Alpacto › Free printables › Mental load › Reminder budget
A reminder budget: how many reminders each job gets this week
A reminder budget is a number you agree on before the week starts: how many times one of you may remind the other about a job. Each reminder is one tick on the sheet. When a job’s budget runs out, its owner sets a phone reminder, and nobody else reminds for the rest of the week.
- Sheet
- One page: four rules and two sections of five jobs, Monday to Sunday
- Paper
- US Letter and A4, portrait
- Versions
- Blank, and a fillable PDF with 128 fields
- Designs
- Minimal, warm and color
- For
- Two adults sharing a home, or a parent and a teen
What is on the sheet
Week of, Check-in day, Review on
The week, the evening you compare ticks, and the day you rethink the budgets.
Jobs owned by
One section per person, five rows: Job, Budget per week, Mon to Sun, Used, Left, Phone reminder set.
A reminder from us sounds like
The words a reminder uses, agreed in advance, then two signatures.
How the reminder budget works in a week
The rules, as printed on the sheet:
- The person who owns a job sets its budget. The other person agrees, or we talk it over.
- Each reminder is one tick in that day’s box.
- The person reminding adds the tick.
- When a budget is used up, the owner sets a phone reminder and nobody else reminds for the rest of the week.
| Job | Owner | Budget | Used | Left | Phone set |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trash and recycling out Tuesday night | Kevin | 1 | 1 | 0 | Yes |
| Unload the dishwasher before work | Kevin | 3 | 2 | 1 | No |
| Walk Biscuit after dinner | Kevin | 2 | 0 | 2 | No |
| Book the car inspection | Kevin | 1 | 1 | 0 | Yes |
| Pay the water bill by the 25th | Marisol | 1 | 1 | 0 | Yes |
| Sign Lucia’s school forms | Marisol | 2 | 1 | 1 | No |
| Put the clean laundry away | Marisol | 2 | 2 | 0 | Yes |
By Sunday each of them has reminded the other four times: a count on paper, not one memory against another.
The sheet’s example; Kevin and Marisol are invented. Left is Budget minus Used, never below zero.
The filled-in example, minimal design.
Why count reminders instead of arguing about them
The Gottman Institute describes how a fair request goes sour: “The requests turn into reminders which then become pointed comments.” Then comes the pursue-withdraw pattern: the more one partner reminds, the more the other pulls back.
A budget caps that first step. The owner picks the number, so every reminder inside it is one they asked for.
Gretchen Rubin’s rule for tone: “If you need to voice a reminder, limit yourself to one word.” On the example sheet the agreed words are Heads-up: it’s on your list today.
The person who reminded adds the tick.
Sunday check-in: which jobs move to the phone for good
On Check-in day, read the Left column. A job at zero already has a phone reminder under rule 4; if it runs dry again next week, keep that reminder on for good.
Gottman describes the owner’s side of the same move: put the job on your calendar and tell your partner you did. Once a job lives on the owner’s phone, it drops off the sheet and frees a row.
Blank on the fridge, the phone within reach.
Download the sheet
Three designs, each in US Letter and A4, blank or fillable, free with no email or account.
Questions people ask
What is a reminder budget?
The number of reminders a job may get in one week, set by the person who owns it. Each reminder is a tick; at zero, a phone reminder takes over.
Is this the same as a chore chart?
No. A chore chart tracks whether jobs get done; this sheet counts the reminders about them. Split the jobs first with the chore split calculator or a couples chore chart, then give each one a budget here.
Does it work for a parent and a teen?
Yes. The teen’s jobs go in one section and the parent’s own jobs in the other, so both sides get counted.
Other free printable sheets
Save this sheet to Pinterest
Pin it now and the sheet is on your board next Sunday. Each job gets a number of reminders for the week, and every reminder is a mark in its day.
Let the app remember it
In Alpacto a job from the sheet can be a task pact: one thing, done once, marked complete and confirmed by the other person. The pact holds the reminder, so neither of you has to. Accounts start at age 13.