So he decided to write his own. But we asked him to zero in on setting up, and sticking to, a family budget. Anybody can establish a budget. But couples have to be realistic in writing down their current expenditures and how much they think they're going to be spending in the future. They don't want to admit they have the problems that they have.
Many people really like spending more money than they make.
So if they can convince themselves they're really not spending more, they'll do it. Actually, a lot of people budget everything out to the max, and then if anything unexpected happens there's nothing left. It may be a few percentage points of your total budget that you set aside to cover the unexpected things. What kills people's financial planning is that they do it for six months and then abandon it. The people who succeed at budgeting are those who ten years from now are still working with their plans.