Okay, don't kill me! I forgot to write about our good news, kinda because I'm embarrassed because I don't think you all will be as excited about it as I was!! So, if you think that my news is super lame-o.......sorry!! It was very cool to me!!
As I wrote at the beginning of the year, we are trying to be better with our money. I am a big Dave Ramsey fan and Wes and I even attended the live show he had here 2 years ago. Well, we really wanted to be good with our money but it just never seemed to work out that well. Part of the problem was because we weren't following his plan to a T. We made a budget but we used our credit cards instead of all cashthat he recommended because we wanted to get the reward points.
After about a year of no changes, at the beginning of this year, I convinced Wes to take the jump to an all cash diet. We only use our credit card on gas and we have a debit card for online purchases and things that we can't pay cash for. But for the rest of our variable expenses (groceries, eating out, gifts, misc.), we pay cash. So, at the beginning of January, I went to the bank and withdrew the money we would need for the month. I don't think I have held that much money ever! Boy did I feel rich! When I got home, I divided the money into the different envelopes and said "NO MORE OVERSPENDING!"
I'm now on week 6 of the plan and I am loving it more than I ever expected! My big news is that all last year, we were spending everything cent that we budgeted, and sometimes even more. With the cash budget, at the end of January, we had $100 leftover!! That has never ever happened!! Especially the month after Christmas! So, for us, it really did ring true that we were overspending just because we were pulling out the plastic instead of using cash. This new way of handling our money is perfect for someone like me who hates to track every dime I spend. Now, it's a lot easier.....no money in the envelope means I've spent all I should.
Now I will say that it has taken some getting to to pay cash for everything. I am reminded of that Visa commercial a while back where everyone is spinning around using their debit cards and someone pulls out cash and causes a pile up of customers. That's how I feel sometimes because it is a little bulkier to use cash, but I'm getting faster and faster. Oops, I almost typed I'm getting fatter and fatter......!! If you are feeling like something's gotta give when it comes to your money, I encourage you to try this and see what you think!!
So, I hope you're not too disappointed that this is the big news. Hey, what can you expect?? My life is boooooring!! But I like it that way. :)
2 comments:
I applaud you! Keep up the good work.
We had the same goals for this year too! We also do the envelope system and it does work so much better! The other day I went to Walmart to pick up a few things and I pulled out my cash and was a dollar short so I dug through my change and started counting nickels, dimes and pennies. I gave up and started to pull out my debit card and the lady in line behind me asked how much I needed and handed me a dollar so I wouldn't have to use my card. How sweet was that!
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