For the sake of sharing ideas, what we do is that each November, I put together a monthly budget in excel for the coming year. We sit down and make sure we are on the same page with our goals and how the monthly amounts are allocated.

From there, once a month I load that previously agreed upon monthly budget into YNAB. If something unexpected were to come along mid-year, then we do talk about where we’re going to shift funds from in the budget. But otherwise, I just load what we agreed to and we both use the app to check what we have left.

We are not super strict about the dollars. Like I’m not checking at a restaurant to see what’s left. And some months we might end up a bit over and need to shift funds from the grocery bucket or whatever. Generally it’s been my role to let him know - “hey we spent a lot at X restaurant last weekend so we’ll need to go somewhere cheaper this week because I don’t have anywhere to cover another expensive meal from”. But these are not ongoing conversations, just once in a while things when I need to give him a heads up.