Logging your take home pay and tracking your spending is one of the most financially healthy exercises you can undertake. There's something peaceful about knowing how much money you have, where it goes and living within your means.

My wife and I have a pretty simple budget philosophy. We keep the receipts for every purchase we make during the month and input the totals as quickly as we can so we don't forget.

Here's what our speadsheet of expenses looks like:

• Tithe
• Offering
• Mortgage
• Insurance-Life/Car
• Power/Utility
• Phone/Internet
• Groceries
• Savings
• Fuel
• Medical needs
• Home needs
• Auto needs
• Clothes
• Eating out
• Entertainment
• Misc./Gifts

The top half expenses are usually set amounts; the bottom half are a bit more flexible. So there's wiggle room if I need more for fuel or the power bill or a benevolence gift. After the month is up, total expenses usually equals net income (there are occasions when dipping into savings are necessary).

Another healthy benefit from keeping a budget is that your receipts reveal what you value most. To my shame, I'm constantly amazed at how quickly I run out of money for clothes, eating out and entertainment.

Yesterday the office was closed for a snow storm and my husband had the day off, so we took the opportunity to work on our budget.

We created a budget a month ago, shortly after we returned from our honeymoon. But yesterday was the moment of truth to add up all our expenses for the month and see how we'd done. I was horrified to see we'd gone over budget by several hundred dollars in more than one category. As a single, I had a lot of discretionary income. I kept a budget but had little trouble staying within it. Not the case with our new combined financial plan.

After spending hours drudging through our online statements and recording and adding up every single expense from the past month, I can see why finances can become a stress point for couples. My husband sees that I spent $15 going to lunch with a girlfriend -- four times -- and $25 on my nails, and I see that he buys a morning snack each day. It could be easy to blame one another for blowing the budget. Thankfully, we went into our budget planning with lots of grace,  realizing it might take some time to break ourselves of our single spending habits.

And so yesterday was a good bonding time as we drank hot cocoa and strategized for where we might scrimp and save money and where we needed to increase our budget. We dreamed about the missionaries we would give to, how we would find money for Christmas gifts and get that new couch paid off. Though our first budget month wasn't exactly a stunning success, we forgave, made adjustments and recommitted to our plans to be debt free and live within our means. It ended up being three hours well-spent.