site budget, a generous amount for gifts as I like to give. I did consider what was important to all family members in the development of our budget, there is still some tweaking that can be done but overall our budget is person centred. It reflects who we are and what is important in our lives as well as the things that are not negotiable and have to be paid. It includes a good balance of what is important to us as a family and what is important for us as a family if we want to maintain our current lifestyle.

I am always amazed at the AHA moments. I have always known these approaches not just for people supported by agencies or facilities, I use these approaches in my everyday life, why does it still hit me that these approaches are so useful? Because being person centred, thinking about the person first.....thinking about you first and then planning life around what you learned primarily about what is important to and for you is hard work. It has to be the most intrinsic and simplistic part of life but takes time and energy to really know yourself mindfully. 

I for one am very thankful I have taken this journey and I continue to learn and amaze myself.