Envelopes, The Way To Successful Budgeting.

Tutter

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I know this is pretty basic, but what the heck, if it helps out even one person, it will have been worth posting. :)

When I first got married, I got a stack of envelopes that we had ended up with, which had a company's name on them. New, but never going to be used for anything.

I sat and thought about what we did with our money, and began labeling each one. Here's a sample:

Rent
Phone Bill
Electricity
Food
Clothes
Christmas
Gas for Car

Then, when we brought in income, I carefully divided it up between the envelopes as needed. And I always put a little in the Christmas envelope, even if it was just $5.

What I didn't mention, was the blank envelope. One envelope said nothing on it, and when all the other envelopes were filled, I put a little something into it. Again, even if it was just $5.

I am very organized by nature, and I have a depression mentality, without having been there. No idea why, but this appealed to me enormously, and our needs were always met. If there was extra, we did fun things with it if we wished. I didn't list all of the envelopes, but believe me, if there was a use, there was an envelope for it! lol!

Well, one day my youngest bil, whom I adore anyway, called and was really despondant; which is unlike him. He was married with children, and had gotten a medical discharge from the military after being injured there. Now he was jobless, and had finally been offered a job, but it was a commute, and he had no car.

I'd never mentioned my blank envelope to anyone. I wasn't hiding it, I just felt really good growing a nest egg. And by then I had $200. in it. (This was some time ago, and it was more then than it seems now.)

I talked to dh about his brother, showed him the money, and we got a paper from L.A. at the time called the, Recycler. You could find anything in it, and we found a car, not 4 blocks from where dbil was living, for...you guessed it, $200!

Dh went and looked at it, bought it, then took his brother for a walk to it, without telling him. When they got to it he teased him a little by kicking the tires of "someone's car", then when dbil was looking worried, tossed him the keys. :)

He worked for that job until he retired, and it allowed his family to live well, buy a house etc. I never regretted giving up the money from the blank envelope.

And if there's a special need, like someone needing work boots, make an envelope for it.

I do basically the same thing still.

If you set aside the money you bring in for bills and so forth, before you spend a penny, then you will always be able to keep your affairs in order. What's left, do with as you wish. But when you begin to spend a little here and there....just one dinner out, just one good garage sale etc. before you count out your bill money, you can come up short, or at least tight.

Simple, and effective. :)
 

mockingbird girl

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That's great! I do the same thing, but with old canning jars.. I put labels on the caps. Same idea though. :D I have 'cans' for the kids schooling, vacation, etc.
 

Acre of Blessings

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I have tried for several years to getmy hubby to do this with his income, but every year he finds a reason not to. This is how I paid my bills before I got married, but now he pays them the way he does. Oh, well. It is a great idea for ones that are starting out.
 

FarmerChick

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great story tutter about buying a car with that blank envelope!

I do this with farm things. 1 envelope for chicken feed, goat feed, hog feed, one for misc. barn stuff, another saving up for a new hydraulic dump trailer and sell the old )well, try to sell, Tony swears he needs 2)--LOL

etc.

the envelope idea is a great one. money goes right where it needs to and when bills come do, it is there in cash. good little old timey system that works well anytime!
 

risurocket

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We are still working on the Cash Budget/Envelope Method. Our income and discipline levels seem to fight now and then and the envelopes seem to always be empty. We only do the envelopes with non-bill expenses like groceries, gas, etc.

It's a great idea and we are working hard on making it work better. ;)
 

chcknrs

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We don't do the envelopes, but we do put our extra $$$ into savings. We also have a very large "change" vase. DH never uses his change, and I always end up with extra, so we toss it all into this lovely large glass vase we have. If we have a need for something not too spendy, but bills are paid and extra already went to savings account, we raid the change vase. It's free to sort and cash at our bank. Last time I did it, I just took in a baggie full. Wow, that was $30! There must be about $200 in that vase right now.
My aunt used to write checks to "GTH". My mom did her bookkeeping, and could never resolve the statments with the register. She finally asked my aunt, as the "GTH" checks never cleared the bank.
Turns out when my aunt got the urge to spend money frivolously, she would write a check to "GTH", which stood for Go To He**! She had saved up over $5000 and managed to drive mom nuts for days over it!
 

RTRChick

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That was a good story. Very nice.

I used to use envelopes when I worked as a waitress. It made it easier for me to sort out where my money should go and not use the cash on stupid purchases.
 

punkin

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chcknrs said:
We don't do the envelopes, but we do put our extra $$$ into savings. We also have a very large "change" vase. DH never uses his change, and I always end up with extra, so we toss it all into this lovely large glass vase we have. If we have a need for something not too spendy, but bills are paid and extra already went to savings account, we raid the change vase. It's free to sort and cash at our bank. Last time I did it, I just took in a baggie full. Wow, that was $30! There must be about $200 in that vase right now.
My aunt used to write checks to "GTH". My mom did her bookkeeping, and could never resolve the statments with the register. She finally asked my aunt, as the "GTH" checks never cleared the bank.
Turns out when my aunt got the urge to spend money frivolously, she would write a check to "GTH", which stood for Go To He**! She had saved up over $5000 and managed to drive mom nuts for days over it!
We do the change jar, too. It's suprising how it adds up. We use ours for DS's college fund. Also, any rebates go in it. When it's full enough, we cash it in and deposit into his checking account.
 

ams3651

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i normally know exactly where the money needs to go when it comes in but when I received a lump sum a few months ago I remembered reading this and split everything into envelopes and it worked. In the past the money would go so fast and inevitably things would get missed. Thanks for sharing the idea.
 
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