Overall, my planning process has been pretty calm so far. But I have been checking and re-checking my wedding budget spreadsheet weekly — especially the estimates vs actual money spent. Then checking into my bank accounts and configuring and conspiring how to make sure I am getting the most bang for my (lots of) bucks.
I am not the first, nor will I be the last that spends a good deal of valid energy on a wedding. But something happened yesterday, thanks to an app, that helped remind me of the fun of wedding planning.
My budgeting app takes all my spending and savings accounts and gives me a daily snapshot. It also has a monthly budgeting section — you get to decide what your goal is for “groceries,” “shopping,” etc. And it lets you know how you are doing in each category. I spent a lot this month on wedding-related things, and wanted to weed out those purchases from the others since these are not really indicative of my regular spending habits.
I found a category called “Amusement” and put those purchases under that title.
Amusement!
It falls under the bigger heading of “Entertainment.” But for me, it just completely reiterated how all of this wedding spending is for my own amusement in getting to plan my fun special snowflake party.
What our wedding was really worth
I have financial guilt the way my Catholic friends have sex guilt. I do spend money; they do have sex. But it's rare we're entirely... Read more
It's amusing and entertaining and it's supposed to be fun. No need to fret over the shade of the tablecloths — it's for our amusement! If it is not amusing to me, it's not happening at the wedding, because labeling it under that title would be lying — to myself and to what we want!
And now I'm looking forward to more amusement.
Are you using a budgeting app? Have you found it helpful in “amusing” and fascinating ways? Has it influenced your wedding spending?
I’m not using a budgeting app but I would love recommendations for one (besides mint. I don’t want to link to my bank account.)
ah, the power of semantics. it can completely change our way of thinking about or looking at just about anything. what budgeting app are you using?
I wish my budgeting app was amusing. I’ve been using Wedding Plandroid, and its good for basic “this is my budget, we’ve spent X amount”, but it’s lacking in the making it amusing department.
The app I use is Mint- and while I had some reservations about linking my bank accounts to my phone for security purposes… it doesn’t give you access to make any deposits or withdrawals from those accounts through the app- just all the info compiled in one place.
You also can choose to only view the information on your computer and not download the app to your phone.
This is amazing and made me smile. Definitely going to adopt this perspective, even though I’m not using an app. (Plus, I can break out the Queen Victoria impression: “we are not amused.” Never enough opportunities for that.)
We’re using a Google Drive spreadsheet shared between h2b and I. It’s got everything on it! And I can cheekily access it when I’ve had an idea or random purchase at work.
We use a budget in our daily lives that helps us save and it is called “You Need A Budget” (YNAB for short). It is the reason we are ready to plan a wedding (aside from raises, of course) and the accompanying budget philosophy and app are super helpful in keeping us on track day-to-day. I just set up a Google doc with a budget specifically for wedding estimates and all that, but the real $$ in our accounts depend on our use of YNAB. It doesn’t link to our bank accounts – part of the philosophy is that you still have to kind of balance it like a checkbook, but it is an amazing tool. It’s something you might consider keeping post-wedding too 🙂
We use YNAB too! Totally changed our financial life, and makes us feel like we might actually be able to afford the kind of wedding we really want. It’s very exciting. 🙂
I third the use of YNAB. I used to to just keep track with a Google drive spreadsheet but became a YNAB convert last year after I bought it during a Steam sale. It’s really helped me get on track financially and focus more on what I’m spending money on. My FH and I are planning to buy a house this fall and get married next February. There’s no way I could pull that off if I hadn’t started saving with YNAB. Now I just gotta get him using it too 😉