At this point you have agreed on your money values and reviewed your current spending. You've also decided whether you'll work with a single or two-pot money management system. It's now time to create a working budget, which will become the bible for day-to-day and month-to-month money management in your household.

The following items are in most household budgets. Perhaps obvious, they are listed here to help couples complete the process without forgetting something important.

Be sure each of the following items falls on the list for payment from one of your money pots:

• Mortgage or rent payment

• Food. All in one or divided into two shopping lists? It is a good idea to begin with menus, and create a shopping list from those; however, this may simply not be your style of meal preparation. If money gets tight, you can view this as an area to return to for refinement.

• Car loan payments, gas, maintenance, car insurance (or public transportation)

• Home or renter's insurance

• Utilities

• Health insurance, out-of-pocket medical and dental costs

• Taxes

• Student loan payments

• Savings, child's education, or retirement plan contribution

Where you place credit card payments within a budget is an important decision. If you are able to pay off the balance on a purchase made that month, then the full amount should go in the category where it logically falls — clothing, gasoline, and so on — since your method of payment should not be the issue.

However, if you are carrying forward credit card balances, you have no recourse but to set up an essential (not discretionary) category for debt repayment. Your goal should be to pay more than the minimum balance each month so as to avoid being stuck with runaway interest charges and a perpetually high credit balance.

Then there are common discretionary items, which may or may not be deemed essential in your household:

• Haircuts, manicures, beauty treatments

• TV, cable, or satellite TV

• Internet service

• Vacations

• Entertainment (eating out, movies, live events)

• Tuition for education or training courses

• Books, magazines

• Gym or other club memberships or sports activities

• Private school or extracurricular costs for children

• Church or other charitable donations One-time costs (health, auto repair, family loan, and so on). It's a good idea to have a budget category that accounts for the inevitable financial surprises in any household.

So you have a budget. Congratulations. However, if you're like most couples, this is when the crushing realization strikes that your total of budgeted costs exceeds your available joint income. This is the time to make cuts. Too often couples reach this point and give up, deciding to put the shortfall on credit and hope for the best … meaning more overtime, a raise, a second job, a loan, or something else not tangible. This is like sticking your head in the sand and refusing to see reality for what it is. It's also a sure route to marital disharmony, high stress, and stress-related illness.

The widespread personal and collective financial problems in the United States — families losing homes to foreclosures, the household credit crisis — have largely been the result of people ignoring reality (such as the fine print on loan documents) and hoping for the best (for example, rising home values, better jobs). If you've been a party to this faulty thinking, you're not alone.

As the country wakes up to what it has brought down on itself, so too must each household do the same. Part of the challenge of harder economic times is the need to plan ahead for financial crises without knowing when they may strike. With higher unemployment and more job layoffs across many industries, more and more households and marriages are being put to tough tests.

Once you and your partner arrive at a real, workable budget where income matches expenses, you must each keep a copy close by and review it regularly. Then at regular money management sessions, you must examine where your money has gone and keep each other accountable to the commitments you've made. It's no different than what happens (or should happen) in any small or large business.