No Budget, No Stress: How We Manage Money as a Family of Four

Most personal finance advice is written for people counting every dollar. That’s not my situation, and if you’re running an agency with a family to support, it’s probably not yours either.

I’m an agency owner. I live outside San Antonio with my wife and two kids. We have a mortgage, two car payments, and all the stuff that comes with running a household while also running a business. Here’s how we actually manage money.

I don’t budget. But I do manage.

There’s a difference. I’m not sitting down every month assigning dollar limits to categories and stressing when we go over. That’s not how we operate.

But I do have an accounting spreadsheet that tracks our spending by category. And I check our net worth regularly through the Robinhood app. You need that visibility. If you’re not looking at where the money is going and whether you’re actually growing, you don’t know where you stand. You just don’t need to turn it into a second job.

USAA is home base

Our main bank is USAA. Checking lives there and so does our insurance. It’s reliable, the service is solid, and it handles the foundational stuff without drama.

The one thing USAA won’t win on is APY. Their savings rate is basically nothing. That’s why cash doesn’t sit there longer than it needs to. When bills are coming up, mortgage, insurance, whatever is due, I move money into USAA to cover it. The rest of the time, money lives somewhere that actually earns.

Cards do almost all the work

The Amex Gold is a shared card between my wife and I. Restaurants and groceries make up the bulk of our spending, so running both through one card that rewards those categories heavily just makes sense. If you have a family and you’re not optimizing for food spend, you’re leaving a lot of points on the table.

For everything else, I use the Robinhood Gold card. Three percent cash back on everything, no thinking required. It’s the catch-all and it earns better than most cards people obsess over.

My wife also uses the Apple Card for her own day to day spending. Simple, no annual fee, and the cash back is straightforward with no hoops.

I don’t use debit. Almost ever. The only time a debit card comes out is for an ATM or if a card has an issue. Every dollar that can go on a credit card does. Cash sitting in a high-interest account while I wait to pay the statement is just smarter.

Groceries and household

We’ve settled into a rhythm that works well for a busy household. Most of our grocery runs aren’t really runs anymore. We do a lot of Walmart delivery now, and it’s been a game changer. With two kids and everything going on, not having to physically walk a store for routine items saves real time. We set up recurring transfers to OnePay to keep that funded and running smoothly.

For meat and fish, we still go to HEB. There’s no substitute for actually picking out what you’re cooking for dinner. Fresh vegetables too when we want something specific. HEB just does that better than a delivery order.

Sam’s Club handles our bulk purchases. We actually moved away from Costco recently. Sam’s just works better for how we shop now.

We also use the Amazon Prime Visa for Amazon purchases. We don’t buy a ton there, but there are things you can only really get through Amazon. Air purifier filters, fridge water filters, stuff for the kids, and the occasional tech purchase. It’s not a heavy use card but it earns well on Amazon spend and it’s the right tool for that specific category.

Robinhood is where idle cash lives

The Robinhood savings account sits at 3.5% APY. Cash waiting to cover a card payment or sitting between business deposits is actually doing something instead of nothing.

The Robinhood app is also where I track net worth. That number moving in the right direction is more motivating than any budget spreadsheet ever was. It keeps you honest without making you obsessive about individual purchases.

Chase handles the business

For the agency, everything runs through Chase. The business card gets into higher limits, $50K or more, which matters when you’re paying vendors, running campaigns, or just need flexibility without a phone call to the bank. Wires are easy too, and when you’re moving real money around for clients or payroll, that matters.

Investments are automated and simple

My wife and I both have Roth IRAs through Robinhood. We max those out every year. Nothing exotic, just consistent contributions and time doing its thing.

For the kids, we use Victory Capital for their 529 plans. Two kids, two accounts. Getting those started early takes pressure off later. It feels optional until it doesn’t.

Crypto is split between Coinbase, Robinhood, and some self-custody wallets depending on what it is and how long I’m holding it. Not a huge position, but it’s part of the picture.

The system in plain terms

Move money to USAA when bills are due. Let the rest sit in Robinhood savings earning interest. Put almost everything on cards that pay you back. Pay the cards off. Check the spreadsheet. Watch the net worth number.

That’s it. No app telling me I spent too much on dinner. No category limits to stress about. Just a system that runs mostly on its own while I focus on the business and the family.

A note on privilege and living below your means

I want to be upfront about something. This system works because of how we’ve chosen to live, not just how much we earn. I’m in a privileged position. We own a home, the agency generates solid income, and I have flexibility that a lot of people don’t.

But we also actively choose to live below our means. Lifestyle creep is real and it will quietly wreck you if you let it. We eat at home most of the time. When we want to go out, we go out, and we don’t stress about it. But it’s a choice we make intentionally, not something that just happens.

We travel more than most people. But the credit card rewards cover a big chunk of that, and the way we live the rest of the time makes it possible. We’re not driving the flashiest cars or upgrading everything just because we can.

The system I described works because the spending underneath it is intentional. If you’re letting lifestyle inflate every time income goes up, no financial setup will save you. Keep it modest where it doesn’t matter to you, and spend where it does. That’s the real foundation.