It sounds like you need to calculate your expenses. Don’t intend to sound condescending, but this is something that anyone on a path to financial literacy should do very early. This is different than budgeting, we are only at the clarification stage here.
I was calculating my expenses monthly for over 10 years, but few years ago I realized that it is not very helpful and I should calculate overall expenses of the household for a calendar year. Did it for few past years and am quite satisfied.
Here are some advices.
- Open your favorite spreadsheet program.
- Put your (both spouses) income first.
I use net salaries from the yearly salary certificates, IIRC, number 11 in it. If you want, you can start from gross salary and do social deductions yourself. Advanced level: add employer’s contribution to the pension fund and calculate the total pension contribution.
- Put taxes you have paid for that year.
This is the part that is easy to miss and the main reason I think calculations should be done per year.
- Put other expenses.
That is the difficult part. Categorize them the way you want, but put all of them. Find a way. Humbly beg your wife to give you her credit card and bank account statements if you have to.
- Calculate what you have saved.
Now you can do all kinds of fun calculations such as what is your average tax rate and if you meet a reasonable savings rate of e.g. 20%. Well, let’s skip it for now.
As you say that you don’t know where your money are going, you would need to come up with some categories (child care, vacations, …) and go through the statements and put expenses into other spreadsheet(s) to calculate the annual total.
I also agree that you should be on top of your tax declaration and make sure that it is not only correct, but that you also have deducted everything you can.