When BF and I first started dating we were not on the same page financially. He’d spent most of his twenties having adventures and odd jobs and hadn’t thought much about retirement. I spent my twenties getting into boatloads of education debt and starting my own business during a recession. I stressed about little else more than I did about money and the future. I’d jokingly comment anytime he was bored or conversation lagged, “wanna make a budget??” and then one day he said yes.

I was shocked at how vulnerable I felt reviewing my finances with someone. Even though it was someone I planned to be with long term (forever is still a word I’m getting used to). Turns out, all the stress and worry I had that we weren’t actually making ends meet or balancing our expenses between us or that we were spending too much money on any one thing was a big waste of time. We were fine. We tweaked who paid what a little bit, but otherwise it was a whole lot of nothing.

And that one evening conversation brought us so much closer. We showed each other our cards. We removed a barrier in our relationship. We stopped guessing and got actual facts and information to work with. And everything about it was a huge relief.

We talked about what bills to split differently or get rid of. We talked about getting him a different retirement plan because his work wasn’t matching his contributions. We talked about high yield savings accounts and how keeping a huge chunk in a checking account gives me heart palpitations. (Quick pro-tip. A high yield savings account is currently giving about 3% interest earnings annually. For my emergency fund that’s like $50 a month for free – $600 a year! My normal savings account was giving me .3% – so like $5 a month. There’s no difference in service or structure that I can see. Free money is great. You should look into a HYSA but this is not legal or financial advice. .)

There are a ton of tools online and apps that can help with this. Mint is an easy one. Most online banking platforms have one to some extent. Etsy has a million budget templates you can purchase for a few bucks. A lot of personal finance coaches have a budget sheet they’ll send you in exchange for your email address to add to their list (CloBareMoneyCoach is a personal favorite of mine). You can even write it down yourself if you want. But knowing where your money goes is a really important step if you’re planning for something in the future. Saving for a vacation? Better make sure you know how much you can spend. Kid wants to go to summer camp? Can you afford the excess? Want to go to part time? Let’s see if you can afford it. Knowing what you need to make ends meet is hugely important. And yet most of us don’t do it in a formal sense.

I was 40 before I made a real budget. It still isn’t particularly formal. But I know how much I need each month to live like I currently do. And that means I know how much I need to have in an emergency fund to give me peace of mind – the general rule is 3-6 months of monthly expenses depending on how consistent your income is and how variable your expenses may be. I stick closer to three months because I don’t have kids to feed and I have a fair amount of “wants” in my monthly budget that I could get rid of if times were hard. I also have a buffer of three months in my business account so even if disaster struck there I’d still get my regular paycheck for three months without feeling it at home.

In law school we learn about mitigating damages. We learn to think of the worst case scenario and then plan for that. I teach my clients to prepare for the worst outcome at trial and plan and negotiate from there. No, the case isn’t just going to get dismissed. We have to go to trial and risk potentially losing. Otherwise we negotiate something and take what we can get.

I look at some aspects of life this way. “What’s the worst that is likely to happen” – because the worst thing that could happen leads to crazy anxiety – and then try to plan to deal with that. If you buy yourself a few months to think and prepare, you may be able to deal with catastrophe with very little interruption to your security or your family’s well-being. If you have three months of expenses in your bank account, losing a job may not be that big a deal. You could be re-employed and receiving your new paychecks before that money runs out. But that three months is a much different amount for each of us. My food costs are low – it’s just me and boyfriend and the animals in our house, not three growing kids. My car is paid off and still runs just fine. My mortgage is relatively low. Our expenses are X so we need 3X in an emergency fund. Your expenses are Y and you may need closer to 6Y to feel comfortable handling what gets thrown at you. Right now, if Boyfriend got fired, we’d have enough to cover his share of expenses for awhile. If we had medical debt, we’d be able to sort it out to an extent before panicking.

I understand this is a huge luxury and most people are not in this boat. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck. I’m doing my best to buck the system. I don’t want to work forever. I don’t want to have to rely on my aging parents for financial help. I don’t want to panic on a regular basis when a bill surprises me or I owe money for taxes.

So we made a budget and decided I don’t need a new car for awhile. We saw that we had a ton of streaming service subscriptions that we don’t actually need or use all that often. I realized I spend a boatload of money on my phone and should shop around for a better/cheaper service. And we realized we each have some breathing room for gifts, pedicures, date nights, or whatever other thing we feel like within reason.

We had to do the numbers to know that though. I really like a budget that associates importance with it. In our budget we also prioritized based on how much we value a particular thing. So we kept Apple Music because we love the playlists and the music service it provides. We got rid of Hulu because we just don’t use it. We cut down on our eating out expenses but increased our grocery expense because Boyfriend is a really good cook and we enjoy our fancy dinners at home more than we enjoy eating out most of the time.

Maybe you’re like me and you don’t care about having the nicest newest car so you keep your dented six year old car. Maybe you’re like one of my good friends who leased the newest BMW convertible because you only live once and what’s the point of lawyering if you can’t drive a swanky car. To each their own. But that’s the point. Maybe you rent out a room in your house because you don’t want to spend so much of your monthly income on your mortgage or rent. Maybe you will never ever have a roommate again because you would rather live in a tiny studio than share your space with another person. Neither is wrong.

Know what your expenses are. Shape them to your values and priorities. Build from that.