His + Hers = Theirs

One of the hardest things so far has been not thinking of things as "Jackson's" or "Chrissy's", but "ours". We joined our home.   We took joint custody of bank accounts, savings, and debts.  We took on each other's woes and worries, fears and goals. We learned to nurture the other's weaknesses and core values that can turn sour in an instant.   I heard pros and cons of joining bank accounts before we got married. "As long as the bills are paid, why does he get to tell you what to spend your money on?" "We each pay half of the bills from our separate checkings and the rest is ours to spend." "You can monitor all of your money in one place at one time."
"You don't have to worry about your electricity going off because he forgot to pay his half."   I was listening to talk radio on the way home one day, the financial analyst (may have even been my BFF Dave, but I don't want to discredit the concept) made a wonderful point: When two become one, that shouldn't exclude anything.     I get laughed at, yes, for calling my husband to ask if it's okay to go to lunch with co-workers. I'm sure he does, too. However, it allows us to keep each other accountable. If he doesn't think it's in our best interest for me to go to lunch four times a week, then I don't go.  The same goes for him.  It has allowed us to establish a level of respect for the other.

To keep finances in order, we budget every time one of us gets paid. We have a tablet we share, and we use the Financisto app. We put every category in the app from our Church Contribution to our Disney Savings to our iTunes budget.  We're a weekly/bi-weekly household which makes the one-check-weeks hard.  To handle that, though, we break our bills up like so: Comcast: $97.99/month Jackson gets paid four times a month, Chrissy gets paid two.  $97.99 divided by 2 (what each person ends up paying) is $49 (because we round up that half penny) Divide that by 2 (what the bi-weekly earner pays each pay period): $24.50 Divide that by 2 (what the weekly earner pays each pay period): $12.25 It's that simple.  Okay, so it doesn't look that simple when I write it out, but it makes sense for us.  
  Newlyweds, how are you making your budgeting work? Do you have any tips or tricks to staying true to your plan? Veteran Budgeters, share!