Finances are not my strong point. I have an aversion to budgeting, I pretty much hate it. However, Matt and I learned that we needed to have our budget in place before we were married. The biggest challenge is our budgeting styles: Matthew is very rigid and a black-and-white thinker, while I am quite the opposite. It took me a while to convince him that our budget would change pretty constantly over the first few months until we developed a routine.
The Envelope System
We decided to use an envelope system, somewhat like the Dave Ramsey method; or, if you are April, you call him Damn Ramsey. That is how I feel about the envelopes too, they are not my favorite thing. Those envelopes though, they do save you money. The idea, if you aren’t familiar, is keeping your allotted cash in an envelope so you can’t go over budget like you could with a credit or debit card. I have been fighting putting our grocery money into an envelope for a long time. That was always an item that we “budgeted,” but it was not an envelope. I liked the ability of using a card and being able to buy groceries whenever I wanted. It has something to do with how I was raised! I also like being able to stock up on things that are on sale. Now we have too large of a stockpile and a habit of overusing our grocery budget.
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Matt and I finally decided to switch to cash. This is a huge decision (it probably doesn’t seem like it, unless you use the system) that I am finally somewhat comfortable with. This should curb my excess spending (no, we don’t NEED cereal bars) and keep us within our budget limits. Hopefully I can come back in a few months and say, “Wow, that was such a smooth transition, why didn’t I do that years ago?” I know this will make my shopping trips take twice as long, because I need to calculate out how much everything costs, but it should be worth it.
Have I left you wondering how much do we spend on groceries? I think this is a number that varies depending on many factors, like family size, where you live, etc. However, we “budget” $350 to $400 a month on groceries. I am beginning to think this is excessive, even though my husband still eats like a teenage boy. We are putting $80 a week or $320 a month into our envelope. This might be one that we replenish every two weeks instead of on the first of the month. Hopefully I do not go crazy with the budget, as there is no overspending when you run out of cash!
Do you use the envelope system? How does it work for you?
I would just worry about losing an envelope or having my purse stolen. No problems with either of those yet, I presume?
We keep the envelopes that we don’t use on a daily basis in a safe. So that’s secured. And most of the major envelopes (with large amounts of money), like Vehicle Repairs, are set aside in the back of the checkbook. I only keep 3 envelopes on me, usually: Megan $, Eating Out / Entertainment, and Groceries. So not a large amount of cash.
Yes, we use the envelope system and it has revolutionized our budgeting! We tried a lot of things before finally doing the “old fashioned” envelope system and it’s by far the best for us.